U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole has called on Congress to stop funding for Planned Parenthood because the non-profit organization provides abortions.
Dole, a Salisbury Republican seeking re-election next year, joined 12 other Republicans in signing a letter to Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations, and Rep. David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, reports Barb Barrett.
The group of senators asks the appropriations committees to suspend all federal funding for “organizations that promote abortion.” The signers say Planned Parenthood Federation of America receives $300 million a year from the federal government.
The letter, spearheaded by Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and David Vitter of Louisiana, comes in the wake of charges against Planned Parenthood in Kansas by a local district attorney who opposes abortion rights.
There, the organization is accused of performing late-term abortions against state law and not maintaining proper medical records. The clinics have denied wrongdoing.
Read more after the jump.
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The letter signed by Dole calls the case an example of a “troubling trend.”
“We should not use tax dollars to subsidize abortion clinics - particularly when there are serious concerns regarding their compliance with state law and medical standards,” the letter says.
Vitter had pushed a Senate amendment to the health funding bill this year to ban family-planning funding to groups that use non-federal dollars to offer abortions, but the amendment failed.
