Planned Parenthood president urges Ivanka Trump to 'stand for women'

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards has urged Ivanka Trump to "stand up for women" and speak out against the American Health Care Act, a legislation that would have repealed Obamacare and defunded her organization.

In an interview with Buzzfeed that was published on Friday, Richards noted that the presidential daughter's silence regarding the bill has been "defeaning" and said that "it's time for Ivanka to ... stand for women."

Ivanka, who is said to be very influential to her father, President Donald Trump, has not spoken publicly about her stance on abortion or Planned Parenthood.

Richards described the heath care bill as the "the most anti-woman bill that I have ever seen."

"Any woman who votes for this bill is betraying every woman in America," she said, adding, "Women will not just lose their healthcare, but lose their lives over this bill."

The measure included a provision that would have prohibited states from using federal funds on "prohibited entities," which includes organizations that "provides for abortions."

Trump issued an ultimatum on Republicans to vote on the bill on Friday, but Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan failed to round up 216 votes to pass the legislation.

Ryan and the president worked overtime to make last-minute changes to the bill and to convince Republicans to support it. However, House Republicans had to pull the legislation due to lack of support from conservatives who thought that the changes did not go far enough to repeal Obamacare.

Trump had recently made an offer to keep funding Planned Parenthood if it would stop performing abortions, but the organization rejected the proposal. After the release of the American Health Care Act, Planned Parenthood sent an email to its supporters to warn them about the bill.

"The threat we've been warning about has just hit the House of Representatives. Republican leadership introduced a bill that would cut millions of patients off from care at Planned Parenthood health center," the email stated.

The U.S. Senate has paved the way for a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood in early January by approving a budget resolution bill. According to Life News, the resolution is the first step in the process to redirect the organization's taxpayer funding to other health care entities and repeal Obamacare using the budget reconciliation procedure.

Recent polls have suggested that most Americans are in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood. A new survey has revealed that 56 percent of Americans in battleground states want the organization to be stripped of its taxpayer funding.