House Passes Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood, Sends to President Obama
The House passed a bill late Wednesday that makes major changes to the Affordable Care Act and defunds Planned Parenthood for at least one year, sending it to the desk of President Barack Obama.
In a largely party-line vote, lawmakers passed HR 3762, also called the Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act, by a vote of 240 to 181.
While Planned Parenthood is not mentioned directly in HR 3762's text, the nation's largest abortion provider would lose funding under Section 206, titled "Federal Payments to States" which lists abortion providers as a "prohibited entity" banned from receiving taxpayer funding, with the exception of abortions performed due to rape, incest or life threatening complication.
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If Congress can get the needed two-thirds majority vote in both chambers to override Obama's expected veto of the bill, the $500 million given to Planned Parenthood every year will instead go to healthcare centers across the nation that don't perform elective abortions.
The law would would also repeal parts of the ACA, including the mandate for all Americans to buy healthcare or face a fine and the mandate to have certain businesses offer their employees health insurance.
The Christian Post reported Tuesday that federal funding for Planned Parenthood increased by about $25 million from 2013 to 2014, as the business received $553.7 million in taxpayer dollars in 2014. Planned Parenthood's anual report also shows that it has $61 million in "excess revenue." And in 2013-2014, the organization benefited from $127 million in excess revenue.
Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., explained in the weekly Republican address last week the importance of HR 3762.
"The point of healthcare is to preserve and protect life. That's why this bill stops taxpayer funding for abortion providers," Hartzler said.
"This bill places a moratorium on taxpayer funding to abortion providers and redirects that money to community health centers. These health centers serve eight times more women patients than Planned Parenthood, and they provide much more comprehensive care."
Dawn Laguens, vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund released a statement claiming that HR 3762 "would threaten millions of women's access to care by preventing patients from accessing care at Planned Parenthood health centers and repealing essential aspects of the Affordable Care Act."
While attempts to defund Planned Parenthood have long existed, the effort was reinvigorated after the release of a series of videos last year by the pro-life group Center for Medical Progress.
In conjunction with the House vote on HR 3762, CMP released a video Wednesday that compiled a series of clips and quotes from past undercover videos, arguing that Planned Parenthood illegally profited from the sell of aborted babies' organs, limbs and tissue.
"To date, Planned Parenthood has offered no convincing explanation for the money that has poured into its affiliates from fetal tissue procurement companies like StemExpress, which performs the work of fetal tissue collection yet still pays abortion clinics per harvested part," claimed CMP in the video description.
In a statement to CP Wednesday evening, David Daleiden of CMP called on Obama to show compassion for babies "who are killed and harvested for body parts at Planned Parenthood, and parted out and sold across the country like used cars." He then asked the administration to "reassign taxpayer money from Planned Parenthood's barbaric abortion and baby parts business to mainstream, full-spectrum healthcare providers."
With the House vote passing the Reconciliation Act, the bill will go to Obama, who is expected to veto the proposed legislation.
