House Passes Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood

The House passed two abortion-related bills on Friday, one of which would take away funding for Planned Parenthood if they do not stop performing abortions.

Senate Democrats have enough votes to block the two bills and the White House has promised to veto them. 

The bill does not include abortions for unwanted pregnancy as a result of rape, incest, or if the woman suffers from any physical injury or illness that would put a woman's life in danger if an abortion was not performed. 

Conservative Republicans are moving ahead with the bills after secretly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing taking tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research was made available to the public.

Carly Fiorina targeted Planned Parenthood and top Democrats during the second GOP debate.

"I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes, watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking," Fiorina said.

Planned Parenthood shot back calling Fiorina's claims "completely false" and went on to say the videos were "heavily edited."  One of the fetuses came from a woman who had miscarried, Planned Parenthood wrote in a letter to the Republican presidential candidate. 

Clinton also responded to the outrage over the Planned Parenthood videos.

"Planned Parenthood has served to provide necessary healthcare for millions of women," the former Secretary of State said in an interview with CNN.

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The federal government could shutdown at the end of the month over this Planned Parenthood funding issue is not resolved by Oct. 1.

Planned Parenthood gets approximately $450 million a year from federal funding mostly through Medicaid reimbursements, according to the Congressional Budget Office. A majority of the money goes to contraceptive counseling, pregnancy testing, and other healthcare services for women. Federal money can only be used on circumstantial abortions, like ones needed because the mother is at risk of dying. 

With over 700 clinics across the country, federal funding is only about one-third of Planned Parenthood's $1.3 billion annual budget. 

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