The group behind the investigation, The Center for Medical Progress, says the latest 15-minute video features Melissa Farrell, director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.
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Monday’s Senate vote was 53-46 to halt Democratic delaying tactics aimed at killing the GOP bill. That was seven short of the 60 votes needed to keep the measure moving toward passage, effectively derailing it for now. Even so, the GOP is hoping to reap political gains because the videos have ignited the party’s core conservative, anti-abortion voters.
Presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are teaming up to promote a confrontational tactic intended to strip Planned Parenthood of government funding, a move that plays to the GOP’s conservative base but also risks a shutdown.
And each party was bracing to revisit the fight next month, when Congress returns from its summer recess and considers legislation keeping government agencies open after their budgets expire October. 1.
Conservatives in both the House and Senate are demanding that their leaders attach a provision to any spending bill to block additional federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood. The White House confirmed to The Blaze last week that there are no plans to reconsider funding the organization with taxpayer dollars. Medicaid is a joint state-federal health-care program for the poor. Planned Parenthood and its allies say that would mean that many of its 2.7 million annual clients – many of whom are low-income women – would lose health care.
Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, has said the group has done nothing illegal and is the target of a political smear campaign. Acknowledging that Republicans may continue the battle, she said: “This fight may not be over, but we’re ready for it”.
“It’s clear Senator Ayotte should not be trusted with women’s health”, the New Hampshire ad says. “He would veto any legislation that tried to advance wholesale defunding for Planned Parenthood“. The videos have had impact because of the casual descriptions by the Planned Parenthood officials of the abortion procedures they use to obtain tissue, and because they show close-ups of fetal organs in laboratories.
“It is hard for anyone to defend these morally reprehensible videos, as Planned Parenthood callously harvested the organs of unborn babies, to be sold at a price”, Ernst said.
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Republicans are likely to try again in September to stop Planned Parenthood from getting federal funds, which now amounts to more than $500 million a year. Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco placed a temporary restraining order on CMP that enjoined it from releasing any more of its videos, specifically those relating to the National Abortion Federation, after NAF officials claimed that the videos could make them unsafe.
