The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Friday on a reconciliation bill (H.R. 3762) that includes a provision that defunds Planned Parenthood and reallocates taxpayer dollars to federally qualified health centers. These health care sites provide the same health care that Planned Parenthood provides under the taxpayer funding it receives, but as comprehensive health care facilities they do far more. They also do not provide abortions. The bill, entitled the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015, is sponsored by Congressman Tom Price (R-GA).
More than 35 state and national pro-life leaders sent a letter earlier this month to the Chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees urging them to support such a measure.
The letter read:
As a coalition of groups representing millions of Americans nationwide, we are writing to you today to express our full support of using the reconciliation process to defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses of taxpayer funding under several mandatory programs such as Medicaid.
Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses do not need or deserve taxpayer funding. Most recently, undercover videos show that Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion business, is engaged in unethical and possibly illegal abortion practices connected to the trafficking of unborn children’s organs for profit. A credentialed forensic analysis firm confirmed that these videos have not been manipulated or deceptively edited.
No trace of concern for women’s health appears in these videos. Instead, the videos detail Planned Parenthood’s willingness to manipulate abortion methods – possibly even using the banned partial-birth abortion procedure – to more easily obtain hearts, lungs, brains, and other organs to be sold to tissue brokers. This, despite the fact that mothers are required to sign a consent form stating that the abortion method will in no way be changed to procure these body parts. Further, the videos show that this manipulation of abortion methods can result in babies being born intact, with a heart beating or able to be restarted, and therefore alive.
These videos offer just a glimpse into the abortion industry’s day-to-day horrific practices. Over one million abortions are performed annually in the United States, with nearly 330,000 occurring in Planned Parenthood facilities, all the way up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, past the time when recent studies show that a substantial percentage of these children can be saved if treated with the best techniques of modern perinatal medicine. Regardless of whether Americans identify as pro-life or pro-choice, we should all be able to agree that taxpayer dollars should not be subsidizing an already cash-flush industry.
Instead, these tax dollars would be put to better use at local community health centers, which provide all the same health services Planned Parenthood does (and usually more), but do not abort the lives of unborn children and callously harvest their body parts for profit.
For these reasons and more we support using the reconciliation process to end Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses. Using this process will ensure that pro-abortion extremists in the Senate will be unable to further filibuster Congressional action on this urgent issue. We hope that sending a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to the President’s desk would help educate Americans and encourage them to watch the videos about the atrocities committed by Planned Parenthood.
Following-up that bill Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony List, sent a letter to members of Congress today urging their support of the bill.
On behalf of the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) and our 386,000 members nationwide, I urge you to support the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act (H.R. 3762).
This bill blocks a large portion of federal funding to Planned Parenthood, America’s largest seller of abortions, for one year. The funding is instead re-directed to community health centers, which provide comprehensive health care for women but do not perform abortions.
Planned Parenthood does not need or deserve taxpayer funding. Most recently, undercover videos show that Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion business, has been engaged in unethical and possibly illegal abortion practices connected to the trafficking of unborn children’s organs for profit.
These videos offer just a glimpse into the abortion industry’s day-to-day horrific practices. Over one million abortions are performed annually in the United States, with nearly 330,000 occurring in Planned Parenthood facilities, all the way up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, past the time when recent studies show that a substantial percentage of these children can be saved if treated with the best techniques of modern perinatal medicine.
Regardless of whether Americans identify as pro-life or pro-choice, we should all be able to agree that taxpayer dollars should not be subsidizing an already cash-flush industry.
Instead, these tax dollars would be put to better use at local community health centers, which provide all the same health services Planned Parenthood does (and usually more), but do not perform brutal abortions and harvest body parts.
Finally, this bill would repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, which SBA List has long opposed because of its anti-life provisions.
For these reasons, I urge you to support this pro-life, pro-woman bill.
There are 13,540 federally qualified health centers and rural health centers nationally. There are only 665 Planned Parenthood locations nationwide. This means there are twenty health care centers for every Planned Parenthood clinic. The rational that pro-abortion advocates give in defense of Planned Parenthood that defunding the organization will somehow lead to diminished health care for women is patently false.