What you need to know about the House of Representatives’ vote to defund Planned Parenthood
As MotherJones reports, yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives voted 241 to 187 to strip Planned Parenthood of nearly $500 million dollars in funding for one year.
The vote was brought about by accusations from an anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal parts, which is illegal. The group provided heavily-edited videos to back up their claims, videos that have been proven to be manipulative, bad-faith claims. Every major news outlet has reported the claims against Planned Parenthood to be intentional and outright lies.
As the New York Times puts it, “The Center for Medical Progress video campaign is a dishonest attempt to make legal, voluntary and potentially lifesaving tissue donations appear nefarious and illegal. Lawmakers responding by promoting their own anti-choice agenda are rewarding deception and putting women’s health and their constitutionally protected rights at risk.”
What makes this vote even more confusing is the fact that Planned Parenthood does not use federal funds to perform abortions. In fact, only 3% of the services the organization performs are pregnancy terminations. The vast majority of the work PP does has to do with STI/STD screenings, providing contraception, performing cancer screenings, and attending to women’s health concerns. The chart below breaks the services down by percentages:
It is deeply troubling that our lawmakers would push forward a bill that would negatively impact the health of so many women, seemingly motivated by reasons that have been proven to be falsehoods. Particularly because the people who will suffer most in the wake of this decision are poor women who rely on Medicaid for their health concerns.
The bill will next go to the Senate, where it is expected to be met with a filibuster from Democrats.
Related:
Lena Dunham’s awesome, celeb-packed collab with Planned Parenthood
Image via Twitter
