Eleanor Holmes Norton: “Today, I come to the House floor to stand up for women's health. Republicans are using a heavily edited, agenda-driven…”

“Today, I come to the House floor to stand up for women's health. Republicans are using a heavily edited, agenda-driven series of videos that falsely portray Planned Parenthood's participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research. These outrageous and false claims about Planned Parenthood have been discredited. Edited and distorted video should not undermine the incredible work that Planned Parenthood does across this country in providing critical health care to millions of women. This bill to defund Planned Parenthood would not defund abortion. Only three percent of all health services provided by Planned Parenthood are abortion services, and these services already cannot be paid for with federal funding. What this bill would defund is basic health services for millions of women. Planned Parenthood provides family planning counseling and contraception to 2.1 million patients, 400,000 lifesaving screenings for cervical cancer, nearly 500,000 breast exams, and nearly 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Despite news this week that the number of uninsured Americans decreased by 8.8 million last year thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 33 million Americans still have no health insurance.…”