On Friday, the American Health Care Act, which contained a provision barring taxpayer funding to abortion businesses, was pulled from the House of Representatives, following reports that House leadership was having a hard time securing enough support for the legislation in Congress earlier this week.
The Act contained a provision barring taxpayer dollars for one year from funding any organization that performs abortions and for which the total amount of federal state expenditures exceeded $350,000,000 in 2014. The same language was present in a 2015 bill that passed Congress, but was vetoed by then-President Obama.
In addition to drawing the disapproval of Democrats, the bill was met by opposition from several conservative Republican Representatives, due to other provisions of the Act. Planned Parenthood claimed the vote was cancelled because Congress listened to them; however, the abortion giant’s claims are easily proven false when the reasons of the elected officials standing against the AHCA are considered. A number of the Representatives who fully support defunding Planned Parenthood stated they could not support the AHCA because it essentially left ObamaCare in place and was troubling to them for multiple policy reasons.
House Speaker Paul Ryan expressed disappointment at the bill’s failure to reach a vote. “We came up short,” Ryan said following the bill’s cancellation. “I won’t sugarcoat this — this is a disappointing day for us.”
President Trump agreed, blaming Democrats for unanimously opposing the bill, as well as several Republicans who also stood against it. The president indicated intent to move on from health care legislation for the present time, moving on to addressing tax reform.
Live Action President and Founder, Lila Rose, gave the following statement on the need for Congress and the president to act immediately to defund Planned Parenthood through the current budget reconciliation bill:
Congress and President Trump must act now to use the current budget reconciliation bill to end the forced taxpayer funding of abortion giant Planned Parenthood and end the use of Obamacare subsidies to buy health insurance that pays for abortions.
There is no more time for delay. Every day Congress fails to redirect tax dollars away from Planned Parenthood, the abortion chain gets another $1.5 million from taxpayers to keep its doors open and kill 887 more preborn children.
According to its own annual reports, Planned Parenthood does less than one percent of all Pap tests in the United States, less than two percent of all clinical breast exams, zero mammograms, and virtually no prenatal care, yet it does 34.9 percent of all U.S. abortions, killing over 320,000 preborn children every year. Former Planned Parenthood managers have provided testimonials about how the abortion giant uses quotas to push cash-making abortions, doesn’t provide the health care it claims it does, and ‘treats women like cattle.’
America’s women and children deserve better, and Washington must ensure that taxpayer money spent on health care for women is actually spent on health care , not on keeping the doors to America’s largest abortion chain open. Congress and President Trump must immediately redirect the hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies now going to Planned Parenthood to thousands of community health centers that provide more access and more health care for women and their families.
