The DeKalb County Republican Party held its annual picnic at Greenbrook Park Saturday, and among the speakers was Congressman Diane Black.
Black addressed the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives Friday to block the funding of Planned Parenthood for a year. Black sponsored the bill, which passed the house 241-187 along party lines.
"For those of you who don’t know, I am a nurse," Black said. "I have been a nurse for almost 45 years now. I was young, and just out of nursing school when the decision was made on Roe v Wade. For the last 42, almost 43, years I have been fighting for life. What we saw happen on the floor (of the House) yesterday was something that I have been waiting to see for over 42 years. We were able to get a vote on the floor to at least put a moratorium on Planned Parenthood's funding so that we can do the investigations to tell whether there really has been laws that have been broken behind the curtain called Planned Parenthood.
"As a nurse, I look at those films and I see three things that are pretty definitive that the law has been broken, but we will have hearings," she continued. "We've also asked Loretta Lynch, who is our Attorney General, to do those investigations, but we're doing our investigations, and here are the three things. I won’t be graphic about it, but one is the NIH Revitalization Act that says you cannot alter a procedure for the purpose of obtaining fetal tissue separately from what you would do in an ordinary case, and we can see very clearly that is being done. You cannot sell fetal tissue for a profit and we see the haggering over the price and that is also against the law. The third is partial birth abortion, and we see clearly that there are, at least from those films, some suspicions that this is what is going on."
The bill, which would halt federal funding for Planned Parenthood for one year while Congress conducts an investigation into the organization due to undercover videos allegedly shot by representatives from the Center for Medical Progress, would transfer the funding to clinics who do not perform abortions and provide care for lower income citizens. It would also increase government funding for community health centers by $235 million. The videos allegedly captured Planned Parenthood officials discussing terms of the sale of fetal tissue and body parts of aborted fetuses.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said publicly that he will not bring the bill up before the Senate because the likely hood of a presidential veto.
"Mr. McConnell has said he will not bring this up in the Senate," Black said Saturday. "We're putting a lot of pressure on him, and just yesterday we had a couple of our senators come out and say they are going to put pressure on the leader to bring this up, so we've got to keep the pressure on. If you would like, call our senators and let them know you want them to put the pressure on McConnell. It is going to be my job for the next month to beat the drum and say ‘bring it up, bring it up, bring it up.’ Every time I get an opportunity to get on a microphone, and by the way, when I leave here I’m going to be on Fox News to do an interview, and I will be calling on our senators to ‘bring it up.’ Let's get a vote, and then let's put it on the president's desk, and I dare him to veto something that is showing illegal activity, because he’s in love with Planned Parenthood and he will veto it. But it's worth the fight."
