SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
us house of representatives
Planned Parenthood Warns House GOP Appropriations Bills Attack Global Health
The "slate of dangerous and unpopular provisions" includes "eliminating the Title X family planning program and reinstating the Trump-era expanded global gag rule."
Jul 01, 2024
As the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives uses the appropriations process to promote the GOP agenda ahead of the November elections, Planned Parenthood Action Fund on Monday highlighted how the spending bills attack health within and beyond the United States.
"Once again, anti-abortion rights politicians in Congress are manipulating the federal appropriations process to push for a recycled slate of dangerous and unpopular provisions to block access to sexual and reproductive healthcare across the country and around the world," states the new Planned Parenthood Action Fund memo.
The document details anti-health policies in spending legislation for fiscal year 2025 that House Republicans have advanced recently, which include provisions "eliminating the Title X family planning program and reinstating the Trump-era expanded global gag rule."
The global gag rule bars U.S. government funding for foreign groups that provide information, referrals, or services for abortion care, or advocate for decriminalization or increasing access. It was initially implemented by former Republican President Ronald Reagan as the Mexico City policy, then reinstated and expanded by former President Donald Trump.
"In all, anti-abortion rights politicians continue to act in defiance of the vast majority of their constituents who believe that the government has no right to control people's personal healthcare decisions with attacks on abortion, birth control, and gender-affirming care."
Despite Trump's ongoing legal battles, he is the presumptive Republican nominee to face Democratic President Joe Biden in November. Biden rescinded his predecessor's gag rule shortly after taking office in 2021. Reproductive freedom has been a key issue in not only that contest but races at all levels of U.S. politics this cycle, as GOP policymakers and candidates have set their sights on abortion care, birth control, and in vitro fertilization.
The gag rule was included in the appropriations bill for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs, which the House on Friday passed 212-200. The only Democrat who voted in favor was Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington—who supports reproductive rights and has shared her own abortion story.
That bill would also "cap funding for international family planning and reproductive health programs at $461 million, a nearly 25% cut," and end funding for United Nations entities including the U.N. Population Fund, as the Planned Parenthood memo notes. It would also "restrict information about and access to gender-affirming care," and "maintain the Helms Amendment in addition to restrictions on abortion coverage for Peace Corps volunteers."
Speaking out against the legislation last week, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said that "much like last year, the fiscal year 2025 state and foreign operations bill resurrects the doomed isolationism of the early 20th century."
"For the sake of our national security, women's health globally, and our response to the climate crisis, Republicans must abandon this reckless and partisan path and join Democrats at the table to govern," declared DeLauro, who raised the alarm about House GOP appropriations proposals throughout June.
Taking aim at the labor, health and human services, and education legislation last week, she said that "in keeping with the majority's other partisan bills, this bill is chock full of dozens of poison pill riders, including multiple provisions that attack women's freedom and block abortion and reproductive healthcare services."
Specifically, as the new memo points out, it would interfere with postgraduate training in abortion care, impose the Hyde and Weldon amendments, restrict access to gender-affirming care, block Biden administration executive orders intended to boost abortion care access in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, and eliminate funding for Title X family planning and teen pregnancy prevention programs while pouring money into abstinence-only-until-marriage initiatives.
It would also "defund" Planned Parenthood, preventing people in communities across the United States—particularly in rural and medically underserved areas—from accessing services including sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and birth control, as the memo outlines.
The recently introduced commerce, justice, and science bill would block most federal prisoners from attaining abortion coverage and prevent the U.S. Department of Justice from suing state or local governments over anti-choice laws, according to the memo. The financial services and general government legislation would reverse a District of Columbia law protecting workers from being fired for their reproductive healthcare choices, bar D.C. from using local funds to cover abortion care, and ban Federal Employee Health Benefits Program coverage of most abortions.
"In all, anti-abortion rights politicians continue to act in defiance of the vast majority of their constituents who believe that the government has no right to control people's personal healthcare decisions with attacks on abortion, birth control, and gender-affirming care," the publication states.
The document also targets provisions in multiple recently passed spending bills focused on homeland security, the Pentagon, and veterans—including attacks on abortion and gender-affirming care for current and former service members and their families as well as anyone in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
"Anti-abortion rights lawmakers recently included similar measures in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—an annual must-pass bill," the memo highlights.
"Everyone deserves access to abortion and gender-affirming care, including service members and their families. But these lawmakers would rather play games with our fundamental rights in their attempt to control our bodies, lives, and futures."
After the mid-June NDAA vote, Planned Parenthood Action Fund president Alexis McGill Johnson said that "it's like Groundhog Day. Anti-abortion rights House members use must-pass bills as a vehicle to force through their deeply unpopular and dangerous agenda—again and again and again. Everyone deserves access to abortion and gender-affirming care, including service members and their families. But these lawmakers would rather play games with our fundamental rights in their attempt to control our bodies, lives, and futures."
The NDAA and spending bills aren't expected to pass the Senate—which is narrowly controlled by Democrats—in their current forms, but they send a message about what Republicans would prioritize if they fully reclaimed Congress and the White House.
"The majority's policy riders do not belong in appropriations bills, and like last year, we will defeat them," DeLauro said last month. "But it is disappointing that we are going through this charade again, just months after Republicans and Democrats voted for the 2024 appropriations bills."
This post has been updated to clarify that the memo was exclusively from Planned Parenthood Action Fund, not Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Shameful': 16 Dems Help GOP Pass Israel Security Assistance Support Act
Even if the bill passes the Senate, President Joe Biden has threatened to veto it.
May 16, 2024
Despite U.S. President Joe Biden's threat to veto the Israel Security Assistance Support Act, 16 Democrats in the House of Representatives on Thursday voted alongside 208 Republicans to pass the bill, which will now head to the Senate.
House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Chair Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) introduced H.R. 8369, which his office claimed "curbs President Biden's misguided efforts to withhold critical security resources appropriated in U.S. law by compelling the delivery of defense weapons to Israel as they fight to protect themselves against radical terrorists."
The House vote was 224-187, with only three GOP members opposing the legislation—Reps. Warren Davidson (Ohio), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), and Thomas Massie (Ky.)—and six Republicans and 13 Democrats not voting.
The Democrats who supported the bill are Reps. Matt Cartwright (Pa.), Angie Craig (Minn.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (N.C.), Lois Frankel (Fla.), Jared Golden (Maine), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Greg Landsman (Ohio), Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), Frank Pallone (N.J.), Mary Sattler Peltola (Alaska), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), David Scott (Ga.), Darren Soto (Fla.), Thomas Suozzi (N.Y.), and Ritchie Torres (N.Y.).
"These are the fringe extremists of the Democratic Party."
"These 16 House Democrats just voted with Republicans to ignore U.S. human rights law and fast-track weapons to Israel," the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project said on social media, listing the lawmakers. "Shameful."
Noting that the bill would cut off funds from the National Security Council as well as the Defense and State departments until withheld weapons were sent to Israel, Justice Democrats declared, "These are the fringe extremists of the Democratic Party."
While generally supporting Israel's seven-month assault of the Gaza Strip—as critics worldwide decry it as genocide—Biden has recently halted the delivery of some weapons and threatened to withhold more from the Middle East ally, which has now killed over 35,272 Palestinians in the Hamas-governed enclave and wounded another 79,205, according to local officials.
The White House said in a statement earlier this week that the Biden administration "strongly opposes H.R. 8369," which "would undermine the president's ability to execute an effective foreign policy" and "could raise serious concerns about infringement on the president's authorities under Article II of the Constitution."
"The bill is a misguided reaction to a deliberate distortion of the administration's approach to Israel. The president has been clear: We will always ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself. Our commitment to Israel is ironclad," the White House asserted. "The administration will continue to use all funds appropriated for Israel consistent with legal requirements, including in the recent supplemental, rendering this bill unnecessary and unwise."
"Furthermore, this bill, if enacted, could lead to spiraling unintended consequences, prohibiting the United States from adjusting our security assistance posture with respect to Israel in any way, including to address unanticipated emergent needs, even if Israel and the United States agree that military needs have changed and supplies should change accordingly," the White House warned.
The president has faced mounting pressure—including from some Democrats in Congress—to limit or fully cut off U.S. weapons to Israel, as rights groups have documented Israeli forces' use of American arms to commit alleged war crimes.
Despite such evidence, the Biden administration concluded in a report to Congress last week that Israeli government assurances about U.S. weapons use are "credible and reliable so as to allow the provision of defense articles" to continue.
Politicopointed out Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) signaled the chamber may not even take up the measure, saying that "the president has already said he'd veto it, so it's not going anywhere," while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) pledged that "we will sustain the president's veto, as we have done consistently throughout the 118th Congress."
Keep ReadingShow Less
House Dems Save 'MAGA Mike' Johnson From Marjorie Taylor Greene Ouster
"The GOP chaos caucus continues to do nothing for the American people and instead waste time infighting," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who did not support saving the far-right leader.
May 08, 2024
The majority of Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday saved far-right Speaker Mike Johnson from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's attempt to oust him after less than seven months in the leadership position.
Johnson's (R-La.) election to the role in October—following the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who then left Congress early—was seen as a signal of the MAGA flank's hold on the Republican Party. However, since then he has faced criticism from Greene (R-Ga.) and others for, among other things, not shutting down the government.
Greene delivered on her threatened motion to vacate—provoking boos from fellow lawmakers—after meeting with Johnson for hours on Monday and Tuesday. The final vote to table her resolution was 359-43, with 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats backing the far-right speaker. Seven Democrats voted present and 21 lawmakers did not vote.
Ten Republicans joined Greene in trying to give Johnson the boot: Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Eric Burlison (Mo.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Alex Mooney (W.Va.), Barry Moore (Ala.), Chip Roy (Texas), and Victoria Spartz (Ind.).
Addressing the position of most Democrats, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) said in a statement:
Our decision to stop Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from plunging the House of Representatives and the country into further chaos is rooted in our commitment to solving problems for everyday Americans in a bipartisan manner. We need more common sense and less chaos in Washington, D.C.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and the extreme MAGA Republicans are chaos agents. House Democrats are change agents. We will continue to govern in a reasonable, responsible, and results-oriented manner and to put people over politics all day and every day.
Some of the 32 Democrats who supported ousting Johnson framed the vote as proof that—in the words of Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (Fla.)—the "GOP really can't govern" and the "chaos caucus is on display."
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) similarly declared on social media that "the GOP chaos caucus continues to do nothing for the American people and instead waste time infighting."
"Speaker Johnson organized an amicus brief effort to overturn the 2020 election. He opposes abortion rights, trans rights, and voting rights," Jayapal also said. "That's why I did not vote to save his speakership."
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) also explained his vote on social media, saying: "Mike Johnson is the most ideological, right-wing speaker since the 1830s. His views and values are directly antithetical to mine. He stands for everything we, as freedom-loving Democrats, proudly stand against. I will never vote to keep him in that chair."
Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) was one of the members who voted present, which does not count for or against passage.
"Did I vote with the extremist white Christian nationalist who called a motion to vacate the speakership or did I vote to save the extremist homophobic Christian nationalist speaker to keep him in office?" Pocan said. "Neither. I voted 'present' on this sideshow."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular