WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s likely to be a Senate showdown over halting federal aid to Planned Parenthood. Conservatives have long targeted the group, which provides health services, family planning and abortions in clinics across the country.
A vote Monday proposes shifting Planned Parenthood money to other health care providers. This latest battle was prompted by a series of videos that have focused attention on the group’s little-noticed practice of providing fetal tissue to researchers.
U.S. Senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) are co-sponsoring the legislation.
“Each successive video of senior Planned Parenthood officials discussing the harvesting of tissue remains of aborted babies is more gruesome than the last,” Sen. Moran said. “Human lives are the cost of the organization’s appalling efforts to collect fetal organs and tissues. I have long opposed taxpayer funding for abortion providers, and now it has become even more obvious why our tax dollars should not be permitted to facilitate these disgusting practices. Planned Parenthood is perversely treating unborn children as a commodity to be abused, and there are real concerns that their actions are not only immoral but illegal. I am hopeful the Senate will soon vote on our legislation to deny Planned Parenthood federal funding.”
“The recent comments of high-level Planned Parenthood employees are deeply disturbing and must not be tolerated on any level,” said Roberts. “Any organization that allows such abhorrent behavior should not receive any taxpayer dollars, and I’m proud to cosponsor this legislation that would ensure that no federal funds go to Planned Parenthood. Every life is a precious gift that we have a responsibility to protect.”