The Congressional Obsession with Planned Parenthood Shows No End in Sight

Today’s vote marks the SIXTH time since August that the House has voted to defund Planned Parenthood or roll back access to safe and legal abortion.

As the Congressional chaos surrounding the Speaker’s race slows down to a simmer, it seems likely that Congress will finally begin to be able to get back its primary job of legislating.

• Will they address raising the debt ceiling before the looming deadline in early November?

• Will they renew the 9/11 first responders health care bill to provide care for those who risked their lives on September 11, 2001?

• Will they re-open the Export-Import bank, which remains shut down for the first time in its 81-year history?

• Will they advance priorities like tax reform, or comprehensive immigration reform?

No. Instead, they just voted on yet another bill intended to directly attack low-income women, blocking millions from accessing the health care they now rely on.

H.R. 3762, a reconciliation bill that would restrict access to basic health care for millions of women and men across the country as well as dismantle historic health care reform that has given millions of women access to no-copay birth control.

Currently, no fewer than four committees in Congress are investigating Planned Parenthood. Politicians have also created a fifth “special committee” to launch yet another investigation -- spending untold resources and staff time -- in a blatant attempt to defund Planned Parenthood and cut women off from lifesaving care.  

Background on Congressional Efforts to Defund Planned Parenthood:

• This marks the seventh legislative week in a row Congress has focused on attacking Planned Parenthood and women’s health -- including six floor votes in September alone and 17 prior votes this year to restrict women's health.

• In addition, four Congressional hearings on Planned Parenthood (only one of which Planned Parenthood was invited to participate in) have been held, and -- in spite of Oversight and Government Reform Chair Jason Chaffetz confessing twice that he does not believe Planned Parenthood has done anything wrong -- four Congressional committees and one special committee are focused on investigating Planned Parenthood.

• An embarrassment for Congressional leadership -  “The Judiciary Committee was relentlessly mocked for holding a hearing on Planned Parenthood which Planned Parenthood wasn’t invited to, and for not even requesting unedited versions of the videos that had supposedly been the inspiration for the hearing.
  
  After a House Government Oversight and Reform Committee hearing where Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards was invited to testify, Representative Jason Chaffetz was taken to task for using a nonsensical chartcreated by an anti-abortion organization, which he claimed  “comes straight from [Planned Parenthood’s] annual reports.” Majority members of the committee were also chastised for holding a hearing in which reporters noted they interrupted Cecile Richards, the only witness, at least 44 times, not letting her speak throughout the hearing.

• House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced plans to make Planned Parenthood the next Benghazi, signaling that the GOP will continue to investigate Planned Parenthood -- despite multiple investigations showing no wrongdoing.
  
  McCarthy’s remarks revealed the blatantly political nature of the attacks on Planned Parenthood, threatening to do to the organization what he claims to have done to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee.”

Millions of women and men choose Planned Parenthood as their trusted health care provider each year. Yet instead of focusing on sound governing and moving forward with economic priorities, House Republicans continue to be obsessed with cutting off women’s ability to receive services like lifesaving breast cancer screenings, STI tests and treatment, and birth control.