Published 2 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b422
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b422

News

Obama drops funding from bill, alarming family planning groups

Janice Hopkins Tanne

1 New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other organisations have registered their disappointment as Barack Obama and fellow Democrats removed funding for family planning services from a proposed $819bn (£560bn; {euro}640bn) legislative package to stimulate the US economy.

President Obama asked that the family planning provision be dropped after pressure from the Republicans (Time, 29 Jan, www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1874683,00.html, "Behind the family-planning flap"). John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who is minority leader in the House of Representatives, complained that spending money on family planning services would not stimulate the economy and would "fund the abortion industry."

The legislation was passed in the House of Representatives without a single Republican voting in favour. A different version, also lacking family planning funding, will be voted on by the Senate in the next few days. Both houses will reconcile the legislation and send it to the president to sign into law.

The . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ