Senate Democrats Have Enough Votes To Kill Planned Parenthood Defunding Bill
It now seems inevitable the the House GOP’s effort to cut off Federal funding for Planned Parenthood will die in the Senate:
Forty-one senators have pledged to filibuster any bipartisan spending bill that includes an amendment to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood, threatening an impasse with House conservatives.
The group, led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), includes thirty-nine Democratic senators and two Independents, Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.).
It’s just large enough to sustain a filibuster to block any spending bill that cuts Planned Parenthood funding from passing the upper chamber.
Congress is trying to reach an agreement on a spending bill for the remainder of fiscal year 2011. The current continuing resolution keeping the government operational runs through April 8.
The group outlined their opposition in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), asking Reid and McConnell to “stand with us against extreme proposals by some members of the House to eliminate support for women’s health and family planning programs and providers that service millions of women and families.”
H.R. 1, the package of spending cuts the House passed in February, would eliminate the Title X family planning program.
The lawmakers also said they would “oppose the provision in the House-passed continuing resolution that cuts Planned Parenthood health centers off from federal funds used to provide cancer screenings, birth control and other preventative health care services to three million Americans every year.”
“Without access to these services, many of these women will be unable to get preventive screenings, be at far greater risk for diseases such as cancer and will face more unintended pregnancies,” they wrote.
Several Republican senators have already voiced opposition to the House cuts.
Those Republicans would be Scott Brown and Lisa Murkowski, which brings the Democrats up to 43 votes. The Tea Party activists won’t like it, but it seems pretty clear that this particular defunding effort is going nowhere.
S-u-c-k it, zygote-lovers and weepy bible-huggers. Go back to your tacky, over-decorated living rooms and stay there. Brown and Murkowski get hella props for this.
Saying that abortions should never be allowed is as sick and medically ignorant as saying they should be allowed all the way up until conception. No equivocation or forgiveness is possible – pro-lifers are simply horrible and misguided people.
And a liberal fails logic once again – “Removing federal funding from PP” does not equal “abortions should never be allowed”.
I’m okay with abortion in the first month or so, and have no problem with the morning-after pill, but I fail to see why these should be provided by the taxpayer.
BTW, the name-calling you open with doesn’t help your cause. It makes you appear to be just like the (straw-man) zealots you despise.
Alanstorm — PP doesn’t use a nickel of taxpayer money to finance abortion. They can’t — it’s already the saw. The dollars they do get from the government go to finance basic health care and health education for women. Maybe you don’t see why this should be provided by the taxpayer, either, and at that point I’d be curious to hear your rationale. But your argument is meaningless as long as you’re starting from a falsehood.
It just removes it for poor people, which is fine with the GOP, they’ve never really had a problem with the rich getting anything they want, after all.
wr – “it’s already the saw”? Is that a typo? Please elucidate. As for your assertion re: money from taxpayers vs. elsewhere, do you have any cites (hopefully from neither PP or its opponents)? I doubt, but am willing to entertain evidence to the contrary.
Tlaloc, that canard is getting as old as the race card, which is maxed out. What exactly is wrong about people dealing with the consequences of their own actions? Yes, that includes paying for their own abortions. I still fail to see why my taxes should pay for someone else’s errors.
Hyde Amendment:
In U.S. politics, the Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision barring the use of certain federal funds to pay for abortions.] It is not a permanent law, rather it is a “rider” that, in various forms, has been routinely attached to annual appropriations bills since 1976. The Hyde Amendment applies only to funds allocated by the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. It primarily affects Medicaid.
The original Hyde Amendment was passed on September 30, 1976 by the House of Representatives, by a 207-167 vote. It was named for its chief sponsor, Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois. The measure was introduced in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, and represented the first major legislative success by the anti-choice movement.
Basically, Abortions are paid for by taxpayers ONLY in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in jeopardy. This comes out to roughly .2 cents per taxpayer. If this funding were denied to people, taxpayers would have to pay more for medicaid.
And a liberal fails logic once again – “Removing federal funding from PP” does not equal “abortions should never be allowed”.
If it was simply a matter of removing federal funding, I would find this to be a more apropos statement. However, it’s not. This isn’t a case of Republicans making tough decisions, this is a case of beating things they don’t like with a big stick. Planned Parenthood, NPR/PBS, all of these things are simply Republicans screwing Democrats while hiding behind the budget, despite these items being paltry in the overall scheme of things. These cuts aren’t budget cuts, they’re idealistic “screw you” attacks.
If these Republicans want to really get my attention, they’ll cut defence spending and abstinence programmes. THEN I’ll maybe give them a second of my time.
Alanstorm — I deeply and sincerely apologize for the typographical error that caused you so much difficulty. Fortunately Allison Bartlett was able to eludicate you on the law of the land. I can see why you were ignorant about it. After all, it’s only been in effect for a little more than 35 years. Why hurry?
And I don’t want my taxdollars to pay for the firefighters to put out your house, but thems the breaks. Sometimes in a civilized society the group makes small sacrifices to help the individual, particularly (as in both these cases) where helping the individual also happens to help the group.
And for the record, no, I don’t really care whether you’re smart enough to understand that. FYI, better get those tax forms done, April 15 is right around the corner.
I am so glad that this nonsense about defunding Planned Parenthood is going nowhere. If they were really concerned about tackling the problem of abortions, then they would be supporting the programs of PP that provide birth control. In addition, PP provides screenings for breast and cervical cancers, as well as treating STD’s. It was interesting for me to learn that PP has provided services that have been beneficial to men as well. As one poster noted, this has nothing to do with balancing the budget and everything to do with eliminating what they don’t like.
Anne : PP is currently the only source of cost effective birth control and STD testing in my area of 400,000 people.