State of the Union Address by President Donald J. Trump February 5th, 2019
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Murray ‘stunned’ government might shutter over Planned Parenthood

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Thursday that Republican pressure to
include a rider to a budget deal defunding Planned Parenthood is
“stunning” to her as a woman and that Senate leadership will not back
down in their support of women’s health issues.



“I am really stunned. And I am angry as a woman that we have come to
this after weeks of negotiating on numbers… that there are those in the
Republican party in the House who are willing to shutdown the
government, take people’s paychecks away from them because they want to
deny women access to health care in this country,” Murray told
reporters. “Every woman and every man in this country ought to be
saying, ‘What are you doing?’”



Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said repeatedly Thursday that the
spending talks between Senate Democrats, the White House and Speaker
John Boehner (R-Ohio) essentially have broken down in the 11th hour not
over figures but over “ideology.”

Reid devoted much of his floor remarks, and then later statement in a
press conference, to discussing the women’s health-based negotiations
sticking point.



Murray’s plea Thursday, though, had a more personal and passionate tone,
saying that the budget talk developments late Wednesday evening and
early Thursday morning regarding abortion rights were “stunning to me as
a woman.”



Senate Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine
already have indicated publicly that they would not support the House
GOP plan to cut off government funds from Planned Parenthood. Thursday,
advocates for the organization rallied at the Capitol.



“We in the Senate are going to stand up,” Murray said. “We are not going
to allow them to push us into taking away women’s right to health care
access in order to keep the government funded.”



Reid and Boehner are slated to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House Thursday afternoon.

– Politico

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