DeLauro Leads Charge to Defend Planned Parenthood, Critical Access to Care

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3), Ranking Member on the Labor, Health, and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, gave the following remarks of the floor of the United States House of Representatives during the debate on the Republican majority’s proposed Continuing Resolution.

Congresswoman DeLauro spoke against the amendment offered by Representative Mike Pence (IN-6), which would strip all funding from Planned Parenthood of America, leading a group of more than a dozen Democratic men and women in defense of this vital organization.

We were told by our Republican colleagues they were here to create jobs, to turn the economy around, and to reduce the deficit. But here they go again, spending time on an extreme and divisive social agenda.

In a breathtaking and radical step, the Republican majority has already proposed to eliminate Title X funding, which has connected millions of American women to health care since 1970. And now this amendment by the Congressman from Indiana continues the same pattern of contempt for women's health and basic rights.

With this amendment, my colleague is trying to specifically exclude one provider of legal health services, Planned Parenthood, from federal funds. This amendment has nothing to do with the deficit. It is an attack by one congressman on one organization, and it needlessly puts the lives of American women in danger.

Planned Parenthood carries out millions of preventative and primary care services every year. This includes immunizations and routine gynecological exams. This includes nearly one million screenings for cervical cancer, identifying more than 90,000 women who are at risk for cervical cancer. Cervical cancer every year kills 4,000 women. If you can identify the risk early on, then you can save a woman's life.

Planned Parenthood cares for more than three million American men and women every year. In my state of Connecticut, more than 62,000 men and women benefit from health care at Planned Parenthood clinics. Over 70 percent of those patients have a family income of less than $16,245 a year. In other words, this is the only way that they can afford care. In fact, six of every 10 women who seek care at a Title X funded center, like Planned Parenthood, consider it their main source of medical care.

The vital preventative care and family planning services supported by Title X save money and save lives. For every dollar invested in Title X, taxpayers save just under $4. But under the guise of budget cutting, the new majority is launching an assault on Title X and endangering women's health. Understand their purpose, understand it clearly: to impose their traditional view of a woman's role.

This legislation is not about federal funding of abortion. Federal funds, including Title X, are already banned from going towards abortion services under the Hyde amendment. Rather, much like the repeal of health care reform, this is part of a Republican agenda to force women back in traditional roles with limited opportunities. This amendment will cause more than three million people to lose access to basic primary and preventative health care.

I am a cancer survivor. I am a cancer survivor who is only here because my cancer was found in stage 1. And I can tell you that losing access to screening will cost lives and will kill women in this country. It comes down to this— the proposal to eliminate Title X, defund Planned Parenthood, are bad policy that hurt women and do nothing for our economy. In fact, it costs money.

This Republican congress is trying to turn back the clock on women's health and turn back the clock on women's basic rights. They are taking us back to a day when family planning was not a given opportunity for women. And instead of making it harder for women to get health care, we should be standing up for these vital services. I encourage and urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment.