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   From: murderers@plannedparenthood.org   
      
   A pair of centrist Senate Democrats are weighing their options   
   ahead of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s scheduled vote on   
   defunding Planned Parenthood, a politically thorny decision   
   following the release of several controversial videos allegedly   
   showing employees for the women’s health care organization   
   discussing the sale of fetal tissue.   
      
   On Friday, Planned Parenthood turned up the pressure on moderate   
   Democrat Joe Donnelly of Indiana, releasing a television ad   
   touting the life-saving benefits of the women’s health   
   organization in his red state.   
      
   For years, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid helped shield   
   Democrats from taking such politically difficult votes, instead   
   forcing Republicans to vote down increases to the minimum wage,   
   paycheck equity and student loan reform proposals.   
      
   But now the tables have turned.McConnell (R-Ky.) scheduled the   
   vote not just to satisfy his own socially conservative members,   
   but also to put the squeeze on moderate Democrats.   
      
   Two of the most conservative Senate Democrats have not said how   
   they will vote. Both Donnelly and Sen. Joe Manchin of West   
   Virginia have historically voted against abortion-rights bills,   
   and while the Planned Parenthood debate carries echoes of the   
   abortion debate, the ballot on Monday is actually a broader vote   
   on whether money should still flow to the women’s health care   
   organization.   
      
   With that in mind, Planned Parenthood launched a last-minute   
   effort to tamp down support for the bill. It released an ad in   
   Indiana showing a cancer survivor who says she is “alive because   
   of Planned Parenthood,” in the hopes of persuading Donnelly to   
   vote against it.   
      
   “That’s why it’s so important to protect Planned Parenthood’s   
   life-saving care and for Sen. Donnelly to stand with Planned   
   Parenthood,” a narrator says.   
      
   It also cut a national version of the ad.   
      
   Democrats are confident they can deny Republicans the 60 votes   
   needed to advance the bill, but that doesn’t make the vote any   
   easier for the small group of lawmakers in both parties who   
   don’t always hew to party orthodoxy on social issues.   
      
   The television ad was posted online by the Susan B. Anthony   
   List, a group that opposes abortion and is trying to ensure that   
   Donnelly stays in the fold; he voted to defund Planned   
   Parenthood when he was in the House. It is hoping to sway him in   
   the other direction, and posting the ad could serve to highlight   
   his past position. The group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser,   
   said Donnelly “says he’s pro-life and Indiana voters expect him   
   to act that way.”   
      
   A spokeswoman for Donnelly did not respond to multiple requests   
   for comment.   
      
   Planned Parenthood has just one facility in the conservative   
   bastion of West Virginia, but Manchin still indicated caution   
   ahead of the defunding vote. Asked if he’d decided, he replied:   
   “Not yet. It’s a tough one.”   
      
   Meanwhile, other centrist Democrats are breaking the other way.   
   Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) will vote against the legislation,   
   aides said, as will anti-abortion Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).   
      
   “I will continue to support Title X funding for family planning   
   and contraception, including funds that go to Planned   
   Parenthood, because these programs reduce unintended pregnancies   
   and, as a result, reduce the number of abortions,” Casey said.   
   Manchin, Donnelly, Casey and Heitkamp are all up for reelection   
   in 2018.   
      
   Things are similarly complicated for the small number of   
   socially moderate Republicans. Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada will   
   vote to cut off funding. Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois has   
   indicated he opposes the bill, a decision that may actually   
   boost him in an uphill battle for reelection by emphasizing his   
   moderate credibility on social issues in his deep blue state.   
   Still, he’s been reluctant to discuss the issue in the hallways   
   of the Capitol, particularly the strategy of defunding Planned   
   Parenthood in a government spending bill this fall, shrugging at   
   a question about the hard-line tactic.   
      
   Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, also up for reelection, hasn’t   
   telegraphed her vote but strongly opposed 2011 efforts by social   
   conservatives to defund the organization. Sen. Susan Collins of   
   Maine, who just won reelection by a whopping margin, was perhaps   
   the most forceful Republican critic of the GOP’s drive to defund   
   the agency.   
      
   “We need an investigation about whether Planned Parenthood has   
   violated federal law and medical ethics,” Collins told POLITICO.   
   “But, I am concerned about the millions of women who go to   
   Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings and family planning and   
   to immediately cut them off, millions of women would have to   
   find alternative health care providers. I don’t think it’s that   
   easy. It seems to me we need a more targeted approach.”   
      
   She and Manchin say they are working on a compromise amendment   
   that would investigate Planned Parenthood but not cut off   
   funding immediately.   
      
   The decisions of the eight centrist lawmakers won’t make or   
   break the attempt by McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to   
   push the bill through the Senate. Even if all of them voted with   
   the GOP, it would leave the effort two votes short. Democratic   
   aides have said Paul’s prediction that there are 58 votes for   
   the bill is too bullish, but Paul said in an interview he   
   thought some Democrats could break his way at the last minute.   
      
   But party leaders aren’t concerned. Democrats aren’t even   
   whipping the bill, sources said.   
      
   “This,” a Democratic aide said, “is not an especially hard vote.”   
      
   http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/senate-planned-parenthood-   
   vote-democrats-120876.html   
      
       
      
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