House Votes to Defund Abortionist Planned Parenthood

Rep. Mike Pence’s (R-Indiana) amendment to defund Planned Parenthood passed 240-185 in the House

About damn time.

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.

Pence, of Indiana, touched off a vicious back-and-forth Thursday night in which Republicans insisted the organization is too aggressive about performing abortions and several Democrats charged that the GOP was waging a “war on women.”

Pence said the amendment captures a rough public consensus that they accept legal abortions, but don’t want to pay for them.

He did get House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to weigh in on his side, declaring, “The time has come to respect the wishes of the majority of Americans who adamantly oppose using taxpayer dollars for abortions.”

Although Planned Parenthood did not use these funds for performing abortions, the funds did support the organization in a generic infrastructure sense to perform abortions – and at taxpayer expense.

Planned Parenthood estimates it received a quarter of the $317 million in Title X funds appropriated last year. They use the money for pelvic exams, breast exams, safer-sex counseling and basic infertility counseling, among other things.

Pence took his fight against Planned Parenthood to the next level after the release of a series of videos by the group Live Action –videos that they say show Planned Parenthood employees advising actors posing as pimps on information on how to get abortions, STD testing and birth control for their underage prostitutes.

Cantor said last night that Planned Parenthood had been caught “red-handed.”

Planned Parenthood has been getting by with a wink and a nod for decades (largely supported by the Democratic Party) while being the largest abortion provider in the country. Time to stop the government and the use of my tax dollars to support abortion.

Let Planned Parenthood do it privately – if they can.