Political Quotes

“we should understand what we are voting on. We are about to vote on a resolution to decide when, not whether we release funds, but when. Somebody said yesterday that this vote is about an additional $123 million for groups that fund abortion. That is absolutely false. We have appropriated this money. There is no additional money. In fact, we are voting to spend and release $160 million less than we appropriated 2 years ago. So whether or not this resolution passes this afternoon, the funds are going to be spent anyway. It is just a question of when. We should also understand that U.S. law, which all of us have supported, says that none of this money can be used to pay for abortions anywhere, and very careful audits have been made of this money, and nobody has shown that a cent of it has ever been used to promote abortion. Some say we will have another population funding vote maybe later this week. That is not going to happen. This is the only vote on family planning. Do we vote to release the money now, that is March 1, or July 1? That is all it is. But if we delay, we are using the ultimate arrogance. We are saying we know better than you; you cannot have family planning money. Let me tell you what happens when we spend it. In Russia, abortion was routinely used as a method for family planning. In the 4 years since we started family planning programs there, just by increasing the number of contraceptives by 5 percent, the number of abortions fell 800,000.”