Senate Democrats are blocking a $1.1 billion Republican measure that would fund efforts to fight the Zika virus because it does not contain funding for Planned Parenthood.
Through its alliance with the Democrat Party and the pro-abortion mainstream media, Planned Parenthood has promoted the notion that its biggest money-makers — abortion and birth control — are the means to combat the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is being linked to cases of a rare birth defect called microcephaly, primarily in Brazil.
How Zika Is Shaping the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Agenda: https://t.co/HOKXeUVNeb #ZikaVirus
— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) May 2, 2016
“They restrict funding for birth control provided by Planned Parenthood. Can you believe that?” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said, according to CNN. “And the Zika problem, who does it affect? Women and especially pregnant women.”
“The bill passed by House Republicans doesn’t recognize Zika as a public health emergency,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), reports Roll Call. “It nickels and dimes our efforts to respond. It makes it more difficult for women to access birth control. And it waives safety rules for the use of pesticides.”
Planned Parenthood is currently under investigation by a specially convened panel following a series of undercover videos that exposed the abortion business’ apparent practices of harvesting the body parts of babies aborted in its clinics for sale and altering the position of babies during abortion in order to harvest their most intact organs.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, currently there are 819 cases of Zika in the United States associated with travel to infected countries.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), explained recently that during the 1950s and 1960s, Brazil successfully eliminated the mosquito carrying the Zika virus through the use of DDT.
Fauci said that Brazil was able to stop the spread of Zika through “a very aggressive attempt” to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries the virus and is “a very difficult mosquito to control and eliminate.”
“It will require a very aggressive, concerted effort,” he added.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), writes at Sunshine State News that babies born with microcephaly “are being used to promote political causes: legalization of abortion in Latin America, or the fight against ‘climate change.’”
She explains:
The key public health measure is mosquito control. Mosquito-borne diseases, after a time when it was thought that even malaria might be wiped out, began increasing worldwide when the U.S. banned the most effective public health weapon of all time: DDT. If Zika causes rethinking of this disastrous decision, even though other deadly threats like malaria have not, it will save millions of lives—and even help us win the war on bed bugs.
“Instead of waiting for some future vaccine against a virus that may prove innocent, we could stop transmission now with effective mosquito control in affected areas,” Orient urges.
The Republican measure would take $750 million from other health programs to fund anti-Zika efforts. In addition, the bill would cut $543 million in unused funds from Obamacare, $107 million from unused funds to combat Ebola, and $100 million in administrative funds from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Despite their expressed concern about the spread of Zika, Democrats rejected a bill that would end a redundant Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permit requirement to spray federally approved pesticides into bodies of water to combat the mosquito that carries the Zika virus.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that there would be no negotiating another Zika bill if the legislation did not pass Tuesday, reports USA Today. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), however, said GOP leaders would ultimately relent and renegotiate.
“Republicans will come back in a few weeks with their tails between their legs,” Schumer said. “Why they don’t avoid that embarrassment is beyond me.”
President Obama requested $1.9 billion in funding for Zika and had threatened to veto the measure if passed in the Senate.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.