On CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) promised that there will be a major fight if Republicans try to run on defunding Planned Parenthood in 2016.
Video:
Transcript via CNN State Of The Union:
TAPPER: …of Planned Parenthood officials saying and doing things that even Planned Parenthood questions in terms of the glibness. Is there nothing on the video tapes that you saw that bothers you at all?
WARREN: Look, let’s remember what we were debating on the floor of the United States Senate and that was defunding Planned Parenthood. 2.7 million people get their health care from Planned Parenthood every year. One in every five women in America sometime in her life will get her health care from Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood, what does it mostly do? 97 percent of what Planned Parenthood does is about cancer screenings, about screenings for STDs, about birth control. Planned Parenthood is in more than half of all of the Planned Parenthood clinics are in places where there’s limited access to health care. So this, for many people, is their — for many women is their only health care provider, sometimes their principle health care provider. And the Republicans say the first issue that we’ve got to discuss and the number one thing — everything else can go forward on the budget or not go forward or we can cut everything else. The first thing we’ve got to do is defund Planned Parenthood. That means defunding health care for women.
And make no mistake, what this is really about is about women’s access to abortion. And even though not one federal dollar goes to pay for abortions through Planned Parenthood, the Republicans want to find one more way to make it harder, to make it impossible for a woman who is facing one of the most difficult decisions of her life. They want to find a way to make it harder on her to get the health care she needs. And all I can say is we’ve been in that world before.
When I talk about 1955 I’m talking about a world where women die. I’m talking about a world where women committed suicide rather than go forward with a pregnancy they could not handle. And what the Republicans are saying is they want to go back and I want to make it clear we are not going back. Not now. Not ever.
TAPPER: It’s too bad they’re not doing a straw poll here.
WARREN: Yes.
WARREN: I want to tell you something. We are doing the straw poll. It’s called the 2016 elections, and the Republicans want to get out there and they want to run on shutting down women’s access to cancer screenings and shutting down women’s access to birth control, and shutting down women’s access to not government-paid for abortions then they’re going to have a real fight on their hands. Let them do it.
What Sen. Warren is suggesting is that Democrats will be mobilized and go to the polls if Republicans try to defund Planned Parenthood. The Republican attack on Planned Parenthood is nothing more than a more sophisticated version of “legitimate rape” and other tactics that the right has used as a method of firing up their anti-choice supporters before Election Day.
Instead of attacking individual women, Republicans have decided to demonize an organization that provides healthcare services to women. It is the same game as 2008 and 2012, but the right has thrown in some edited videos and show hearings in front of Congressional committees.
Sen. Warren was correct. Democrats will defend Planned Parenthood in Congress, the White House and at the polls. Republicans are picking another fight that they are destined to lose.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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