WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-5) addressed House Republicans' marathon budget hearing, where she offered an amendment that would strike the GOP Tax Scam’s provision defunding Planned Parenthood. Below are excerpts from Whip Clark's testimony:
On Her Amendment Protecting Planned Parenthood:
"I’m offering an additional amendment that strikes a provision that would defund Planned Parenthood.
"Speaker Johnson recently said about this provision, it is about going after 'Big Abortion.'
"But he knows better than that. We all know the federal government doesn’t pay for abortion care. We all know Republicans have already decimated access to safe abortions in this country.
"So what does this provision actually do? It further defunds women’s health care.
"It defunds cancer screenings, prenatal care, postpartum services, fertility treatments, preventive care.
"96% of Planned Parenthood’s clinical work has nothing to do with abortion, but everything to do with serving millions of women — most of them, overwhelmingly, in rural and under-served areas — who are having a hard time finding reproductive care — or any health care — especially in states with abortion bans.
"Faced with either breaking the law or breaking their oath to put patients first, OB/GYNs are packing up and leaving. As a result, 35% of counties in America don’t have a single obstetrician. In Georgia, it’s 42%. In Texas, it’s 50%.
"Clinics are shutting down, while maternal mortality is on the rise. Infant mortality is up for the first time in decades.
"How does this bill respond to this Republican-manufactured crisis? It piles on. It makes it even harder for women to find care. Without this amendment, it would shut down nearly 600 community health centers run by Planned Parenthood, 64% of which serve medical deserts.
"These are communities that don’t have enough health care providers as it is. These are women who overwhelmingly live in rural areas. These are women that you represent.
"If Planned Parenthood is defunded, 7,500 South Carolinians will lose their doctor. All of them, 100%, live in a medical deserts that lack other options.
"9,200 Georgians are on the edge of the same cliff — 75% in medical deserts.
"22,000 Hoosiers — 82%.
"24,000 Virginians — 50%.
"37,000 North Carolinians — 67%.
"51,000 Minnesotans — 69%.
"118,000 Texans count on Planned Parenthood, in a state where babies and pregnant women are dying at a historic rate. Two thirds of [those] Texans live in medical deserts.
"And 141,000 New Yorkers are about to see 47 clinics boarded up — 61% of them in the neediest areas in New York State.
"Millions of women are counting on their Representatives to make the right decision. Women like Sheryl from North Carolina, who years ago was overdue for a Pap smear. But, she didn’t have insurance — and she kept putting it off.
"A friend mentioned Planned Parenthood would provide this free of charge. She booked an appointment, got checked, and it came back abnormal. They caught it early, and the cancer was removed. Sheryl credits Planned Parenthood with saving her life.
"A lot of stories begin like Sheryl’s. They should all end in the same way: with health care that saves lives.
"I hope this amendment gives you all pause. When the women in this country deserve health care. And I hope you will think about the moms struggling to get by and stay healthy for the sake of their children and their families.
"It is not too late. Do right by them. Make this amendment in order for Floor consideration."
On the Threat Republicans’ Bill Poses to Women’s Health:
"Let's bust this myth once and for all, because we have two things going on here:
"We have the nearly 14 million Americans — including many women, seniors, moms, pregnant moms — who are going to have their health care taken away from them totally. And that impacts health care centers, FQHCs.
"Medicaid is the single largest source of payments — reimbursements — for our FQHCs. And this is what's always pointed to by the Right, as if they will just pick up these services for women out of these defunded clinics for Planned Parenthood.
"It is impossible, at the same time that you are cutting Medicaid to these clinics. In Massachusetts alone, that'll be an almost $1.2 billion cut to these health centers and saying, if you're going to pick up what Planned Parenthood provides, you would have to increase the capacity of our FQHCs by 56%.
"So we're going to take away Medicaid over here, and then we're going to say: Magically increase capacity by 56% to serve the women who will no longer have a place to get the cancer screenings, the prenatal care, the fertility treatments, contraception, reproductive health care that they need and that is increasingly difficult to find."
On the Impact of Republican Abortion Bans on Top of Medicaid Cuts:
"Pregnancy is often complicated and it needs interventions, and we want safe outcomes. The way we get that is good prenatal care and being able to find that within a 50-mile drive from your home. And with the abortion bans, that is becoming out of reach for so many people.
"And it compounds the cruelty in this bill that is already there in all that they are taking away from women and children and families — from their health care, from food programs, public schools, the list goes on. For the cynical exercise of giving tax cuts to people who are too wealthy to need them, or maybe even notice them. So we have to keep our eye focused on what is happening.
"And with this amendment, it may seem like a sort of insignificant or a very detailed part of this overall package, but the themes are the same. And at the end of the day, it is denial of health care for women in this country.
"And at the same time, we have a White House lamenting, 'why aren't women having children? Maybe we'll give them $5,000.'
"If you don't have a safe place to have a child, if you cannot guarantee that you will survive, have the medical attention that you will need, and if you're able to have that child, that that child will be able to access health care, that you'll be able to find affordable, quality child care near where you go to work, that you will be able to have the fundamentals of housing to be able to put a life together.
"A recent study showed the majority of families in this country — 60% of families — cannot afford the basics. And what they're saying in this, and what makes it so pernicious, is this has no place in a reconciliation bill. This is ideology and this is policy. And this is saying we don't like abortion providers, and it's not enough to outlaw them in our own states, to deny that care in those states. If there is an affiliate or a subsidiary in any state, then we will shut down the clinic that is not providing abortion care, but is providing this critical primary care for women. That doesn't belong in this bill either.
"And it is part of the pattern and the theme of this bill that the American family is put last. And we are making the winner's circle so very small, and it doesn't include women in this country, it doesn't include working families, it doesn't include seniors and veterans and the 99.9% of people who get up and work hard every single day and want to have a future for their children, a place in this economy, want their small business to survive this tariff regime, want to be able to put a life together that has hope. And instead we're offering them ideology wrapped up as health care?
"It is a cruelty, and it is a shame. And that is why we have seen the Democratic Caucus and the American people united against this bill."
On Her Amendment Protecting Planned Parenthood:
"I’m offering an additional amendment that strikes a provision that would defund Planned Parenthood.
"Speaker Johnson recently said about this provision, it is about going after 'Big Abortion.'
"But he knows better than that. We all know the federal government doesn’t pay for abortion care. We all know Republicans have already decimated access to safe abortions in this country.
"So what does this provision actually do? It further defunds women’s health care.
"It defunds cancer screenings, prenatal care, postpartum services, fertility treatments, preventive care.
"96% of Planned Parenthood’s clinical work has nothing to do with abortion, but everything to do with serving millions of women — most of them, overwhelmingly, in rural and under-served areas — who are having a hard time finding reproductive care — or any health care — especially in states with abortion bans.
"Faced with either breaking the law or breaking their oath to put patients first, OB/GYNs are packing up and leaving. As a result, 35% of counties in America don’t have a single obstetrician. In Georgia, it’s 42%. In Texas, it’s 50%.
"Clinics are shutting down, while maternal mortality is on the rise. Infant mortality is up for the first time in decades.
"How does this bill respond to this Republican-manufactured crisis? It piles on. It makes it even harder for women to find care. Without this amendment, it would shut down nearly 600 community health centers run by Planned Parenthood, 64% of which serve medical deserts.
"These are communities that don’t have enough health care providers as it is. These are women who overwhelmingly live in rural areas. These are women that you represent.
"If Planned Parenthood is defunded, 7,500 South Carolinians will lose their doctor. All of them, 100%, live in a medical deserts that lack other options.
"9,200 Georgians are on the edge of the same cliff — 75% in medical deserts.
"22,000 Hoosiers — 82%.
"24,000 Virginians — 50%.
"37,000 North Carolinians — 67%.
"51,000 Minnesotans — 69%.
"118,000 Texans count on Planned Parenthood, in a state where babies and pregnant women are dying at a historic rate. Two thirds of [those] Texans live in medical deserts.
"And 141,000 New Yorkers are about to see 47 clinics boarded up — 61% of them in the neediest areas in New York State.
"Millions of women are counting on their Representatives to make the right decision. Women like Sheryl from North Carolina, who years ago was overdue for a Pap smear. But, she didn’t have insurance — and she kept putting it off.
"A friend mentioned Planned Parenthood would provide this free of charge. She booked an appointment, got checked, and it came back abnormal. They caught it early, and the cancer was removed. Sheryl credits Planned Parenthood with saving her life.
"A lot of stories begin like Sheryl’s. They should all end in the same way: with health care that saves lives.
"I hope this amendment gives you all pause. When the women in this country deserve health care. And I hope you will think about the moms struggling to get by and stay healthy for the sake of their children and their families.
"It is not too late. Do right by them. Make this amendment in order for Floor consideration."
On the Threat Republicans’ Bill Poses to Women’s Health:
"Let's bust this myth once and for all, because we have two things going on here:
"We have the nearly 14 million Americans — including many women, seniors, moms, pregnant moms — who are going to have their health care taken away from them totally. And that impacts health care centers, FQHCs.
"Medicaid is the single largest source of payments — reimbursements — for our FQHCs. And this is what's always pointed to by the Right, as if they will just pick up these services for women out of these defunded clinics for Planned Parenthood.
"It is impossible, at the same time that you are cutting Medicaid to these clinics. In Massachusetts alone, that'll be an almost $1.2 billion cut to these health centers and saying, if you're going to pick up what Planned Parenthood provides, you would have to increase the capacity of our FQHCs by 56%.
"So we're going to take away Medicaid over here, and then we're going to say: Magically increase capacity by 56% to serve the women who will no longer have a place to get the cancer screenings, the prenatal care, the fertility treatments, contraception, reproductive health care that they need and that is increasingly difficult to find."
On the Impact of Republican Abortion Bans on Top of Medicaid Cuts:
"Pregnancy is often complicated and it needs interventions, and we want safe outcomes. The way we get that is good prenatal care and being able to find that within a 50-mile drive from your home. And with the abortion bans, that is becoming out of reach for so many people.
"And it compounds the cruelty in this bill that is already there in all that they are taking away from women and children and families — from their health care, from food programs, public schools, the list goes on. For the cynical exercise of giving tax cuts to people who are too wealthy to need them, or maybe even notice them. So we have to keep our eye focused on what is happening.
"And with this amendment, it may seem like a sort of insignificant or a very detailed part of this overall package, but the themes are the same. And at the end of the day, it is denial of health care for women in this country.
"And at the same time, we have a White House lamenting, 'why aren't women having children? Maybe we'll give them $5,000.'
"If you don't have a safe place to have a child, if you cannot guarantee that you will survive, have the medical attention that you will need, and if you're able to have that child, that that child will be able to access health care, that you'll be able to find affordable, quality child care near where you go to work, that you will be able to have the fundamentals of housing to be able to put a life together.
"A recent study showed the majority of families in this country — 60% of families — cannot afford the basics. And what they're saying in this, and what makes it so pernicious, is this has no place in a reconciliation bill. This is ideology and this is policy. And this is saying we don't like abortion providers, and it's not enough to outlaw them in our own states, to deny that care in those states. If there is an affiliate or a subsidiary in any state, then we will shut down the clinic that is not providing abortion care, but is providing this critical primary care for women. That doesn't belong in this bill either.
"And it is part of the pattern and the theme of this bill that the American family is put last. And we are making the winner's circle so very small, and it doesn't include women in this country, it doesn't include working families, it doesn't include seniors and veterans and the 99.9% of people who get up and work hard every single day and want to have a future for their children, a place in this economy, want their small business to survive this tariff regime, want to be able to put a life together that has hope. And instead we're offering them ideology wrapped up as health care?
"It is a cruelty, and it is a shame. And that is why we have seen the Democratic Caucus and the American people united against this bill."
To view Whip Clark's full remarks, click HERE. |
# # #