Hundreds of pro-life activists from across the country gathered on Capitol Hill Thursday to push lawmakers to take advantage of rare oppor...
Hundreds of pro-life activists from across the country gathered on Capitol Hill Thursday to push lawmakers to take advantage of rare opportunity to defund abortion giant Planned Parenthood
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said that over 300 activists from 39 states would meet with congressional offices to urge lawmakers to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood through the budget reconciliation process. The last time Republicans had a similar opportunity to gut Planned Parenthood of its funding was in 2017, when the effort failed by one vote in the Senate.
Planned Parenthood was given around $699 million in taxpayer dollars in 2022-2023, according to its most recent annual report. The federal funding makes up about 34% of the organization’s annual revenue. The same report also revealed the organization ended the lives of nearly 400,000 unborn babies.
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser told The Daily Wire that the upcoming budget negotiations were the best chance for Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood in eight years.
“This is the biggest pot of Planned Parenthood and big abortion funding that the federal government is involved in,” she told The Daily Wire. “We provide $2 million a day for this so that they can spend $70 million last election cycle trying to defeat our candidates, unsuccessfully, thank goodness. But most importantly they are using it to build the institution of Planned Parenthood.”
In 2017, a similar effort fell short after the late Senator John McCain decided at the last minute not to back a reconciliation bill, leaving Republicans one vote short of defunding Planned Parenthood and repealing Obamacare.
Dannenfelser said now was the “perfect storm” to defund Planned Parenthood, given Republican control of the White House and Congress and the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency. She said that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)was the best speaker pro-lifers have ever worked on this issue.
“We’ve got a good shot,” she told The Daily Wire, saying that the lobby day was to keep a focus on the defunding so that it wouldn’t be negotiated away during the reconciliation process. The money that could be defunded through reconciliation would be $500 million to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid.
If successful, Dannenfelser said that it would be a monumental victory for the pro-life moment and could spell doom for Planned Parenthood.
“You take that amount of money away for one or two years, and I really do think for an already hobbled organization, it could just bring them down,” she said.
During a Thursday rally with several Republican lawmakers and pro-life activists, Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) said that Planned Parenthood was a “murder for profit organization” that should “never receive another penny of taxpayer dollars.” She added that she was making it her mission to “defund Planned Parenthood once and for all,” saying that its status as a non-profit should be revoked.
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) also spoke at the event, saying that Planned Parenthood was a “baby killing machine as they abort over a thousand babies every single day.”
Republicans have promised for years to defund Planned Parenthood after undercover videos published in 2015 showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of aborted baby parts and organs. Yet the abortion provider has continued to receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year.
The pro-life activists’ visit to Capitol Hill comes one day after 150 national and state pro-lifer organizations sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to take action to fully defund Planned Parenthood.