[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 13472]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           PLANNED PARENTHOOD

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, here is an excerpt from an article in the 
Republican leader's hometown newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal:

       Sara Hall started going to Planned Parenthood when she was 
     in her late teens and needed birth control, and she's gotten 
     care there ever since.
       Without them, ``I wouldn't have a doctor to see. I don't 
     know where I would have gone. It would have meant I wouldn't 
     get the care I needed.''

  Like Sara, millions of American women depend on Planned Parenthood 
for much needed health services. Every year, Planned Parenthood helps 
women, just like Sara, get the important services they need, such as 
birth control measures, but it is more than just birth control.
  Here are a few of the health services Planned Parenthood provides to 
American women, and they did it, for example, in 2013. Half a million 
women went to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening, 400,000 
women received a cervical exam from Planned Parenthood's medical staff, 
and 4.5 million treatments and tests for sexually transmitted diseases 
and infections were performed. Yet, here we are once again, faced with 
another Republican attempt to limit women's access to health care.
  A few hours from now, the Senate will vote on a Republican bill to 
defund Planned Parenthood. Let's understand what that vote means. 
Defunding Planned Parenthood would limit American women's access to 
critical health services, such as contraception, breast and cancer 
screenings, and well-women visits. This legislation is just another 
Republican attack on the health care of millions of women, like Sara 
from Kentucky.
  Over the past few months, Republicans have worked to trick American 
women into believing Republicans don't want to limit women's access to 
contraceptives or other critical health services provided by Planned 
Parenthood, but votes like the one we are going to take in a couple of 
hours lay bare the truth. The cold, hard fact is that a vote to defund 
Planned Parenthood is a vote to limit women's access to cancer 
screenings, contraceptives, and other important services that Planned 
Parenthood provides.
  Our Nation is already facing a shortage of primary care providers. 
For many women, Planned Parenthood is their preferred medical provider. 
One in five American women will go to Planned Parenthood for services 
at some time during their lives. Defunding Planned Parenthood and 
reducing the number of providers available for women to receive 
contraceptives and other critical health services would reduce women's 
access to good health, and more importantly, their access to care, 
which is very direct and to the point.
  To put it another way, the demand for care would still exist, but 
there would be fewer providers to render this care. And for many women, 
Planned Parenthood may be the only provider where they can seek medical 
help. Republicans are trying to eliminate their access to health 
centers.
  Last Thursday, I listened to the senior Senator from Texas, where he 
claimed this bill we are going to vote on soon would actually increase 
access to care for women. I am surprised this distinguished Member of 
the Senate, a longtime member of the Texas Supreme Court, would say 
something like that.
  He and other Republicans believe, I guess, that clinics like 
community health centers will pick up the slack should Planned 
Parenthood be defunded. That is simply not true. I am a strong 
supporter of community health centers. It is part of ObamaCare, the 
Affordable Care Act, because I believe in community health centers. We 
put billions of dollars in that bill, and during the years it has been 
in existence, it has done so much to provide help for community health 
centers, but we still have far, far much to do. There are not enough 
community health centers, even with what we have done, to increase 
their ability to meet the current demand. To throw in a few more women 
who have been knocked out of Planned Parenthood--and ``a few'' is a 
pejorative term; it would be millions of women--is wrong.
  The director of women's health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation 
says: ``Across the nation, Community health centers are already at 
capacity.''
  Take a look, for example, at the assistant Republican leader's home 
State of Texas. A recent report from George Washington University 
detailed what it would take for other providers to replace Planned 
Parenthood--exactly what the senior Senator from Texas has suggested.
  For example, in Midland County, TX, there would have to be an 
increase of 537 percent by non-Planned Parenthood clinics, if Planned 
Parenthood is defunded. Lubbock County would see an increase of 250 
percent. Community health centers cannot handle that, nor can they 
handle that increase in heavily populated Dallas County, where it would 
be an almost 200-percent increase.
  What the Republican legislation does is makes it nearly impossible 
for women who need medical attention to get the care they need. If 
women cannot go get health care from Planned Parenthood, where do they 
go?
  Take a look at what happened in the State of Indiana in 2011, when 
that State's legislature voted to deny State funding for Planned 
Parenthood health centers. Republicans then argued that other health 
care providers would bridge the gap and absorb Planned Parenthood 
patients. They asserted that other providers would take care of those 
women just fine.
  So what are those other health care providers for women that the 
Indiana Republicans said could take the place of the State's Planned 
Parenthood health centers? Prisons--listen to this--prisons, they 
suggested, juvenile detention centers, and homeless shelters. These are 
certainly not the kinds of places my Republican colleagues would want 
to send their daughters, sisters or wives for care.
  It is common sense--if you take away Planned Parenthood health 
centers, women will have no ability to access care, and most will go 
without the care they need.
  The Republican senior Senator from Maine agrees. Here is what she 
said:

       The problem is, in my state and many others, Planned 
     Parenthood is the primary provider of women's health services 
     in certain parts of my state. So I don't know how you would 
     ensure that all of the patients of Planned Parenthood could 
     be absorbed by alternative care providers.

  In Nevada, Planned Parenthood centers there serve about 22,000 
patients a year. Where will these patients go if the Republicans' 
legislation passes? I do not know. They will not get the care they 
need, that is for sure.
  Senate Republicans are not being fair to American women. They are 
trying to shift the responsibility to someone who does not exist.
  It is our responsibility in the Senate to ensure that American women 
have access to care. It is our obligation to protect our wives, our 
sisters, our daughters, and our granddaughters from the absurd policies 
of a Republican Party that has lost its moral compass. Today, Senate 
Democrats will do just that. This Planned Parenthood bill is not going 
anywhere in the Senate. Senate Democrats will fight this vigorously and 
any other attempt from Republicans to deprive American women health 
care.
  Mr. President, I do not see anyone here to speak. I would ask the 
Chair to announce the business of the day.

                          ____________________