Planned Parenthood-Government Shutdown Update

RedTracker | The future of Planned Parenthood, an organization 90 years old, is held in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Mormon who personally opposes abortion and has previously run ads expressing his anti-abortion stance.

“On 97 percent of our work, Sen. Reid and Planned Parenthood are completely together,” Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told POLITICO.

House Republican said this afternoon that the fight is not over abortion, without using the abortion word.

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, calling herself “a pro-choice Republican from California,” said the shutdown fight is “about three things: spending, more spending and too much spending.”

Fox News women agree that there would be no shutdown if more women were in Congress.

“It is appalling that Republicans would hold our economic recovery hostage for a ransom of denying millions of women Pap tests, breast exams, and birth control,” said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. “It shows their top priority is not keeping our economic recovery on track — it is reviving divisive social issues.”

At yesterday’s Planned Parenthood rally in Washington yesterday, Lowey said she has never seen an attack like this on American women in 50 years.

Planned Parenthood admits that it performed 330,000 abortions last year, supported by private funds and governed by the Hyde Amendment. While Republicans argue that any money given to Planned Parenthood indirectly helps them do abortions, the debate ignores that abortion is 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services. 

The organization documents that it saves nearly $4 in taxpayer funded Medicaid funds for every $1 given to it, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Republicans intend to cut those funds as well in future budgets, leaving millions of women — the majority living close to the poverty line — without access to health care.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says ‘the cutting Title X funding would increase the number of unintended pregnancies and increase the number of abortions, so the people who say they’re having this battle about abortion are actually not looking at what the statistics have indicated,” Sebelius told POLITICO Friday. “Federal funds have never supported abortion, do not support abortion, will not support abortion.”

Sixty-three percent of tea party supporters agree that Planned Parenthood should be shut down, according to a Hart Research Associates telephone survey of 1,002 registered voters contacted between April 4-7, writes Politico. (Note that 37% do not.) In total the poll found that 64% of registered voters oppose the stripping of federal funds from the women’s health organization.

Republicans were divided on the issue, with 50% supporting Planned Parenthood funding and 42% opposing them. Among total voters, just 25% of voters have negative feelings about Planned Parenthood. Typically, a poll of 1000 voters would have a variance of 3-4% in accuracy.

As Democrats ask how Republicans can be willing to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood, abortions foes turn the same question back at President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: ‘Why is it reasonable to shut down the government in order to protect this one organization?’ says Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List is quoted in Christian Science Monitor.

Republicans argue that there are many clinics funded by Title X (which they propose to eliminate) that do not perform abortions.