Family planning funds targeted by GOP

The new Congress also continues to be embroiled in battles surrounding the issue of abortion restrictions, which GOP house lawmakers have made a priority.

Politico: GOP Targets Family Planning Program
Republicans are looking to wipe out funding for Title X, a 40-year-old family planning program. … The cuts are part of the continuing resolution, a Republican spending proposal released Wednesday (Kliff, 2/9).

The Hill: Republicans Launch New Effort To Defund Planned Parenthood In Spending Plan
In a new Republican effort to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, a new spending proposal announced Wednesday would strip away all Title X family planning funds for low-income individuals. The seven-month continuing resolution offered by House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) would remove all $327 million from the Title X program as the GOP pushes a bill that would block such funding to Planned Parenthood and other groups that offer abortion services. Planned Parenthood called it an "extreme proposal" (Millman, 2/9).

The Associated Press: Abortion Wars Break Out In Congress
House Republican leaders have made new restrictions on abortion one of their top priorities, pushing a divisive issue to the forefront of the congressional agenda. Democrats say legislation imposing those restrictions would send women back to the days of back-alley abortionists, while Republicans say the main goal is to make a hodgepodge of existing temporary curbs into a single permanent one (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/10).

CQ HealthBeat: Abortion Issues Continue To Spark Emotional Debate
House Republicans hit back Wednesday at Democratic arguments that legislation considered in a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee would put women at risk of dying because the measure would give legal protections to doctors who don't want to perform abortions. The bill (HR 358) by Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts, R-Pa., would ensure that no federal funds were used to pay for abortions. Because it also would give legal rights to physicians and other medical providers to refrain from assisting in abortions, some Democrats say that the law would circumvent federal requirements that hospitals must stabilize a patient who shows up at a hospital needing emergency care (Adams, 2/9).