Though many Republicans in Congress have expressed horror at the apparent activities of Planned Parenthood, revealed through numerous investigative videos, the $1.6 trillion omnibus deal announced by House Speaker Paul Ryan would still give taxpayer funds for the nation’s largest abortion provider.
“It’s disappointing that Congressional leaders refused to put in a rider to defund Planned Parenthood into the omnibus,” Kristan Hawkins – president of Students for Life of America – tells Breitbart News. “Americans are forced donors every year of the nation’s largest abortion chain who was caught on video discussing the harvesting and selling of aborted baby body parts. That is horrific and something no one should be forced to fund, either directly or indirectly.”
According to the Washington Examiner, House and Senate lawmakers reached an agreement that will fund the government through 2016. A vote on the bill is expected as early as Thursday or Friday in the House.
Paul Ryan said about the bill, “Democrats won some, they lost some; we won some, we lost some,” states Roll Call.
McConnell said he expects the Senate would take up the bill and move it along quickly after the House passes it.
A recent poll by Robert Morris University found the majority of Americans–53 percent to 31 percent–favor a plan backed by Republicans to eliminate Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding and redirect that funding to other clinics that do not perform abortions.
Throughout the summer a series of videos exposed Planned Parenthood’s apparent practices of selling the body parts of aborted babies on the open market, and altering the position of babies during abortions in order to harvest intact organs.
The abortion business has also been discovered – most recently in Ohio – to send the remains of aborted babies to be steam-heated and disposed of in landfills with other waste.
“In divided government, no one gets exactly what they want,” Speaker Ryan said Wednesday, according to CNSNews.com. “But this week, we have completed two bipartisan agreements that advance Republican priorities.”
Though a rider to defund Planned Parenthood – a priority of the pro-life, conservative base of the GOP – is not included in the omnibus, Ryan added Republicans “are maintaining all of our pro-life protections, including the Hyde amendments; and we are making cuts to the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) program.”
Specifically, a release from Ryan’s office stated the following about “pro-life” features of the bill:
Maintains strong protections for life. This bill maintains important pro-life provisions, including the Hyde Amendment, and prohibits taxpayer funding for abortion. It also includes a new prohibition on gene editing and cuts funding for a program involved in abortion-related activities, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), by 7 percent.
“While both the House and Senate have voted to defund Planned Parenthood through reconciliation, it was our hope they would continue to do everything in their power to redirect taxpayer funding away from Planned Parenthood and to other federally funded community health centers that address similar healthcare needs but without performing abortions,” Hawkins said.
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