Lots of senators gave speeches yesterday both in favor and against stripping Planned Parenthood of millions in public funds. The one that Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivered has gotten a lot of attention as an especially impassioned defense of the organization’s work.
Watch: Elizabeth Warren blasts Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood
“Do you have any idea what year it is?” Warren starts her speech. “Did you fall down, hit your head, and think you woke up in the 1950s? Or the 1890s? Should we call for a doctor? Because I simply cannot believe that in the year 2015, the United States Senate would be spending its time trying to defund women’s health-care centers.”
As Warren points out in her speech, the campaign to defund Planned Parenthood is not new: Republican legislators began to target the organization aggressively in 2011. That same year, a budget amendment to defund the group nearly shut down the federal government. House Speaker John Boehner got behind the defunding movement, and it ultimately became the sticking point in budget negotiations with the White House. He ultimately abandoned that demand, but the idea of attacking Planned Parenthood’s funding lingered.
Planned Parenthood still remains a top target of Republicans, particularly at the moment that newly released sting videos argue that the organization has profited from procuring fetal tissue for researchers. And as long as it’s a key Republican target, it seems a pretty safe bet that Sen. Warren will come to its defense.
