Martha Roby urges colleagues to strike “Obama’s Parting Gift to Planned Parenthood”

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Martha Roby

On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution that would overturn a last-minute Obama Administration rule designed to prevent states from defunding Planned Parenthood, but not before  Alabama 2nd District U.S. Rep. Martha Roby made an impassioned plea to her colleagues to do so.

Speaking on the House floor, Roby voiced her ardent support for House Joint Resolution 43, which would nullify a December 2016 Department of Health and Human Services rule mandating no state stop Title X public health dollars from flowing to abortion providers.

“Congress must use its authority to strike this rule and stop the federal government from forcing states to funnel taxpayer money to abortion providers,” Roby said the House floor. “For Washington to attempt to coerce states into spending their federal dollars in certain ways is bad enough, but the fact that the Obama Administration circumvented Congress with this last-minute rule is outrageous.”

Roby, who has long been outspoken about the need to stop taxpayer dollars from funding abortion clinics, offered her strong support for the measure to disapprove the Obama Administration rule, saying it is wrong on both process and policy. 

Roby explained Federally Qualified and Rural Health Centers are more plentiful and offer a wider range of services than abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. Noting that states have “every right” to redirect their Title X public health dollars to these non-controversial clinics.

“If the true goal here was to ensure women’s health care, nobody should have a problem with that, but that wasn’t the goal, and everybody knows it. This rule is known as ‘President Obama’s parting gift to Planned Parenthood’ for good reason. It was a blatant attempt to preserve the pipeline of funding to the nation’s largest abortion business, and it was wrong.”

HJ. Res. 43 was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 230-188.

Watch Roby’s full speech below: