HELENA — House Democrats said Friday that Republicans are putting politics before the reproductive health of Montana’s women by tabling a bill to partially fund family planning clinics with state money.

“It’s appalling to me that politics is being used here in taking away our fundamental right to health care,” said Rep. Betsy Hands, D-Missoula.

The bill would put $600,000 a year into the state’s 15 family planning clinics. Currently the federal government funds those clinics at $2.3 million a year, according to Stacey Anderson of Planned Parenthood of Montana. But federal funding for family planning has not been increased since the Clinton administration, Anderson said.

The rejection of the state money comes on the same day House Republicans said they would strip federal family planning money from the Department of Public Health and Human Services budget to gain the support of conservative Republicans and Constitution Party Rep. Rick Jore of Ronan in passing the DPHHS budget out of the House.

The state money is needed to maintain the current level of service at these clinics because the price of birth control has skyrocketed in the last year, proponents said.

“It’s time for the state of Montana to step up to the plate, the federal government is in disarray,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bob Bergren, D-Havre.

Democrats said they would try to “blast” the bill out of the Republican controlled House Appropriations Committee Saturday and onto the House floor for a full vote. Such a motion would need 60 votes in a House where Republicans outnumber Democrats 50-49.

Though the two major parties in the chamber have been locked in an acrimonious budget debate, Democrats said they think there are enough Republicans who support the bill to overturn the committee’s decision.

But the committee’s chairman, Rep. John Sinrud, R-Bozeman, said the bill wasn’t necessary because the clinics could raise the same amount of money by charging a nominal fee to their roughly 30,000 clients. He said the monthly cost per individual would be equal to a cup of coffee or a pack of cigarettes.

“Why not just charge an individual half a latte?” Sinrud asked.

Anderson said that federal laws prohibit charging individuals who live below the poverty line. And proponents of the bill said the state would save money by preventing costly unwanted pregnancies.

“An ounce of prevention will pay off for the state of Montana,” Bergren said.

The bill is House Bill 638.