Posted on 03/11/2011 3:40:50 PM PST by jazusamo
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has come out in opposition to the House’s attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, making her the first Republican senator to do so.
“I believe Planned Parenthood provides vital services to those in need and disagree with their funding cuts in the bill,” Murkowski wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Vice Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “I ask you to consider these programs going forward to determine if there is room for allowing continued funding.”
In an e-mail to a constituent, Murkowski expanded on her position, also taking shots at the House Republicans’ attempts to end funding for Title X, the only federal program dedicated to reproductive health issues.
“I do believe that Planned Parenthood provides vital services to those in need and disagree with its funding cuts contained in the H.R. 1 package,” she wrote in a Friday e-mail, obtained by POLITICO. “From 2002-2008, Planned Parenthood received $342 million in federal taxpayer money through Title X funding alone. With these funds, Planned Parenthood has provided women throughout the U.S. with important family planning and contraceptive services as well as screening for breast and cervical cancers for low-income women. I believe it is important that Title X organizations continue to receive funding. In Alaska, this includes five centers — two health department clinics, two Planned Parenthood clinics in Sitka and Soldotna and one independent clinic.”
While the House’s long-term continuing resolution strips Planned Parenthood of all its federal funding, the letter comes on the heels of two, short-term continuing resolutions that leave their funding intact.
Social conservatives have petitioned the House leadership to make the defunding of Planned Parenthood a “nonnegotiable” in their budget talks with the Senate. But leadership has given them no such a promise.
Seven House Republicans voted against the amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, sponsored by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), during the continuing resolution debate.
Tokyo Rove is pleased
Mookowski is not a Republican. That’s why Americans worked to get her out of there. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out, THIS TIME!
Murkowski is only a Senator today due to the crossover vote of the Dems in Alaska. I look forward to her changing parties within the year.
Good, it’s appropriate.
Abortion rights foes look to spread fetal pain law - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_abortion_fetal_pain_laws
I agree, she’s going to vote with them most of the time anyway.
I believe you’re right. However, if she doesn’t voluntarily go over to her side, the GOP needs to give her the boot. Baby killers like Murkowski give the GOP a bad name.
Well said!
Funding not constitutional.
I’m pleased to say I opposed her in the last two primaries.
Too bad we have to wait until 2016 to get rid of this shrew! She doesn’t have a chance at re-election in 2016.
Too bad her mother didn’t utilize the services of this great humanitarian organization.
In the words of Minnasota democrats, recall campaign.
Just don’t caucus with the woman. That doesn’t seem to be all that difficult to do. The Republican senators, for the most part, have no difficulty NOT CAUCUSING with the traitorous Dick Durbin, or the genocidal maniac Patrick Leahy ~ just for a couple of examples.
It wasn’t the crossover dem socialists who put her back in office. It was the republican socialists here who went to the wall for her. We had a good republican candidate who had won the primary. The state repubs abandoned all their supposed principles to go for the money she could deliver. My disgust for the state republican party after this election pushed me out of the party and I feel a lot cleaner now.
No one should listen to her unless she provides a substitute cut of at least the same amount.
Otherwise, all you get is ...
“Don’t cut me
Don’t cut thee
Cut that guy behind the tree ...”
Mur COW ski is not a Republican in any sense of the word.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.