Ranking Member Cohen: Planned Parenthood Critical to Women’s Health, Especially Low-Income and Minority Women

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, today spoke out against recent efforts to defund women’s health services provider Planned Parenthood at a hearing of the full House Judiciary Committee. Video of the Congressman’s remarks can be found here.

“Today’s hearing isn’t about these videos that have been widely discredited. Today’s hearing is another effort in a long-running and sustained campaign to restrict women’s constitutional rights – it’s showboating for a political base that won’t be happy until Planned Parenthood is shut down,” said Congressman Cohen. “The truth is that it is already prohibited for federal funds to be used for abortion services, and this effort to defund Planned Parenthood would only deny women – especially low-income and minority women – access to the vast majority of Planned Parenthood’s other health services health services like wellness exams, cancer screenings, contraception, and STD prevention and treatment. Nearly three million women each year get their healthcare services from Planned Parenthood, and 97% of those services have nothing to do with abortion. Instead of these theatrical end-runs around Roe v. Wade, our focus should be on ensuring poor women can receive the care they need.”

Today’s hearing was called in response to several heavily edited and discredited videos that were released to mislead the public regarding the work done by Planned Parenthood. The claims made about the videos, including those implying violations of law by Planned Parenthood employees, are unsubstantiated and rely on significant editing that removes critical context and changes the meaning of what was actually said by the health provider’s staff members.