House votes to stop funding to planned parenthood

• Websurfinbird

  

  From politico.com:
  
  The House just approved Rep. Mike Pence’s amendment to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, checking off a hot-button social issue even as it set up a bigger showdown over defunding the health care law.
  
  The vote was 240-185 with 11 Democrats voting for the amendment, and seven Republicans voting against. One member voted present. A group of Republicans on the floor applauded when the vote hit 218.
  
  
  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49830.html
  
  According to the article, the group Live Action is credited with influencing this decision after it released videos of actors disguised as sex traffickers obtaining information from PP on how to get birth control and abortion services.
  
  PP has responded to these videos and has stated that it has taken "swift action" against those employees that aided the pretend "pimps."
  
  http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/positions/coordinated-anti-choice-attacks-planned-parenthood-frequently-asked-questions-1027.htm#Q7
  
  To me this is problematic on many levels (regardless of your stance on abortion):
  
  Planned Parenthood is a family planning center, and while yes abortion is a service it performs, it is mostly used as a place for low-cost birth control, gynecological services (including routine exams) and a source for pre-natal help for expectant mothers.
  
  While I am not 100% sure of the details, I do know that federal funding of abortions specifically is limited, and according to Planned Parenthood, it does not use such funding to support the performing of abortions. (Unfortunately, I have no way of proving how true this is.)
  
  The legislation targets Planned Parenthood alone, while there are other similar clinics that offer that same types of services. To go after one organization with such an amendment seems unconstitutional.
  
  I know women who have relied on PP for the many services it provides, and not one of them was for an abortion. To me funding for this group, and others like it, is critical to preventing unwanted pregnancies and the abortions this law is hoping to stop in the first place.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  PP needs to get its house in order, a lot of rogue activity has taken place in many of their clinics. Until they get a hold of their activities there's no reason to suggest they should get federal funding. It is no more unconstitutional than the Feds withholding funding for any other non-profit.
• O-Trap

  

  Websurfinbird;690486 wrote:From politico.com:
  
  The House just approved Rep. Mike Pence’s amendment to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, checking off a hot-button social issue even as it set up a bigger showdown over defunding the health care law.
  
  The vote was 240-185 with 11 Democrats voting for the amendment, and seven Republicans voting against. One member voted present. A group of Republicans on the floor applauded when the vote hit 218.
  
  
  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49830.html
  
  According to the article, the group Live Action is credited with influencing this decision after it released videos of actors disguised as sex traffickers obtaining information from PP on how to get birth control and abortion services.
  
  PP has responded to these videos and has stated that it has taken "swift action" against those employees that aided the pretend "pimps."
  
  http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/positions/coordinated-anti-choice-attacks-planned-parenthood-frequently-asked-questions-1027.htm#Q7
  
  To me this is problematic on many levels (regardless of your stance on abortion):
  
  Planned Parenthood is a family planning center, and while yes abortion is a service it performs, it is mostly used as a place for low-cost birth control, gynecological services (including routine exams) and a source for pre-natal help for expectant mothers.
  
  While I am not 100% sure of the details, I do know that federal funding of abortions specifically is limited, and according to Planned Parenthood, it does not use such funding to support the performing of abortions. (Unfortunately, I have no way of proving how true this is.)
  
  The legislation targets Planned Parenthood alone, while there are other similar clinics that offer that same types of services. To go after one organization with such an amendment seems unconstitutional.
  
  I know women who have relied on PP for the many services it provides, and not one of them was for an abortion. To me funding for this group, and others like it, is critical to preventing unwanted pregnancies and the abortions this law is hoping to stop in the first place.

  
  I think the problem was how it had been abused, as in the Philadelphia case, for example.
  
  Can't you get similar resources, information, and the like at other health facilities and clinics as well?
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  Little late aren't ya? haha. This happened last week in the massive CR budget cuts.
  Still, doesn't take away from the issue though.
  
  I'm a guy and really don't care for abortion, I literally have no opinion on it.
  But, I don't see this lasting in the Senate. The funds will probably be restored, but as a compromise, the overall budget to PP will go down.
  
  On another point, it is looking more and more like a government shutdown after March 4.
  I have friends that are on the hill that have a pessimistic mood that the House will not agree with the Senate.
  
  I actually have one friend, who is in the National Institute for Health, who without a budget will be let go.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  The vote was 240-185 with 11 Democrats voting for the amendment, and seven Republicans voting against. One member voted present. A group of Republicans on the floor applauded when the vote hit 218.

  Well, we know it couldn't have been Obama!
  

  Planned Parenthood is a family planning center, and while yes abortion is a service it performs, it is mostly used as a place for low-cost birth control, gynecological services (including routine exams) and a source for pre-natal help for expectant mothers.
  ........................
  While I am not 100% sure of the details, I do know that federal funding of abortions specifically is limited, and according to Planned Parenthood, it does not use such funding to support the performing of abortions.

  
  In one of the other threads (can't think of which one) there were articles posted that specifically described how these types of places have back-door type subsidies which allows them to pay for abortions.
  
  And regardless of how I feel about abortions (should be legal for specific circumstances, not as birth control) I absolutely do not want my money to help pay for somebody else's abortion.
  
  So, I'm am totally behind this vote.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  CenterBHSFan;690617 wrote:Well, we know it couldn't have been Obama!
  
  
  
  In one of the other threads (can't think of which one) there were articles posted that specifically described how these types of places have back-door type subsidies which allows them to pay for abortions.
  
  And regardless of how I feel about abortions (should be legal for specific circumstances, not as birth control) I absolutely do not want my money to help pay for somebody else's abortion.
  
  So, I'm am totally behind this vote.

  
  Very well said and I agree with you on all points.
• ernest_t_bass

  

  ccrunner609;690560 wrote:this is a great way to cut our spending.

  
  No it's not. They should cut all education!
• majorspark

  

  The federal government has no constitutional authority to contribute funds to this organization. Many of the framers of the constitution would be rolling in their graves if they knew the federal government was funding such an organization. In the scope of federal spending this denial of funding provides minor relief. But each bit counts.
• CinciX12

  

  More of a way to go after abortion than spending if you ask me. But I don't really mind it.
  
  The positives are I don't have to pay for poor people to prevent having more poor children.
  
  The negatives include said poor people having more poor children.
  
  I pay for it regardless. This will eventually force our spending to increase in healthcare because these babies not being aborted and prevented will need taken care of (no pun intended).
• Little Danny

  

  CinciX12;690827 wrote:More of a way to go after abortion than spending if you ask me. But I don't really mind it.
  
  The positives are I don't have to pay for poor people to prevent having more poor children.
  
  The negatives include said poor people having more poor children.
  
  I pay for it regardless. This will eventually force our spending to increase in healthcare because these babies not being aborted and prevented will need taken care of (no pun intended).

  
  Yeah I undertand a lot of what you are saying and used to have similar feelings. I guess as I have gotten older and have witnessed my own children's development in utero and be present at their births, I just can't support abortion under almost any circumstance (the exception being the rare situation of both the mother and infant's life was in danger). If I have to pay more in taxes taking care of the rift raft, so be it.
  
  Last year alone Planned Parenthood received $360M in federal money who making over $63M in profit and performing over 300,000 abortions. That number is staggering...
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  ccrunner609;690855 wrote:or spend some more money on Sex ed and you dont need PP. THey cut my Health curriculum 6 years ago in my district and we had 12 girls pregnant in the next 2 years.

  Now, there I'll agree with you.
  Thing is some R's are really against any SexEd. And it is sad. As someone who was from Scioto County, one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state ,more SexEd is needed.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  majorspark;690818 wrote:The federal government has no constitutional authority to contribute funds to this organization. Many of the framers of the constitution would be rolling in their graves if they knew the federal government was funding such an organization. In the scope of federal spending this denial of funding provides minor relief. But each bit counts.

  
  Then again, the founders knew of nothing of social welfare and helping woman issues and women health issues. I'm not arguing for or against funding, just that the founders would have no idea about the issue and its relevance, importance to society.
  
  Broader point, I'm all for the founders, but the line "they would be rolling in their graves" makes no sense as the world is completely different, socially, technologically and culturally.
• I Wear Pants

  Anyone who thinks cutting Planned Parenthood is a good idea is very wrong.
  
  None of the money from the government went to fund abortions. None of it.
  
  Next up will probably be sex ed because a lot of Republicans think sex ed is a bad idea despite literally every study done on the subject showing the contrary.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  Oh come on Pants, you know damn well federal funds were channeled in ways they didn't DIRECTLY pay for abortions, but paid for them nonetheless.
  
  I say cut the whole shootin' match. PP has shown its disdain for following the law, so let them get their funding privately or shut their doors.
• majorspark

  

  ptown_trojans_1;690866 wrote:Then again, the founders knew of nothing of social welfare and helping woman issues and women health issues. I'm not arguing for or against funding, just that the founders would have no idea about the issue and its relevance, importance to society.

  The founders knew of social welfare. To say they now nothing of it is simply not true. They were quite aware of it. Not to the extent we know it today with history, countless studies that have been made, and the internet making knowledge available to the masses. No doubt our generation is more informed. That being said the founders were not idiotic buffoons oblivious to the social ills that plague society.
  
  "I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."
  -Benjamin Franklin
  
  "Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
  - James Madison
  
  In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
  - James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)
  
  "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions." James Madison, "Letter to Edmund Pendleton,"
  - James Madison, January 21, 1792, in The Papers of James Madison, vol. 14, Robert A Rutland et. al., ed (Charlottesvile: University Press of Virginia,1984).
  
  You just can't say the founders knew nothing of social welfare. The previous quotes prove that is incorrect. All but one of them is referring specifically to the federal government. Many of them (not all) just disagreed with the federal governments roll in it. I think they, like me would agree government can play a roll. What level it is allowed to do so is what is being debated.
  

  ptown_trojans_1;690866 wrote:Broader point, I'm all for the founders, but the line "they would be rolling in their graves" makes no sense as the world is completely different, socially, technologically and culturally.

  It makes perfect sense. The founders would be "rolling in their graves" because most would have never envisioned federal funds to be allocated to an organization that deemed itself a family planner and solely by a mere act of congress have federal funds allocated to them. That thought would have been an anathema to them.
  
  Imagine if article 1 section 8 had a clause that congress had the authority to promote family planning. Not one state would have signed on. But I guess they were ignorant fools who had no foresight into the evolution of the world and the means for the government they had created to adapt to it.
  
  The founders, to their credit did provide a means to adapt to changes in our world and gave us a constitution that could adapt to social, cultural, and technological advances. Its called the amendment process. Its has been used to adapt to our changing world a few times. But politically it is too difficult and today the process is nearly dead because of it.
• I Wear Pants

  Writerbuckeye;691005 wrote:Oh come on Pants, you know damn well federal funds were channeled in ways they didn't DIRECTLY pay for abortions, but paid for them nonetheless.
  
  I say cut the whole shootin' match. PP has shown its disdain for following the law, so let them get their funding privately or shut their doors.

  No I don't.
• majorspark

  

  I Wear Pants;691074 wrote:No I don't.

  
  You have common sense. Federal funds prohibited from directly funding abortion are used for other operating expenses and frees up other private funds to be allocated for abortion procedures.
• believer

  

  majorspark;691085 wrote:You have common sense. Federal funds prohibited from directly funding abortion are used for other operating expenses and frees up other private funds to be allocated for abortion procedures.

  Liberalism ignores common sense.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  Abortion: Which Side Is Fabricating? | FactCheck.org
  

  
  The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage.
  .................................
  But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new "public" insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them.

  
  Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions "fabrications."

  
  I think this also qualifies any/everybody else besides the President when they say that "it is not true".
  

  
  As for other types of abortions, the Capps amendment leaves it to the secretary of Health and Human Services to decide whether or not they will be covered. It says, "Nothing in this Act shall be construed as preventing the public health insurance option from providing" abortion services that would not be legal for Medicaid coverage. Says the NRLC’s Johnson: "The Capps Amendment MANDATES that the public plan cover any Medicaid-fundable abortions, and AUTHORIZES the secretary to cover all other abortions. … [F]rom day one, she [Secretary Kathleen Sebelius] is authorized to pay for them all. And, she will."

  
  In other words, there IS federal backdooring going on to help pay for abortions. My money, your money and everybody else who pays taxes.
  
  It's clearly a choice if you want to believe it or not. If you choose not believe it that doesn't mean that others are being untruthful about it.
• I Wear Pants

  majorspark;691085 wrote:You have common sense. Federal funds prohibited from directly funding abortion are used for other operating expenses and frees up other private funds to be allocated for abortion procedures.

  
  But I'm fine with that. If the law says they can't use the funds for abortions. And they don't. But private donors would like money to be used for abortions and they use it that way I'm fine with that.
  
  If we cut Planned Parenthood the money saved could sustain the war for 3 hours 51mins. $75 million for 800 clinics a year, or 4 hours of war.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  I Wear Pants;691617 wrote:But I'm fine with that. If the law says they can't use the funds for abortions. And they don't. But private donors would like money to be used for abortions and they use it that way I'm fine with that.
  
  If we cut Planned Parenthood the money saved could sustain the war for 3 hours 51mins. $75 million for 800 clinics a year, or 4 hours of war.

  
  Which has zero to do with the topic at hand.
  
  If Planned Parenthood wants to provide abortions, it should drop all its federal funding. If abortions are that important to them, then let them pay for them solely with non-government funding. No funny bookkeeping.
• tk421

  

  I don't care if someone says that funding doesn't "directly" go to abortions, if federal dollars go to keeping the buildings open, they are funding abortions. They can spin it any way they want, but if federal dollars go to planned parenthood and planned parenthood does abortions, the government is funding abortions.
• I Wear Pants

  Using that logic you could find a whole host of ways that the government is "funding" abortions.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  I Wear Pants;692431 wrote:Using that logic you could find a whole host of ways that the government is "funding" abortions.

  Correct.
• Shane Falco

  Why spend money for sex ed?
  
  Have sex between male and female = chance of baby!
  DON'T have sex between male and female = NO CHANCE of baby!
  
  Pretty simple if you ask me! NO ?
  
  Cut it all and cut it now!