Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, we are on the eve of yet another government shutdown, yet another manufactured crisis. Two years ago it was over defunding the Affordable Care Act. Today Republicans introduced a continuing resolution that holds our country hostage over funding for Planned Parenthood.

The 2013 shutdown of a couple years ago cost billions of dollars in economic losses. We heard many stories of hardships caused by the shutdown, including small business owners who were suffering because our national parks closed, public safety workers protecting our country without pay, and Federal contractors left holding the bag for personnel and program costs. We cannot do this to our working families for the second time in 3 years. We cannot do this to our country.

Instead of funding the government, my colleagues across the aisle are using threats of a shutdown to attack Planned Parenthood without any hard evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. Threatening to shut down the government over an organization that annually provides 400,000 cervical cancer screenings, 500,000 breast exams, and 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases is completely uncalled for.

Arguments that there are other providers that can fill the important and critical role of Planned Parenthood are not persuasive. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood serves more contraceptive clients each year than any other similar provider, including federally qualified health centers. In more than 300 counties across the country, safety net providers such as Planned Parenthood are the providers of choice for nearly half of women. Furthermore, Planned Parenthood is the sole safety net provider in nearly 100 of these counties.

Planned Parenthood services cannot be easily replaced. In an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, one State submitted a list of providers they said could replace Planned Parenthood's critical women's health care services. This list that the State provided included dentists, ophthalmologists, radiologists, and nursing homes. Think about that. Providers are not widgets.

After a Federal judge called their bluff, the State cut their list from over 2,000 providers to just 29 providers who actually are able to provide primary care services to women. Those 29 providers could not possibly absorb the thousands of patients Planned Parenthood served in that State. Planned Parenthood has long been in the crosshairs of the anti-choice movement.

This recent attack on Planned Parenthood is based on heavily edited videos by radical fringe groups. I refer my colleagues to a letter from Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards to House and Senate leadership dated August 27, 2015.

Instead of improving the lives of women by passing legislation raising the minimum wage, closing the gender pay gap or ensuring paid leave for all workers, my colleagues across the aisle continue to narrowly focus on ways to further marginalize women. Instead of introducing continuing resolutions that contain these kinds of poison pills, such as defunding Planned Parenthood, we must pass clean legislation that keeps our government funded, that provides needed and critical services to the people of this country. I ask my colleagues to join with me.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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