Rep. Reid Ribble (R., Wis.) defended House Republicans’ strategy of defunding Planned Parenthood while also keeping the government running, as the body passed a bill that denies the organization funding for a year while Congress investigates it for potential illegal activity.
Ribble said Friday that he also supports a provision in the legislation that would reallocate money to community health centers nationwide that provide prenatal services to low-income residents but do not perform abortions.
Planned Parenthood has come under heightened scrutiny in recent weeks after a series of undercover videos, filmed by the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress, raised questions about whether the nation’s leading provider of abortions has been illegally selling fetal tissue for profit.
"Stop and think what the left is trying to convince us of," he said. "They’re trying to tell us that human life has no value, but the individual body parts do. And that’s an astounding thing to say when they’re trafficking and selling human fetal tissue and organs."
The bill that temporarily defunds Planned Parenthood, introduced by Rep. Diane Black (R., Tenn.), shifts federal funding to an estimated 13,500 local clinics across the country that provide health care to underserved communities. According to a press release from Black, the legislation also boosts funding to these community health centers by $235 million. Planned Parenthood has about 700 clinics in the United States.
Ribble said he would be willing to provide even more funding to local health centers to put Democrats on the spot about their support for women’s health care. Black’s bill forces Democrats to state whether they are devoted to ensuring health care services for women or are more beholden to Planned Parenthood, which receives about $500 million annually in federal funding, he said.
"What if we doubled the money and went to $1 billion and said, ‘We’re going to send that to community health centers dedicated to women’s health care?’" he said.
Black’s bill will likely be halted in the Senate, or vetoed by President Obama if it reaches his desk. Some House conservatives are pushing for a budget reconciliation process in the Senate that would ensure that legislation defunding Planned Parenthood reaches the White House with a simple majority vote.
However, if that measure is tied to a short-term resolution funding the government and is vetoed by Obama, it would shut down federal agencies and force Republicans to again defend a strategy of closing the government to achieve unattainable policy ends, critics say. House conservatives are currently in talks with the leadership about ways to avoid a shutdown, including legislation separate from funding resolutions that would either redirect all Planned Parenthood money to community health centers or defund the group if it is charged with criminal wrongdoing. A temporary spending measure must be passed by Oct. 1 to keep the government operating.
Shutting down the government "will not result in the win that you want," Ribble said. Instead, Republicans should attempt to put Democrats and Obama on the record about the sale of fetal tissue, and seek other statutory means of banning the practice entirely.
"Whoever sits in the White House at the time generally wins shutdown debates," he said.
Ribble, vice chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, was also critical of Obama’s decision not to provide weapons to Ukrainian forces battling Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of their country. Nearly 8,000 people have been killed in the Ukrainian conflict since last April.
President Vladimir Putin has pursued an incremental strategy to project the Kremlin’s power into the former Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, he said, including the stealth seizure of the Crimean Peninsula and a steady supply of weapons, troops, and money to aid Ukrainian rebels. Russia is now deploying naval infantry forces, battle tanks, artillery, and other equipment to bolster President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and exert more influence in the Middle East.
"I believe [Putin’s] intention is at some point to see the old Soviet boundaries reinstated, and he will use this a bite at a time to do it," he said.
"Look at the world’s reaction to Crimea," he added. "There was none. There was this stomping of our feet, and we’re really mad, but nothing else happened. So Putin feels empowered."