By Jim Williams
Albuquerque, NM – New Mexico US Senator Tom Udall is calling on his chamber's party leaders to oppose a House Republican effort to end federal support for women's health and family planning programs.
House and Senate leaders have until Friday night to come up with a compromise budget to fund the government through September 30th or face a shutdown.
Udall joined fellow New Mexican Jeff Bingaman and forty other Senate Democrats in a letter urging Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to oppose the family planning de-funding effort.
The House budget zeroes out money for Title Ten, which provides contraceptive and family planning assistance to low and moderate income women. Udall says another House proposal would end funding for the nationwide Planned Parenthood program.
"This is a program where dollars are very wisely spent giving advice to women in their pregnancy period. To do that in a bill that's an appropriations bill for all the agencies isn't right," says Senator Udall. "You're not supposed to legislate on appropriations bills, there are rules which say so. And yet they're trying to achieve these ideological goals without sticking to the budget process."
Many Republicans, and some socially conservative Democrats, oppose any federal funding to organizations that perform abortions. Planned Parenthood reports that abortions account for around 2 to 3 percent of the dozens of services it provides.