The Senate failed to pass a standalone bill to defund Planned Parenthood Monday night 53-46, falling seven votes of shy of the 60 needed. AP said the House is expected to vote on a similar measure when Congress returns.
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While Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, enough Democrats voted against legislation that would have defunded Planned Parenthood following controversy to stop the debate from moving forward. “Planned Parenthood has ultrasound machines for the same reason a butcher has a scale – because they sell baby body parts by the pound”. “They must be shocked by the utter lack of compassion that’s been on display, they must care about women’s health as much as they care about some scandal plagued political organization”, said Sen.
“I’m in my office in New York and I guess as we speak they are going for a vote of some kind”, Trump said.
Planned Parenthood has issued a series of denials for the videos. The protestors asked Gillibrand to address the efforts in the Senate to defund Planned Parenthood.
O’Malley’s letter followed the release in mid-July of videos of the organization’s officials filmed undercover by a nonprofit California-based organization called the Centre for Medical Progress.
On Monday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, said his state is terminating its Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood.
Anti-abortion activists accused Planned Parenthood of profiting from the fetal tissue, but the group says the videos were selectively edited and that it donates the tissue in accordance with the law and with patients’ consent.
Melaney Linton, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, said in a statement Tuesday that “extremists” were targeting her organization with “outrageous and completely false claims”. Republicans said the bill would protect women’s health by redirecting those funds to community health centers that don’t provide abortions. Even so, the GOP is hoping to reap political gains because the videos have ignited the party’s core conservative, anti-abortion voters.
Gillibrand says without Planned Parenthood, many low-income woman would not have access to annual cancer screenings and contraception.
Sen. Joe Donnelly is getting pressured by both sides as the Senate prepares to vote today on whether to strip Planned Parenthood of the more than $500 million in federal funding it receives each year. “We’re seeing attacks that are intended, in their end analysis, to get rid of safe, legal abortion in this country and destroy Planned Parenthood, who stands up for the reproductive health rights and freedom of women and all people in this country”, Dawn Laguens told Alisyn Camerota on CNN’s “New Day”.
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In written testimony to the committee, Linton said fetal tissue donation was crucial to “important, life-saving research”, and that Planned Parenthood takes seriously “its obligation to comply with all rules and regulations regarding such provision”.
