Democratic leaders pledge to fight GOP's attacks against Planned Parenthood in Maine

AUGUSTA — Three Republican members of the Maine House of Representatives revealed in an OpEd published in the Sun Journal that they are submitting a bill to bring the national GOP’s baseless, coordinated attack on women’s health to Maine.

Sen. Dawn Hill of York

Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dawn Hill of York and Assistant House Democratic Leader Sara Gideon of Freeport strongly reject the GOP’s political attacks on Planned Parenthood. Both lawmakers serve on the Legislative Council, a bipartisan group of legislative leaders that must approve any bill for consideration during the upcoming legislative session.

“Bills targeting Planned Parenthood are nothing more than catnip for the most radical elements of the GOP,” said Hill. “There is no stronger partner in women’s health than Planned Parenthood. All Mainers of conscience must stand up to these cynical political attacks against women’s right to access quality, safe, affordable health care.”

“The extremist agenda against basic reproductive health care has landed in Maine. We do not want to import this political sideshow from Washington, D.C. Make no mistake about it, this is an attempt to limit women’s access to safe and legal abortion,” said Gideon. “Mainers know how important Planned Parenthood is to the health of 10,000 women, men and young people in our state. Mainers know better than to fall for this ploy.”

In the OpEd titled “Put an End to Planned Parenthood,” Reps. Richard Pickett of Dixfield, Mary Anne Kinney of Knox and Beth Turner of Burlington said the goal of their bill was to defund Planned Parenthood in Maine and “put a stop to the unlawful use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortion that might result in the harvesting and selling of baby body parts.”

Citing a widely discredited and doctored video shot and edited by anti-choice extremists, the GOP demonstrates a tenuous grip on the facts of Planned Parenthood in Maine. Here are the facts:

• There is no fetal tissue donation program in Maine.
• As GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal learned in Louisiana, state-level calls to “defund” Planned Parenthood are meaningless political theater. As a high-level health care provider, Planned Parenthood bills under Medicare and Medicaid, both federal programs.
• Planned Parenthood is the single largest provider of women’s health services in the country, and provides services to more than 10,000 Mainers who turn to Planned Parenthood for a broad range of services — more than 90 percent of which are cancer screenings, birth control, prevention and treatment of STDs, breast health services, Pap tests, sexual health education, information and health counseling. More than half of Planned Parenthood’s patients in Maine receive free or sliding-scale care. Simply put, an attack on Planned Parenthood is an attack on women’s access to quality, affordable health care.

The majority of Mainers — and Americans — reject these attacks on Planned Parenthood. Poll after poll show how out of touch the GOP’s proposals are with the views of mainstream Americans.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that a large majority of Americans — 61 percent — oppose eliminating federal funding for Planned Parenthood’s preventive services. The poll also shows that 47 percent of adults hold favorable views of Planned Parenthood — a figure unchanged from a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll conducted when the sting videos were initially being released.