Directing the Clerk of the House of Representatives to Make Corrections in the Enrollment of H.R. 719

Floor Speech

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Mrs. ROBY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in strong support of H. Con. Res. 79, a concurrent resolution directing the Clerk of the House of Representatives to make corrections in the enrollment of H.R. 719. This resolution directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to make several corrections in the enrollment of H.R. 719, the Continuing Appropriations Act 2016, including by adding at the end of the text of the House-passed version, H.R. 3134, the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015.

The House passed H.R. 3134 by a vote of 241-187 on September 18. The bill precludes any Federal funds from being authorized or appropriated for 1 year for any purpose to Planned Parenthood Federation of America or any affiliate or clinic of that organization unless entities certify that affiliates and clinics will not perform and will not provide any funds to any other entity that performs elective abortions during such period. The bill also redirected funding from Planned Parenthood facilities to federally qualified health centers to provide women's health services.

This resolution and the related enrollment process sends a signal about this House's commitment to bar funding for Planned Parenthood and gives the Senate the opportunity to limit funding in the continuing resolution.

Mr. Speaker, this is actually the exact same language in the Defund Planned Parenthood Act sponsored by my friend, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black), which the House passed earlier this month. Mrs. Black is a tireless defender of the unborn, and I have been privileged to work with her on several pro-life measures, including a very similar defund correction to the spending bill back in 2011.

So why this correction? My colleagues might be wondering if I just saw what happened in the Senate. Why take up this bill when the votes just aren't there in the Senate? The answer is simple. Because I believe, as long as there is an opportunity before us to defund Planned Parenthood, we should take it because, when it comes to this fight, I want to leave it all on the field.

I understand that, so far, we have lacked the votes in the Senate to include defund language in the continuing resolution, and I realize this is a last-ditch effort to do this and that the chances of this correction maneuver succeeding in the Senate are low. But I believe, Mr. Speaker, I believe that we have to fight until the very end.

I have always been up front with those I represent about the low likelihood of defunding Planned Parenthood, especially in a stopgap spending bill. Pro-life advocates in my State and around this country understand the math; and while they hope that Senate Democrats will change their hearts, they don't really expect them to. What they do expect is for us to try, to fight to the very end, and to exhaust every possible option in our effort to stop tax dollars from flowing to this organization.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the House and in the Senate to support this defund correction and to join me to fight until the very end to defund Planned Parenthood.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mrs. ROBY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, not everyone, I recognize, in this country is pro-life, like I am. But those who are should not be forced to have their tax dollars fund an organization that aborts more than 350,000 unborn babies every year.

Federal law has long prohibited public funds from being used to actually perform abortions. However, Planned Parenthood gets millions in grants and reimbursements for other services that they provide, like pregnancy tests, birth control, Pap smears, STD tests, and other various treatments.

Of course, low-income women should have access to these critical services. But why is it necessary--why is it necessary--for those services to be funded at the Nation's largest abortion provider?

It isn't actually, but the abortion industry and its supporters--it is what they want you to think it is. And they talk about women's health because they don't want to talk about abortion.

They don't want to talk about how ugly it is and how painful it is not just to the mother having to make the decision, but to the unborn baby who doesn't have a voice, who doesn't have a say.

When it comes to funding, they like to pretend, Mr. Speaker, that abortion doesn't exist and that Planned Parenthood is the only place where low-income women can get health care.

Taking away Federal funding from Planned Parenthood means attacking women's health, they say. That is not true.

The truth is that there are more than 13,000 federally qualified and rural health centers throughout this country that offer low-cost health care to women. In fact, these centers outnumber Planned Parenthood clinics 20-1.

If those who defend Federal funding of Planned Parenthood truly just wanted to make sure that low-income women have access to health care and not abortion, then why not simply support these noncontroversial community health centers instead?

If this argument is really about making sure women have access to health care, then we would all agree right here, right now, to support these community health centers.

But you see, Mr. Speaker, that is not what this is about. You see, while federally qualified and rural health centers provide a wide range of medical services, they don't perform abortions. That is what they really want. They want to preserve the pipeline of funding to the Nation's largest abortion provider.

This talk of women's health is nothing but a charade, a false pretense, that I believe more and more Americans are realizing is phony.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this concurrent resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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