[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 124 (Monday, August 3, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6241-S6242]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
By Ms. COLLINS (for herself, Mr. Kirk, and Ms. Murkowski):
S. 1917. A bill to prohibit the provision of Federal funds to an
entity that receives compensation for facilitating the donation of
fetal tissue derived from an abortion; to the Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, this afternoon the Senate will be voting
on a motion to proceed to a bill that would completely eliminate all
Federal funding for Planned Parenthood. While I do not support this
legislation, I have received assurances from the majority leader that
should the motion to proceed succeed, there will be ample opportunity
to offer amendments. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity
to propose an alternative approach which Senator Kirk and I will offer
as a substitute for the bill.
Throughout my service in the Senate, I have been a strong proponent
of family planning and measures to promote and protect women's health.
The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions in this
country is to ensure that women have access to family planning services
they need to protect against unintended pregnancies. That is why I have
long supported title X family planning programs.
My support for family planning aside, however, I was sickened when I
viewed the recently released videos featuring Planned Parenthood
physicians in both their edited and unedited versions. The callousness
with which Planned Parenthood employees discuss the sale of fetal
tissue is appalling. It deserves our attention. The videos also raise
valid questions about the ethics and legality of Planned Parenthood's
practices in some of its clinics, albeit a minority of its clinics. As
a result, I believe a full investigation is warranted to determine
whether Planned Parenthood broke the law prohibiting the sale of fetal
tissue.
Reviews by State medical boards are also warranted because it appears
that some Planned Parenthood doctors may have been putting the
procurement of fetal organs ahead of the well-being of their patients.
We do, however, need to keep in mind the fact that Planned Parenthood
provides important family planning, cancer screening, and basic
preventive health care to millions of women across this country. For
many women, Planned Parenthood clinics provide the only health care
services they receive. The title X Federal family planning funding that
goes to Planned Parenthood already cannot be used for abortions, and
the Federal Medicaid funding it receives can only be used for abortions
in the case of rape, incest, and where the life of the mother is at
risk. In other words, the Hyde amendment--which has been on the books
for so many years--applies fully to this Federal funding.
Some contend that other health care providers such as community
health centers could somehow fill the gap in family planning and other
women's health services if Federal funding were to be cut off to
Planned Parenthood. In my State, the four Planned Parenthood clinics
see almost 40 percent of the patients seeking title X family planning
services, and they treat virtually all of the patients seeking those
services in southern Maine. By way of contrast, the 20 community health
sites in Maine that receive title X funding see just 17 percent of the
patients seeking those services. If we were to defund Planned
Parenthood, other family planning clinics in Maine, including community
health centers, would see a 63-percent increase in their patient load.
They would be forced to absorb 8,583 more patients if Federal funds to
Planned Parenthood were eliminated. Moreover, these other family
planning clinics are predominantly in central, western, and the
northern parts of my State. None is in the area that is served by
Planned Parenthood in southern Maine. I don't see how we can ensure
that all of the patients currently served by Planned Parenthood can be
absorbed by alternative health care providers.
The bill that has been proposed by several of my colleagues would
require women to give up the health care provider of their choice, when
we don't yet know all of the facts about Planned Parenthood's actions.
Therefore, I am joining my colleague from Illinois Senator Kirk in
introducing legislation, which we intend to turn into an amendment if
we proceed to this bill, that would require the Department of Justice
to investigate whether Planned Parenthood or its affiliates have
engaged in any illegal activity pertaining to fetal tissue and support
a report to Congress on its findings within 90 days.
Activities involving fetal tissue have no relationship to Planned
Parenthood's primary mission of promoting and protecting women's
health. While Planned Parenthood claims that only a very small number
of its affiliates engage in the sale of fetal organs and tissue, let's
determine the facts. Those organizations that do engage in this
reprehensible practice are the ones that have sparked this outrage and
rightly so. I believe these are the organizations that should be the
focus of our efforts. I know none of the Planned Parenthood clinics in
my State engage in the practice of the procurement and sale of fetal
tissue. I think we should keep in mind that we can come up with a more
tailored and targeted approach that is
[[Page S6242]]
aimed at those clinics that do engage in this practice.
Therefore, our legislation would defund any affiliate or subsidiary
of Planned Parenthood Federation of America that received any
compensation for engaging in these activities.
So the more targeted approach proposed by Senator Kirk and me
accomplishes three important goals: First, it would not cause women
served by Planned Parenthood clinics that do not engage in these
reprehensible fetal tissue sales to lose their health care provider for
basic services like family planning and cancer screening. After all,
many of us have been critical of ObamaCare because it has forced
families in this country to give up the doctor of their choice. Well,
that is what this amendment would do. It would require women and other
patients to find alternative health care providers, even if their
Planned Parenthood clinic has done nothing wrong and is not engaged in
the reprehensible sale of fetal tissue. How is that fair? How is that a
targeted approach?
Second, our legislation would allow Congress to get the facts to
determine if those few Planned Parenthood affiliates that do engage in
fetal tissue procurement have broken Federal law and violated medical
ethics. We need to know the answer to those questions, and we need to
know how widespread this practice actually is.
Third, our legislation would defund those affiliates, subsidiaries,
and clinics that do receive compensation for procuring fetal organs and
tissues, thus putting an end to this reprehensible trafficking in fetal
tissue.
I believe the proposal that Senator Kirk and I offer to our
colleagues is a more targeted approach, a fairer approach, an approach
that will be based on the facts, and is the best way forward as we deal
with this important issue. I encourage my colleagues to join us in
support of our more targeted legislation.
This is the bill that should we proceed to the underlying
legislation, would be offered as a substitute to the bill by Senator
Kirk and me.
____________________