House to vote tonight on abortion training provision

By Pete Kasperowicz - 05/24/11 04:30 PM ET

House members on Tuesday night are expected to hold a controversial vote on language that would prevent federal funds for medical resident training from being used to train residents on abortion procedures. (Update: later events postponed the vote until Wednesday.)

The language in question comes from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who is seeking to amend a bill that would scale back the federal funding and make it subject to annual appropriations. The program, established in last year's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), was automatically funded by Democrats last year.

"This amendment ensures that the grants being provided to teaching health centers are not being used to perform elective abortion, makes it crystal clear that taxpayer money is not being used to train healthcare providers to perform abortion procedures," Foxx said. "When the liberal Democrats rammed through their government takeover of healthcare, in an unprecedented fashion, they refused to include longstanding pro-life provisions."

Foxx's amendment drew an immediate backlash from Democrats, who argued that preventing training on abortion would prevent training on a legal procedure. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) argued that while even Republicans have OKed federal funding for abortion in the case of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk, these procedures could be hindered by conditioning federal training funds.

"What it would mean is that across the country, residents would be barred from learning how to perform even a basic medical procedure required for women's health," DeGette said. "This amendment would jeopardize both education and women's healthcare by obliterating funding for a necessary full range of medical training by healthcare professionals."

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) added that the idea is "really stupid," and said it's "really not wise to have ignorant physicians."

The Foxx amendment is just one of several to H.R. 1216 that the House is considering Tuesday. Several Democrats have proposed amendments that would require a study of how limiting medical training funds would affect the availability of primary care doctors; all are expected to be voted on Tuesday night.