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House Votes to Defund Planned Parenthood
February 18, 2011 - by Donny Shaw
The Republican House of Representatives took their latest shot at limiting access to abortions today by passing an amendment to their 2011 government funding bill that would defund Planned Parenthood. There amendment has some big problems, however, and it’s very unlikely that it will become law.
First, the Senate, which is still controlled by Democrats, will never agree to this. Some Republicans — namely Sen. Olympia Snowe [R, ME] and Sen. Susan Collins [R, ME] — have even said that they would oppose an attempt to block Planned Parenthood from receiving funding. Senate Democrats are confident they have the votes to block this.
The second problem is that it is clearly unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution forbids Congress from passing bills of attainder, i.e. laws that punish a specific individual or group that have not been given a judicial trial. The Republicans passed a similar bill of attainder last year against the community organizing group ACORN that resulted in the federal government being sued. The Republicans may want to repeat that, but nobody else does.
One more thing to be clear on here. Planned Parenthood does not receive federal funding for abortion services. That has been against the law since 1974. They currently receive funds for other health care services, like cancer screening and family planning. But abortion services are subsidized exclusively by private donors. This amendment is about killing Planned Parenthood, not about blocking public abortion funding. That’s already blocked.
By the way, the full roll call details are not yet available, but according to Politico, “The vote was 240-185 with 11 Democrats voting for the amendment, and seven Republicans voting against. One member voted present.”
UPDATE: The full roll call has finally been published and can be viewed here.

Blog - House Votes to Defund Planned Parenthood




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Displaying 31-60 of 68 total comments.
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You may claim to be a watchdog but you can easily be as morally and politically corrupted as those you seek to be fraudulent. Especially, if you become too emotionally involved in an issue, then you thoughts and claim to be solutions become irrational and reckless. I realize that my taxes will go for things that I may not like, but then again I also realize the world does not revolve around just my personal moral principals either. If you don’t know the first hand what some of these women go through then you probably shouldn’t be commenting or making general classifications of them either.
Haha, good to see you’re not pro-choice Dayofswords! just kidding, although I’m not sure why it only posted that and not everything else.
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Yes, so we can have only Fox news to watch, they neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever lie or change the truth.
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way to be original, that was a copy and paste from a prolife site.(and from the tactics prolife people take, it isn’t beneath them to lie to get their way)
yes, it makes up 1 billion, 1/3 is federal(state/local level varies in what they add), 1/3 donations and 1/3 money from services.
the amendment blocks funds from going to PP but also ends basically all Title X funding, the money taken away from PP is not going anywhere.
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How much good PP does? Are you kidding us? They murder babies to make money. I suppose the Philadelpia abortion doctor was doing “good” too? Was it “good” when he shoved scissors into the brains of live babies? Was it “good” when he cut their feet off and stored them in jars? Abortion is evil and PP is the mecca of this evil. You want to fund it? Fine, keep my tax dollars away from your perversions.
Good. Let’s continue with defunding NPR and the United Nations as well.
Yeah, they save lives by killing babies. Apparently, the abortion doctor in Philadelphia who killed little live babies on counter tops with scissors and then kept their severed little feet in jars is your hero. PP is a murder mill and my tax dollars should not support it. You want your little sis to go and get free pills so she can sleep around? Good for you, but you can subsidize that nonsense, not the rest of us.
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Wait, which funds are you talking about? They make over $1 a year in donations, state, local, and federal funds, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to.
The “new undercover videos” that were released were debunked and proven to be fraudulent. This bill is just an attempt to kill a business that SOME people don’t like the idea of. Regardless of how much good PP does they want to kill it for a perceived ‘evil’.
Citizens need to stop looking to the government as a personal business transaction. To deny funding to a group/facility based on a personal developed form of generic classification towards abortion is recklessness. Not all abortions are for selfish reasons, we should all know this by now. Instead we should have empathy for the women who go through this procedure because of rape, incest or lives at risk. Reality is, there are laws already put in placed to prevent tax payers money for abortions; to go as far as “it pays for the light which is used during abortion procedures” is redundant and a waste of taxpayers money in itself. There will always be funding for items which some don’t like (ie. wars, church grants, death penalty, tax cuts to rich, etc.), but remember we try to create a society that’s respectful for all. Final note, if one can’t respect the women who chooses based on this personal generic classification, they will never respect the child the woman carries or did carry.
De-funding Planned Parenthood is foolish at best and disastrous at worst. Low income women and babies should not be expected to give up birth control, gynecological care and prenatal care in order to pay down the federal deficit. Economic recovery won’t occur by assuring a lack of birth control, increasing the number of teen pregnancies without prenatal care, adding to the already growing problem of child abuse resulting from ill prepared and unsupported young parents especially while cutting back in related areas of social service and police. I hope this does not pass – it’s the least intelligent thing I’ve seen go through the House to date. Very, very SHORT-SIGHTED. The cost of clean-up from this folly would be astronomical. There are certainly more sensible places to cut a budget… like how about starting with Republican Representative Boehner’s pet engine project.
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That is not what i typed, i quoted that and it only showed that….
and to stand without apology for the sanctity of human life.
anesthesia is paid for by the patient. So is the doctor.
To go along with the commenter about your logic, if a school has a shooting, that means the school paid for the murders! it was their building after all, their teachers, their lights…
and like the other guy said Republicans are using the Constitution RIGHT NOW to attack the health care law, they also made it so laws passed must have Constitution reference on legality.
So you’re seriously complaining about liberals using the Constitution when republicans made it the rules to follow it when making laws?
If this was an attack on that other comment that used a similar first line, that guy was right, many times conservatives quote the Constitution to stop laws but will avoid it when they want to push their views, they take the good and refuse the bad.
AWESOME! Anyone reading the PDF file HAS to read Mrs. Lowey’s second paragraph.
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Let’s end the taxpayer support of Planned Parenthood. The Pence amendment’s purpose is to do simply that and, in so doing, to stand with the American people, to stand with the American taxpayer, and to stand without apology for the sanctity of human life.
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Wow, it’s being edited SO much, if you want to find the text that evidently isn’t postable go to: thomas.loc.gov, search for bills/amendments for Mike Pence, and go to page H1156.