One day in particular, December 3, 2015, provides a clear summary of Senator Debbie Stabenow's position on Planned Parenthood and taxpayer funding of abortion. She voted three separate times to give the nation's largest abortion clinic chain millions in taxpayer dollars.
On that day the U.S. Senate passed a budget reconciliation bill that would have repealed taxpayer subsidies of insurance plans that cover abortion through Obamacare and included a provision to block most of Planned Parenthood's federal tax funding. The bill passed by a vote of 52 to 47, with Senator Debbie Stabenow voting against it. The bill was later affirmed by the House but vetoed by President Barack Obama.
An earlier vote that day was on an amendment offered by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). The Collins Amendment would have removed the language to defund Planned Parenthood from the budget reconciliation bill. The Collins Amendment failed by a bipartisan vote of 48 to 52, with Senator Debbie Stabenow again voting in favor of Planned Parenthood.
Senator Debbie Stabenow's other vote that day went beyond just stopping efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) offered an amendment to the budget reconciliation bill to authorize $1 billion in new funding that only organizations that provide elective abortions would be eligible for. Since Planned Parenthood is the only large-scale organization in the country that provides abortions they would have received the extra billion dollars. Planned Parenthood often argues the taxpayer dollars they receive only involve reimbursements for health services, but here Senator Debbie Stabenow was clearly voting in favor of using tax dollars to expand abortion by nearly doubling Planned Parenthood's budget. The amendment failed by a bipartisan vote of 46 to 54, with Senator Debbie Stabenow for the third time in one day voting to send tax dollars to support abortion at Planned Parenthood.
