Huelskamp: ‘Will the Republican Congress Fund Planned Parenthood to Continue Their Despicable, Gruesome, Vile, Racist Activities?’
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said on Wednesday that he feared Congress would continue to fund Planned Parenthood, despite the recent revelations from undercover videos showing the organization’s medical staff discussing harvesting and selling organs from aborted babies.
“The question is whether we fund [Planned Parenthood] next year,” Huelskamp said at the monthly Conversations with Conservatives on Capitol Hill. “Will the Republican Congress fund Planned Parenthood to continue their despicable, gruesome, vile, racist activities?
“That’s the question, and I fear the answer will be yes, because we’re not going to do anything,” he said.
CNSNews.com asked Huelskamp and other Republicans at the event whether defunding Planned Parenthood was “a talking point” or would lawmakers actually be able to accomplish that goal.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) said that Republicans have discussed making a point about how much they have done for the pro-life movement in the past.
“To me, what that means is we’re setting up for surrender,” Mulvaney said. “If you don’t want to talk about what you want to do next week and instead you want to talk about what you did last week, it means you’re afraid to do anything next week.”
On Friday, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced on the House floor that the it will consider two bills related to the Planned Parenthood scandal. One, the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 [1]or H.R. 3134 sponsored by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), would suspend any federal funds to the nation’s largest abortion provider until the investigation by three House committees into the video matter is complete.
According to its annual report, [2] Planned Parenthood got $528 million in federal government health services grants and reimbursements for fiscal year 2013-2014.
The second bill, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), focuses on protecting infants who have survived an abortion or an attempted abortion.
Funding for government operations for the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, which means that Congress will have to vote for a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown. The CR will include funding for Planned Parenthood unless action is taken to strip that funding.
In an interview with a Kentucky television station, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the funds would not be removed from the CR, according to the Washington Post [3].
“We just don’t have the votes to get the outcome that we’d like,” McConnell said. “The president has made it very clear he is not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood, so that’s another issue that awaits a new president, hopefully with a different point of view about Planned Parenthood.”
But at the Conversations with Conservatives event, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said his constituents don’t want their money going to support Planned Parenthood.
“Nobody wants to see their tax dollars go to fund an organization that is systematically killing babies in the womb in such a way to maximize the return of the body parts to be sold,” Duncan said.
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