Congressional Republicans have sent a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, and to overturn Obamacare, knowing that President Barack Obama has said he will veto it.
The House voted 240 to 181 to approve the bill, which would eliminate taxpayer funding for the abortion business, and send the money to other health centers that provide more care without abortions, and would also repeal much of Obamacare.
The bill’s approval marks the first time the entire Congress has voted to defund Planned Parenthood, but conservatives have argued that it is a “show vote.”
That’s because there is no significant pressure on Obama to sign the bill.
Republicans had the opportunity to defund the abortion business in the $1.1 trillion omnibus, must-pass government spending bill approved in December, but caved to Democrats and Obama for fear of a government shutdown that the mainstream media would have blamed on them.
Nevertheless, David Daleiden, at the Center for Medical Progress, said “Congress is listening to the will of the American people to hold Planned Parenthood accountable under the law for their barbaric abortion and baby parts business.”
“Yesterday, President Obama wiped tears from his eyes saying: ‘Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad,’” Daleiden asserted, referring to Obama’s address regarding his gun control executive actions. “Mr. President, show the same outrage and compassion for the kids who are killed and harvested for body parts at Planned Parenthood, and parted out and sold across the country like used cars.”
GOP votes have pressured lawmakers to defund Planned Parenthood since the release last summer of a series of undercover videos by Daleiden’s CMP. The videos exposed the organization’s apparent practices of trading the body parts of aborted babies on the open market, and also altering the position of babies during abortions to harvest intact organs.
Referring to Planned Parenthood as “Child Abuse Inc.” in a floor speech during debate on the bill, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ) said, “Subsidized by over $500 million taxpayers’ dollars each year, Planned Parenthood dismembers or chemically poisons a baby to death every two minutes—killing over seven million innocent children since 1973.”
“Now, undercover videos have exposed in numbing candor, several high level Planned Parenthood leaders gleefully talking about procuring children’s organs for a price all while altering gruesome dismemberment procedures to preserve ‘intact’ livers, hearts and lungs from freshly killed babies,” he added. “Far too many politicians including our Nobel Peace Prize winning President and much of the media continue to ignore, trivialize—even defend—these gross human rights abuses.”
President of Live Action Lila Rose said Planned Parenthood has been “caught on video putting women and young girls at risk in its pursuit of greater profits.”
“It’s no surprise that President Obama has threatened to veto this bill, as Planned Parenthood spent over $12 million to re-elect him in 2012,” she added. “We urge the president to acknowledge the extensive evidence that shows Planned Parenthood covering up sex trafficking and the sexual abuse of minors, misleading women about the complications of abortion procedures, harvesting baby parts, and promoting race- and sex-selective abortions.”
In response to the bill’s approval, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said, “While Planned Parenthood deserves to be permanently defunded following revelations that they likely made a profit off of selling the body parts of aborted babies, any bill that halts a significant portion of their funding should be commended.”
“It is unconscionable that government funds continue to flood an organization like Planned Parenthood when there are thousands of other women’s health organizations that do not commit abortions,” she continued, adding:
Planned Parenthood should be forced to raise their funds entirely through private donations like any other non-profit and not rely on taxpayers for the majority of their revenue – President Obama’s schedule will be free soon enough to help his favorite organization raise money privately. By then, hopefully Americans will have voted in a pro-life president who will immediately defund Planned Parenthood.
“Planned Parenthood, an abortion organization caught harvesting and selling baby body parts, has demonstrated time and again that it does not deserve public money,” said Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie of The Catholic Association. “If he cares about women and children, President Obama should sign this bill that reallocates public funds instead to facilities providing authentic healthcare for women.”
Rep. Tim Huelskamp voted for the legislation, but said it was “five years overdue.”
“It is time to hold this President responsible not only for his failed, unpopular D.C. takeover of Americans’ health care system, but also gruesome Planned Parenthood,” the congressman said. “An organization that is plagued with scandal and profits from the barbaric harvesting and sale of baby body parts should not receive a dime in federal funding.”
The vote’s approval comes two weeks before the annual March for Life, when hundreds of thousands of pro-life activists will descend upon the national mall in Washington, D.C.
“We applaud the United States Congress for putting the bill to defund Planned Parenthood on the President’s desk,” said Jeanne Mancini, President of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, adding:
The decision to continue using taxpayer money to fund the abortion industry now rests with President Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood. Additionally, this bill would allow for the continued funding of the organization if they agree to stop the practice of aborting unborn babies. Planned Parenthood claims that abortion is a secondary focus of the group. Americans will now see where their priorities lie.
Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said, “Today, the cries of more than 300,000 unborn children sent to landfills, incinerators, and dissection trays last year by Planned Parenthood were heard by Congress.”
“There is no amount of Planned Parenthood’s ‘services’ that can possibly justify our government giving one dime, much less hundreds of millions of dollars, to a business that treats children worse than lab rats,” he added.
Pavone said that if Obama follows through with a veto of the legislation, “he will have again shown that our nation desperately needs leaders who know the difference between serving the public and killing the public.”
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