The Push To Defund Planned Parenthood Rolls On

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) voted present because he said the bill’s language wasn’t strong enough.

Republican leaders hope House passage of bills targeting Planned Parenthood and curbing some abortion procedures will mollify fractious conservatives demanding a face-off with President Barack Obama that could trigger a federal shutdown.

Not surprisingly, all of Minnesota’s Republican delegates voted “yes” on the GOP-backed bill (only three Republicans in congress voted “no”), but one Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson, broke from his party and supported cutting financial money to the nationwide health service.

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday, two days before Pope Francis speaks to a joint meeting of Congress, on a bill that bans all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but Democrats have the numbers to defeat it. Undercover videos released over the summer appear to show Planned Parenthood officials negotiating prices for fetal tissue from abortions. This bill would suspend all forms of federal funding to affiliates of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) for one year, unless they discontinue providing elective abortions.

Murray says she will also fight any effort to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

So if we know that this organization performs hundreds of thousands of abortions per year, and we know that women have access to other sources for care, the question is: should we force taxpayers to fund a business that spends its money aborting 327,653 children per year? “Our doors will be open tomorrow and the next day and political attacks are not going to change Planned Parenthood“, she added.

Despite the lack of proof to uphold the accusation that Planned Parenthood centers were illegally profiting from fetal tissue sales, the Republicans used the videos as their main argument to defund the program. The nearly 700 Planned Parenthood clinics provide sexual disease testing, contraceptives, and abortions.

With the possibility of a federal government shutdown looming, the congressman criticized members of the House of Representatives for focusing on an “ideological debate” over something “everyone on both sides of the aisle acknowledges will not become law”.

She says Republican attempts to de-fund the organization could lead to a government shutdown.

Democrats maintained that denying federal money to Planned Parenthood would cut off millions of women from preventive health care services.

“Our patients don’t come to us because of politics“.