WASHINGTON — Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions (R) said Monday the idea that defunding Planned Parenthood would cause a shutdown of the federal government is “ludicrous” in a speech on the Senate floor.
President Obama has vowed to veto any spending bill that doesn’t provide funding for Planned Parenthood, whose abortion providing clinics have come under renewed scrutiny after a series of videos revealed the slaughter and sale of unborn babies.
The federal government is now running up against a deadline to reauthorize appropriations for the multitude of discretionary spending programs, and pro-life conservatives are looking to the ultimatum as a way to force a vote defunding the clinics.
Senate leadership has said they will not take drastic measures to pass a bill defunding the organization, fearing the blame would fall on Republicans if a partial shutdown of government services occurred because President Obama vetoed their bill.
Sessions’s response to this notion minced no words.
“I suggest that is a ludicrous position, one that goes beyond any rationality,” he said
“I don’t believe the president has a moral authority or the political clout to tell the American people that the Congress shut down the government when he vetoed a bill that would fund the government.”
The current spending bill would cut $28 million of the approximately $500 million Planned Parenthood receives; the remaining money is appropriated through Medicaid. To block those funds Congress would need to change existing Medicaid law and regulations.
But for pro-life conservatives, defunding Planned Parenthood is more than just a fight over a relatively small amount of money; it is literally a life-or-death proposition for hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
“It’s time for this Congress to do its duty and we should fund programs that need funding and don’t fund programs that don’t need funding,” Sessions said in his speech.
Senate leadership is contriving a plan to conduct what conservative groups such as Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, are warning is a “show vote,” as well as presenting a spending bill that doesn’t defund Planned Parenthood—forcing the House to either pass the “clean” bill or potentially take the blame for the shutdown.
Democrats blocked a Senate vote on a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks Tuesday morning. The new fiscal year begins October 1st.
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— Elizabeth BeShears (@LizEBeesh) January 21, 2015
