In the middle of the night, the U.S. Senate embarked and failed on its latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (also known as ObamaCare) and defund abortion giant Planed Parenthood. The effort was referred to as “skinny repeal.”
The vote came in at about one o’clock in the morning, with Vice President Mike Pence also present in case his tie-breaking vote was necessary. The vote was a last-ditch effort of sorts, as the Senate had successfully voted to move forward in debate on the ACA, thanks to Pence’s vote, but had failed in an earlier vote to repeal the ACA.
The latest vote failed due to Democratic senators – including those who previously appeared open to voting to defund Planned Parenthood (including Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who had done so previously) – but also due to Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and John McCain of Arizona. McCain’s vote was of particular surprise, with audible gasps heard in the Senate chambers, as he had voted in 2015 to repeal the ACA and defund Planned Parenthood. McCain also ran as a pro-life candidate against pro-abortion President Obama in 2008. Despite his pro-life claims, the Senate’s effort was defeated by McCain’s one vote.
Murkowski and Collins are pro-abortion Republicans who are known to support Planned Parenthood. Both have been lauded in glowing features by Planned Parenthood and its media allies.
Had “skinny repeal” or any other attempts passed, Planned Parenthood, which commits more abortions than anyone else in the country, would have been defunded for one year, while federally qualified and community health care centers which outnumber Planned Parenthood by thousands, would have been funded in its place.
Along with help from its media allies, Planned Parenthood has been pushing a false and misleading narrative that its facilities need to remain funded in order for “millions” of Americans to receive care. As Live Action News has highlighted, however, these claims are easily refutable, and Planned Parenthood locations are vastly outnumbered not only in location by real health centers, but also in patients who are given actual health care services, including cancer screenings and breast exams. The abortion giant performs a small U.S. market share – 1.8 percent – of clinical breast exams and only 0.97 percent of Pap tests.
It remains to be seen how future efforts to defund Planned Parenthood will play out. The efforts tied to repealing the ACA, which the Senate had successfully passed in previous years, though Obama vetoed such an effort, appear to be finished.
Nevertheless, President Trump and Congress must still keep true to their campaign commitments to defund Planned Parenthood. There is always another way.
Live Action President Lila Rose released the following statement:
“Because of the Senate’s failure to act, the American people will be forced to continue giving over a half billion dollars a year to Planned Parenthood so it can keep its doors open and continue to kill 900 innocent preborn children every day.
“Lives are at stake, yet Senators Murkowski and Collins and almost every Democrat in the Senate sided with Big Abortion, with many repaying Planned Parenthood for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions the abortion chain has made to them.
“Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood continues to lie about the innocent lives they take and the abuses they hide in their facilities – including the child sexual abuse cover up, the aiding of sex traffickers, the misinformation pushed on women, the promotion of sex selection abortion, and the trafficking of baby parts of the children killed in their facilities.
“The fight is far from over. The pro-life community and millions of Americans will continue to work toward the day when abortion facilities are no longer propped up by the taxpayers, when killing their own children is no longer offered to women as some kind of personal empowerment, and when the rights of innocent preborn children are fully protected by the law.”
