By Annie Laurie Gaylor
Co-President
Freedom From Religion Foundation
Today's 241-187 vote along party lines by the U.S. House to strip Planned Parenthood of $500 million in federal family planning funds for a year is a disgrace.
Even though more rational heads are expected to prevail in the Senate were it to come to a vote there, it's an insult to American women — who have a constitutional right to privacy — to see the male-dominated House of Representatives play political football with their lives and civil liberties. If enacted, this could cut off contraceptive and health care access for as many as 600,000 patients, resulting, of course in many more unplanned pregnancies and abortions.
Lawmakers also passed a bill tightening restrictions on physicians who perform abortions.
Is it a coincidence that the antiabortion and anticontraceptive hysteria is rising in this week before the ballyhooed address to a joint session of Congress by Pope Francis? That diehards are still threatening a government shutdown if Planned Parenthood isn't defunded? Thirty-one House members are still vowing not to vote for the spending bill, with five legislative days left to avert the shutdown.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation early next week will announce its media campaign to call attention to the unseemly union between church and state entailed by the Congressional invitation to the pope to address them next Thursday.
Stay tuned.
For more background, read Annie Laurie's blog, "Stop witch hunts against Planned Parenthood, stem-cell research," at FFRF's new Freethought Now! blog site at Patheos.