Editorial Boards Slam GOP's Shameful Obstruction on Zika
Bloomberg View: Why Congress Needs to Vote Again on Zika
In the two months since Congress last failed to do anything about Zika, scientists have been busy uncovering disturbing new details about the virus…
…progress on all fronts -- not just drug development but mosquito eradication, diagnostic testing and research to understand all of Zika's effects -- will be delayed without adequate federal funding. The money that the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have lifted from other parts of their budgets will run out this month.
The legislation that failed Tuesday was voted down by Democrats for good reason: It contained deal-killing partisan provisions, including one that would forbid any funding for women's health from going to Planned Parenthood.
Anything that could jeopardize passage of this legislation needs to be stripped from the bill. Zika is too serious, and too dangerous, for politics as usual.
Los Angeles Times: Congress: What I didn't do this summer — fund Zika
While you were out campaigning, fundraising or barbequing, however, the number of Zika cases in the U.S. more than doubled to 2,700, and people infected with the virus have turned up in every state. A total of 17 babies have been born with Zika-related birth defects (two in California), and about 1,600 pregnant women are known to have been exposed. And those are just the cases we know about; some 80% of those infected with the disease have mild or no symptoms…
These figures come from the nation's top health officials, who have been — with no thanks from you — working hard this summer to keep track of Zika's spread, help local public health agencies deal with cases and develop a vaccine. These efforts were made all the more difficult when you took a reasonable Zika funding compromise and somehow turned it into yet another fight over Planned Parenthood…
It's up to you now to put aside the reproductive-rights politics and free up money for Zika research and prevention.
Chicago Sun-Times: Stop the games, Congress, and fight Zika
With so much at stake, you'd expect Congress to be pulling out all stops to prevent the scourge from worsening. But you'd be wrong…
Pairing crucial Zika funding with yet another ideological attack on Planned Parenthood might be seen as yet another case of politics as usual, when each side maneuvers for gain. There's no shortage of that on Capitol Hill these days.
But Congress should be above that when a genuine emergency comes along…
But things fell apart in the House. Republicans added what Democrats called "poison pills" — measures that Democrats would not support, such as the cut to Planned Parenthood funding, funding shifts away from Obamacare and a scaling back of restrictions on pesticides. The House bill failed when it went back to the Senate, where the vote on Tuesday was 52-46, short of the 60 votes that were required…
Republicans are blaming the Democrats for blocking the Zika funding. But Democrats have added no "poison pills" of their own to the bill.
Sun-Sentinel: Political bite if GOP fails on Zika
…Republicans won't agree to a clean bill. To them, the Zika emergency is a chance to target Planned Parenthood. The GOP plan would deny the group money to provide contraception to women in Puerto Rico, which has the most Zika cases of any state or territory. Pregnant women are most at risk because the CDC has determined that Zika causes microcephaly, a birth defect that leaves a baby's head abnormally small.
Anti-Planned Parenthood political ideology is self-defeating during a public health crisis…
Unfortunately, the Zika money is caught up in Republican dysfunction over spending in general. The federal budget year ends in 22 days. Congress is not close to approving the 12 appropriations bills that fund the government, and Republicans are divided on what to do.
Pocono Record: Fight Zika, not family planning
Majority Senate Republicans have been trying to pass a stopgap spending bill that cuts Planned Parenthood funding. It's stalled because Democrats won't support it. Even though Zika poses the biggest threat to women and babies — it is linked to serious birth defects, including microcephaly — Republicans' funding proposal would limit the distribution of contraceptives, focusing instead on mosquito control, vaccines and diagnostics; and it would bar family planning organizations like Planned Parenthood from participating in the fight against Zika.
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Planned Parenthood is one of the nation's largest health providers, but many Republicans have demonized it for years over the fact that the agency provides abortions. But abortion services make up only a fraction of Planned Parenthood's work. It provides a range of general health care services, from anemia testing to flu vaccines, diabetes and thyroid screening to smoking cessation help in addition to its sexual and reproductive health services. In some areas, Planned Parenthood is the only available provider of such services…
Republicans in Congress should put women and children's health ahead of their unfounded attack on family planning agencies. Further delay of an assault on Zika is unacceptable.
The Pitt News: Zika victims lose in GOP war with Planned Parenthood
The Republican bills included additional language that would prevent federal research money from going to Planned Parenthood, a group the party has painted as dedicated solely to abortion…
…as a matter of public health policy, the additional provisions are ludicrous. If House Republicans truly wanted to help women and their children, they would look beyond the buzzwords and realize excluding Planned Parenthood hampers any effective Zika response…
House Republicans need to recognize that attacking Zika is two-pronged: make resources available and distributing them effectively. Planned Parenthood is only one of the potential beneficiaries, and in the meantime, all of the others are left waiting…
Just stop fighting this unnecessary battle, because Zika victims — and the unborn children the GOP is usually so reticent to protect — are the ones caught in the crossfire.
Democrat & Chronicle: Congress must act to stop Zika
There are two serious threats to U.S. public health. One is called Zika, the other Congress. The former, which can cause birth defects, is threatening the lives of unborn children. The latter is doing nothing to stop the spread of the former.
The irony here is that anti-abortion Republicans wanting to defund Planned Parenthood are putting unborn children at risk. More federal money is needed to combat the Zika virus, but Senate Republicans are more interested in attacking Planned Parenthood than dealing with an immediate threat to public health.
But conservatives intent on opposing abortion and Planned Parenthood cannot use Zika as a bargaining chip. The stakes are too high.
The Mercury News: Congress must fund Zika prevention
Congress should not play games with public health. Period.
Nearly 3,000 Zika cases have been reported in the United States, including 32 in the Bay Area, and at least two Zika-related birth defects already have been reported in California. All signs warn of a full-blown public health crisis, certainly in the eyes of potential parents hoping to start families.
But Republicans, taking the war on women to a new level, refused again last week to pass legislation unless it has assurances that Planned Parenthood's affiliates will not receive additional funding to help fight the virus.
This is insane. Planned Parenthood uses no federal dollars for the 3 percent of its work that involves abortions. It is, however, one of the key safety-net public health centers across the nation, playing a crucial role in educating people about the virus — for example, spreading the word that Zika can be spread by sexual contact, not only by mosquitoes…
The U.S. Senate passed the $1.1 billion allocation in May by an 89-8 vote. But House Republicans added riders not only restricting Planned Parenthood, but — this is really outrageous — also allowing Confederate flags to be be flown at veterans' cemeteries and weakening the Clean Air Act…
Congress has to just get this done. Place public health first. Fight this insidious disease that afflicts the unborn — which means funding Planned Parenthood programs, the nation's front line for reproductive health. Do it this week, so progress toward a vaccine doesn't have to miss a beat.
And take up the fight for honoring the Confederacy, if that's the GOP's new priority, another day.
Asbury Park Press: Another congressional flop on Zika
…Republicans are the primary offenders in this case. They're insisting on adding a poison pill that would cut Planned Parenthood out of the funding loop, even though that would virtually guarantee the virus will be more difficult to control; Zika can be sexually transmitted, and some of the money would presumably be spent on contraception.
That's not all. For good measure the Republicans have even tossed into the bill a measure entirely unrelated to Zika — a proposal to allow the Confederate flag to again be flown at military cemeteries. Democrats, understandably, are balking at the entire mess.
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This isn't hard. No one is meaningfully disputing the funding need. Lawmakers merely need to put together a bill solely for the Zika funding, with nothing else attached, and approve it. Their failure to do so to date is, literally, endangering lives, every day.
Aurora Sentinel: American lives at stake over GOP Zika funding follies, the scariest show on Earth
The same Republican tea party extremists who inflicted Donald Trump upon their political party, are now hijacking federal dollars desperately needed to fight the Zika virus. Their heartless plan — backed by Senate leaders and Colorado's own GOP Sen. Cory Gardner — continues to hold up funding to fight the dangerous virus out of a vengeance scheme to destroy Planned Parenthood.
This has gone too far.
It's nothing more than cold-hearted and irresponsible political subterfuge.
The short-sightedness of a political party that has utterly lost its way is mind-boggling. Republicans at one moment are lamenting that it has emboldened irresponsible and reckless tea partiers to the point that they are now running the asylum and have hoisted Trump as its exemplar. And at the same time, these very dispirited Republican leaders play out the exact destructive political gambit that has caused them to lose control of their party in the House and the Senate.
It's political madness, and innocent Americans soon to be infected with the Zika virus are the ultimate victims of their political cannibalism.
…Republicans have used the much-needed funding to accomplish political goals that ensure Democratic opposition and have nothing to do with stopping Zika, namely, bludgeoning Planned Parenthood. Republicans could ensure passage in the time it takes to swat a mosquito by stripping the bill of unnecessary provisions which Democrats oppose.
Republicans tacked on language that would forbid any of the emergency money to wind up in the hands of the huge, nonprofit family planning outfit. But this isn't the time to pick a fight.
Whatever lawmakers think of Planned Parenthood, expressing it by refusing to protect the public health is counterproductive, at best, unconscionable at worst.