Congressman: Jesus and Moses Would Oppose Bill Repealing Obamacare and Defunding Planned Parenthood
During Wednesday’s House floor debate on a reconciliation bill that would repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood, Rep. Steve Cohen (D.-Tenn.) argued that Jesus and Moses would oppose what the House was seeking to do.
“We just came through Hanukkah and Christmas, and we ought to think a little bit about what Hanukkah and Christmas were about and what Moses and Jesus would be about,” said Cohen. “I think they would be about saving lives and about giving everybody an opportunity to live, not patient-centric health care, but people living and getting health care like every other civilized, industrialized country in the world provides for its people.”
Cohen spoke immediately after Rep. Chris Smith (R.-N.J.). In his remarks, Smith said: “Subsidized by over $500 million taxpayer dollars each year, Planned Parenthood dismembers or chemically poisons a baby to death every 2 minutes, killing over 7 million innocent children since 1973.”
In its latest annual report, Planned Parenthood said that its affiliates performed 323,999 abortion procedures in fiscal 2014, which works out to an average of one every 1.62 minutes.
The reconciliation bill repealing Obamacare and defunding Planned Parenthood, which passed the Senate 52 to 47 on Dec. 3, passed the House yesterday by a vote of 240 to 181.
It will now be sent to President Barack Obama, who is expected to veto it.
Here is the full transcript of Rep. Steve Cohen’s remarks:
Mr. Speaker, we ended the 2015 Congress working together with a tax extender package that I voted for that gave relief to the medical device folks in an omnibus bill.
But we are back, and there you go again trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, taking health care away from people and taking Planned Parenthood, which gives people who are poor and live in areas where there is not other healthcare opportunities—taking away from them the opportunity for preventive health care.
The last time this was tried in Tennessee, there was a 1,400 percent cut in women getting preventative care. That is just not right. We just came through Hanukkah and Christmas, and we ought to think a little bit about what Hanukkah and Christmas were about and what Moses and Jesus would be about. I think they would be about saving lives and about giving everybody an opportunity to live, not patient-centric health care, but people living and getting health care like every other civilized, industrialized country in the world provides for its people.
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