Washington, DC Legislative Alert

Over the weekend and this morning, I have been in consultation with our Office of Government Affairs in Washington, DC.  It appears that this Thursday, we will see a host of amendments going through the various subcommittees of the larger Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives.  A vast majority of the time, these renewals of language or increases in funding go unnoticed by the public simply because of the route they take.  No one really watches what goes on in subcommittees, which is why this week is so important.

Congress will be considering an increase in funding that would go to groups like Planned Parenthood.  Reports this morning indicate that the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education will be dealing with a $100 million increase in Title X funding.  This is an unprecedented expansion of taxpayer funding that could end up in the hands of groups like Planned Parenthood.

For the past twelve years, the former pro-life majority in the House has protected amendments like the Dickey-Wicker language that prohibits federal funding for harmful human embryonic stem cell research.  In recent years, the pro-life majority has kept the Title X funding level at $283 million per year.  Yet with the sea of change that took place last November, what has been taken for granted in the past six Congresses is now in jeopardy. With no pro-life majority to protect the Dickey-Wicker language, the pro-abortion members in the Labor, HHS and Education Subcommittee can simply choose not to renew the language, opening the door for our tax dollars to be used for the destruction of human embryos in the name of research.  With no pro-life majority to block an increase in funding, Planned Parenthood has asked that $100 million dollars more be added to Title X funding for the next fiscal years.  And from what I am hearing from our Government Affairs team, there is a good chance Planned Parenthood's request will be granted by its friends on the Subcommittee.

We are going to be dealing with this issue on the radio broadcast today.  Our Government Affairs team has already swung into action.  Drew Ryun, our Director of the Office of Government Affairs, and Than Bennett, our Deputy Director, have been meeting with House staff members, and we are putting together a legislative strategy to defeat this increased funding initiative. We are also reviewing legal options as this matter comes to the Floor of the House of Representatives.

We have posted to the website a Petition to Stop Title X Funding Increase and encourage you to sign on by clicking here.  This is going to be a very quick-moving bill that could be out of Committee as early as Thursday and on to the Floor of the House as early as the week of June 10th.  The irony, of course, is that while some in the House have been trying to limit funding for the War on Terror, at the very same time, an increase in Title X funding for groups like Planned Parenthood is being attempted.  We will keep you posted as this matter progresses.