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Breast Cancer Bill Pulled Amid Abortion-Funding Concerns (Updated)

Republicans abandoned Maloney's bill. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
Republicans abandoned Maloney's bill. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Updated July 15, 2:34 p.m. |  Republican leaders pulled yet another bill from the House floor Tuesday after conservatives expressed concern that a seemingly harmless piece of legislation supporting breast cancer research might actually fund Planned Parenthood.  

The Breast Cancer Awareness Commemorative Coin Act would have directed the Treasury to sell commemorative coins and give the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization. Komen is a nonprofit organization focused on breast cancer research and health services. But it has also supported Planned Parenthood in the past, and some Republicans and conservative groups suddenly began expressing concern over the bill in the past few days.  

Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy group, said it would “key vote” against the legislation out of concern that the bill seemed like an earmark for a group that “notoriously funds abortion giant Planned Parenthood.”  

Heritage Action also raised issue with another beneficiary of the coin’s surcharge being New York City-based Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which is in the district of the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y.  

On Tuesday, staff confirmed they were pulling the bill for now and would be looking at ways of revising the legislation.  

“We are working to ensure that charitable organizations which receive funding from this legislation are 100 percent focused on diagnosing, treating, and curing breast cancer,” a GOP leadership aide said.  

By Wednesday, aides were saying the vote had been rescheduled.  

Following floor votes on Tuesday, in a display of just how sudden opposition to the bill emerged, more than 15 Republicans, one after the other, asked for unanimous consent to have their names removed as co-sponsors to the bill.


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