U.S. Congress Votes to Defund Planned Parenthood, Sending Bill to Obama

Abortion Credit All Night Images-compressedWASHINGTON — The United States House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood, marking an official passage in Congress that now moves the bill to the desk of Barack Obama.

The House voted 240-181 in favor of the legislation, which also repeals key parts of Obamacare.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he wants to side with the people whose health care costs have skyrocketed out of control, or the abortion industrial complex whose profits have skyrocketed out of control,” Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., told reporters at a press conference. “Congress is holding President Obama accountable.”

The votes were mainly along party lines, with three Republicans voting against the bill, and one Democrat voting for it. Republican Reps. John Katko and Richard Hanna, both of New York, and Rep. Bob Dold of Illinois all voted against the measure, while Collin Peterson was the sole Democrat supporting the effort.

“This is an important victory for the pro-life movement as well as for conservatives all across the country who want to see the president confronted with a bill that not only guts Obamacare, .. but also the ability then to defund Planned Parenthood as well,” said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.

Democrats scoffed at the bill, not only because they disagreed with its content, but also because they know that Obama will veto it.

“Everybody knows this will take about a nanosecond for the president of the United States to veto,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. said on the House floor.

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Republicans state that while they recognize that Obama will veto the legislation, they have already planned a veto overrride vote on Jan. 26. Congress does not currently have the two-thirds majority to override the veto.

As previously reported, last month, the Senate voted 52 to 47 in support of the measure, rejecting two efforts to remove the Planned Parenthood language from the legislation. The bill was presented following controversy over undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress that showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the harvesting and sale of aborted children.

Planned Parenthood outlined in its annual report released at the end of December that the organization performed 323,999 abortions nationwide during the 2014-2015 fiscal year. The organization received $553 million in taxpayer funding/grants in 2014, up from $528 million the year prior, which equated to 43 percent of its total income. $48 million of Planned Parenthood’s income was used for sex education, and $39 million was used for public policy, or to influence state and federal law, up from $33 million in 2013. Despite its expenditures, it still garnered a $61 million dollar profit.

Planned Parenthood was founded in 1921 by Margaret Sanger, which was originally known as the American Birth Control League. She later changed the name as some found it offensive.

“We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all,” Sanger once said, who was reportedly a staunch advocate of eugenics. “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

Sanger was also the publisher of the newspaper “The Woman Rebel,” which she subtitled “No Gods, no masters.”


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