Activist groups across the country have launched a series of campaigns to demand that Congress not cave and allow funding for the biggest abortion provider in the United States to reappear in the Obamacare replacement bill.
Students for Life’s president, Kristan Hawkins announced a “baby sock campaign” Thursday. Students and other anti-abortion activists plan to send Congress 323,999 baby socks, which is the number of abortions Planned Parenthood reported they performed in 2015. Supporters will wear the same number of baby socks on their shirts, bags and backpacks to show support for stripping funding from Planned Parenthood.
“Pro-life millennials are more passionately pro-life than pro-choice millennials are about their own beliefs, something that outgoing NARAL president Nancy Keenan dubbed the ‘intensity gap’ back in 2012,” Hawkins told the Washington Examiner.
“The young women and men we see on college campuses every day who are standing up for the rights of the preborn and women betrayed by the abortion industry have had enough of Planned Parenthood and their deceitful business practices they try to cover up with fluffy language and pink t-shirts,” Hawkins continued. “The time is now for Congress to act and keep the promises they made during the campaign to defund Planned Parenthood.”
Planned Parenthood receives over $500 million from the federal government each year and performs over 300,000 abortions annually, which the company claims constitutes only 3 percent of its services.
The company has grappled with a number of scandals over the last several years, with a video that seems to show CEO Cecile Richards claiming, falsely, that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms, and undercover videos allegedly showing several employees covering up sex trafficking and statutory rape. Planned Parenthood’s troubles were exacerbated in summer 2015 by the controversy surrounding a series of videos released by the Center for Medical Progress that it claimed showed executives haggling over compensation for fetal body parts.
Another pressure campaign is dubbed #DefundPP, a re-ignition of #ProtestPP. On Feb. 11 over 70 national, state and local anti-abortion groups took part in #DefundPP rallies and events outside Planned Parenthood clinics and at GOP congressmen’s town halls. A weekend of #DefundPP events is planned for April 28 and 29. Anti-abortion groups CreatedEqual, the Pro-life Action League and Citizens for a Pro-life Society sponsor the cluster of events.
The groups want Congress to redirect Planned Parenthood’s funding to Federally Qualified Health Centers that do not perform abortions.
According to the latest Gallup poll, 40 percent of Americans said they would support a law prohibiting health clinics that provide abortion services from receiving federal funds.
Planned Parenthood did not immediately return the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
While many religious groups are at the forefront of the anti-abortion movement, medical groups are upping the pressure against Planned Parenthood funding as well.
“Their business is elective abortion, not healthcare,” Dr. Donna Harrison, executive director for American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists told the Washington Examiner. “Federally Qualified Health Care centers actually provide the real healthcare for women in rural and underserved areas.”
“By definition, there is no medical indication for an elective abortion. Elective abortion is an attempt to solve social problems by killing human beings,” she said. “Planned Parenthood should never have been included in funding designed for real medical care.”
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National Right to Life sent a letter to the House of Representatives on Friday asking it to pass the healthcare bill sans funding for Planned Parenthood. NRL is urging its members to contact their local congressmen and lobby as well.
“As long as [Obamacare] is the law of the land, tax dollars will continue to be used to pay for the killing of unborn children,” National Right to Life president Carol Tobias told the Washington Examiner.
“Not providing funds to the nation’s largest abortion provider sends a very clear statement that the government does not want to be an accomplice in this holocaust,” she said.
“The continued funding of this abortion corporation by our tax dollars has been a scandal for decades, and should never have been tolerated,” Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League told the Washington Examiner.
“No woman should have to go to an abortion facility to get basic healthcare, and the sooner all of Planned Parenthood’s funding is redirected to more comprehensive facilities, the better off our families will be,” Scheidler stated.
Brian Gottstein, chief communications officer of Live Action told the Washington Examiner that his organization is putting a half million dollars behind promoting educational videos on abortion called, “The Abortion Corporation.”
“When lawmakers watch these videos, they should be deeply concerned at the treatment of women at Planned Parenthood,” President of Live Action Lila Rose said. “It’s time to redirect Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding to more worthy local health clinics that aren’t in the abortion business but that instead provide holistic healthcare to women.”
The Susan B. Anthony List has campaigned against Planned Parenthood funding with TV, radio, online ads and polling of the public’s support for abortion restrictions.
“With a pro-life President in the White House and pro-life majorities in both the House and Senate we have never been closer to this pro-life goal,” said representative Mallory Quigley.
“Americans don’t want their taxpayer dollars going to abortion or abortion business — plain and simple.”
