Vote 'no' to defunding planned parenthood

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, for the umpteenth time, men in Congress are leading the
charge to limit women's access to health care, but now, instead of just
wasting taxpayer dollars and time, they plan to take their outrageous
tactics to a whole new level, perhaps shutting down the entire Federal
Government if they don't get their way. As the gentlewoman from
Massachusetts has already explained, that is absolutely ridiculous.

Rather than consider legislation that would fund repairs to our
Nation's infrastructure or invest in our schools or create jobs for
millions of Americans still out of work, we are considering legislation
that would cut off support to an organization that provides vital
health services to women and men who might not otherwise have access.

Mr. Speaker, Planned Parenthood is, first and foremost, an
organization dedicated to women's health. What is more, despite the
endless conservative rhetoric to the contrary, Planned Parenthood does
not use a single dollar of Federal funds to provide abortions. This is
really just a thinly veiled attempt to allow Congress to regulate a
woman's uterus, and the end result won't be the end of very legal
abortions. It will be the erosion of care, family planning, and medical
treatment for thousands of women.

Wednesday's Washington Post offered a perfect example. It profiled a
single Planned Parenthood clinic in Ohio, a clinic that does not offer
abortion services. According to The Post, that clinic sees 7,100
patients each year, most of them young and poor. They administer 3,400
pregnancy tests, they write 2,900 birth control prescriptions, and they
provide 13,200 screenings for sexually transmitted infections.

Facilities like this make up nearly half of the Planned Parenthood
centers nationwide. Cutting their funding will only result in more
illness, more unplanned pregnancies, and more babies born to mothers
unprepared to care for them.

In 2013, Planned Parenthood provided more than 71,000 patients with
care in my State, the State of New Jersey. They provided almost 16,000
Pap tests to New Jersey women, and they conducted more than 33,000
breast exams.

In a shortsighted response to a series of questionably edited videos
and false claims, we are going to take health care away from Americans
with few, if any, alternatives. That is not what my constituents
elected me for. That is not what they expected me to be doing in
Congress. I am here to create jobs, to better educate our young people,
and to reform our broken criminal justice system. By no means am I here
to relitigate a woman's right to choose.

Quite frankly, I am not sure which I am more disgusted by: the fact
that we are doing this again, or the fact that I have come to the floor
of this House so many times before to express that disgust.
I urge my colleagues to consider taking up the work that really
matters to the American people. I thank the gentlewoman from
Massachusetts.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source