Republican Offers Compromise on Planned Parenthood to Avoid Government Shutdown

Protesters outside of Planned Parenthood headquarters in New York City. (Photo: Getty Images)

With many Republicans threatening a government shutdown in lieu of passing a budget for the upcoming fiscal year that would continue to provide federal funding for the family planning and cancer screening services provided by Planned Parenthood, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), has announced what he describes as a compromise measure to keep the government up and running while still ensuring care for those who need it most.

The New York Times reports that Dent has suggested that a bill be drafted that would cut off federal funding only from those Planned Parenthood affiliates who “sell” fetal tissue.

It is an interesting measure — and choice of verbiage — as while there are only seven clinics in three total states nationwide that participate in fetal tissue donation programs, no Planned Parenthood affiliate clinics have been found to “sell” fetal tissue for any kind of profit.

Rather, per federal regulations, providers participating in fetal tissue donation must be compensated for any costs affiliated with the collection, preparation, storage and transport of fetal tissue samples donated for biomedical research.

Related: House Chairman Subpoenas Uncut Planned Parenthood Videos

The controversy over the federal funding of Planned Parenthood, and of fetal tissue donation itself, began earlier this summer with the release of a series of undercover “sting” videos by an antiabortion activist group calling themselves the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), and accusing the women’s healthcare provider of illegally profiting from fetal tissue donation.

The videos themselves have been widely discredited, five states have already closed investigations into Planned Parenthood and found them free of any wrongdoing, and the CMP itself now faces a host of legal issues regarding the means by which their videos were produced. Fetal tissue donation and research is a long-standing, legal practice in the United States, leading to such medical breakthroughs as the development of the polio, rubella, and chicken pox vaccines. It is thought by many scientists that the cures for Alzheimer’s and several forms of cancer will be found through fetal tissue research.

While Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mark S. Kirk of Illinois and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have also proposed a measure that would eliminate funding only to those clinics that participate in fetal tissue donation, Dent’s proposal also provides for a mandatory 90-day investigation into Planned Parenthood by the U.S. Attorney General’s office and additional restrictions on the ways physicians are able to perform abortions when a woman has given her consent to donate her fetal tissue.

Related: 5 Troubling Flaws in Texas’s Investigation of Planned Parenthood

Meanwhile, a new poll conducted by CNN-ORC International released yesterday found that 71 percent of Americans think it is more important for Congress to approve a budget agreement that would avoid a government shutdown; in contrast, 22 percent responded that they thought it was more important for Congress to eliminate federal funding to Planned Parenthood altogether.

Additionally, 26 percent of those polled stated their belief that abortion should be legal under any circumstance, with an additional 13 percent expressing that abortion should be legal in most circumstances and 40 percent saying abortion should be legal in a few circumstances.

Per federal law, presently no federal funding received by Planned Parenthood may be used for abortion care.

Read This Next: Understanding Fetal Tissue Donation — and Why It’s Such a Divisive Topic

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