At a five-hour House committee hearing, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards appeared alone to respond to hostile questioning from Republicans, a few of whom have vowed to shut down the USA government if federal support for the organization is not cut off.
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Ever since a series of sting videos released by abortion foes put Planned Parenthood on the defensive this summer, both sides of the debate have been out on the streets.
Planned Parenthood has become the center of a political storm in Washington, as Republicans want to kill its federal funding, citing video evidence that it sold tissue from aborted fetuses.
“The outrageous accusations leveled against Planned Parenthood based on heavily doctored videos are offensive and categorically untrue”, Richards said.
“That has absolutely nothing to do with young women who need a breast exam”, Chaffetz said. She noted that Richards oversaw a large health care provider and said that she found Chaffetz’s comments about her salary “totally inappropriate and discriminatory”.
Planned Parenthood operates almost 700 health centers nationwide, providing birth control, cancer screenings, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.
That scenario is now less likely with Speaker John Boehner’s resignation, though, the showdown over the funding is expected to come up again when the stopgap bill the House and Senate are trying to pass expires in December. “When you show up and want to have something done, it’s probably done”, he said. Every federal dollar given out – about $450 million of the organization’s $1.3 billion budget – allows it to channel other dollars elsewhere, including to its political arm.
“So much of the time Planned Parenthood is known by “oh the abortion people“, said Stencil “They’re not, there are so many more services that Planned Parenthood gives”.
Planned Parenthood’s president testified before Congress today, denouncing the viral videos that put her there. The women, who describe themselves as being “pro-life”, removed the tape about being told they they had to in order to remain at the hearing.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. In the video, Richards apologizes, which Jordan says shouldn’t have happened unless she believed the information exposed in the videos were true. “It did not reflect the compassionate care that we provide”.
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“We aren’t going to stand idly by”.
