“Women will have a tremendous amount at stake today when anti-abortion extremists in the Senate try to defund Planned Parenthood this afternoon. Dangerous, irresponsible political maneuvers like this can have real-life consequences; if any effort to defund Planned Parenthood succeeds, millions of women will lose access to the care they need and their health will suffer terribly.

All responsible lawmakers should condemn the anti-abortion fanatics who released heavily edited, misleading videos. Planned Parenthood is a trusted health care provider that 2.7 million women rely on each year for reproductive health care of all kinds, including birth control, potentially life-saving screenings for cancer, and screenings and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Planned Parenthood serves a unique and critical role in providing care to women who rely on publicly funded programs and to those in medically underserved communities that would otherwise have no or few health care providers.

The extremists who created these videos entrapped dedicated health care providers using underhanded, deceptive and possibly illegal tactics and then heavily edited the videos to achieve their political goals. Fair-minded Americans are not fooled by these videos and a majority of voters oppose efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. The anti-abortion fanatics in Congress who are using these misrepresentative videos as an excuse to attack women’s health have always done so and have never cared about the consequences of their actions.

Congress has a responsibility to protect access to health care, and that includes making comprehensive reproductive health services available to all women. All members of Congress should be working to protect, not politicize, women’s health.”