[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13500-13501]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

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      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 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.

[[Page 13501]]

  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.

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