Two abortion-opposing groups plan to charter a pink bus to protest Planned Parenthood on a two-week tour starting at the end of the month.
Students for Life of America, the parent organization of more than 700 campus chapters around the country, says it will use the tour to press government officials to criminally investigate and block public funds to the women’s health provider, which performs more abortions than any other group in the U.S.
It’s part of Students for Life’s “Women Betrayed” effort, launched in the wake of undercover videos highlighting that some Planned Parenthood centers were paid for providing aborted fetal tissue to biomedical companies.
“Planned Parenthood betrays women by using them and their preborn children for profit and pushing abortion above all else and it’s time to take that message to as many Americans as possible,” said the group’s president Kristan Hawkins.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2575923
Planned Parenthood has since banned its clinics from getting any compensation, but it’s still being investigated by a special congressional panel and some GOP governors have tried to block it from receiving any Medicaid dollars. Next month, the Senate is expected to take up an Obamacare repeal bill that also strips Planned Parenthood of most federal funding.
Federal law allows providers to be compensated for the overhead costs of providing tissue for medical research. But the videos showing top Planned Parenthood officials appearing to negotiate over the price for aborted fetuses prompted a major backlash by abortion opponents, who for years have been seeking to undermine Planned Parenthood and say the footage proves it was trying to profit from abortions.
Students for Life spokeswoman Kristina Hernandez told the Washington Examiner that Planned Parenthood’s new ban on compensation “doesn’t absolve them” from the possibility that they broke the law by collecting too much money for the tissue.
“They need to be held responsible for their actions both past and present and taxpayers need to have a detailed understanding of what they have been paying for in regards to sending money to Planned Parenthood every year,” Hernandez said.
The bus is scheduled to leave from Sacramento, California on Nov. 30 and visit major cities in 14 states, including some stops at Planned Parenthood centers featured in the undercover videos obtained by David Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress.
The bus will be colored hot pink — Planned Parenthood’s signature hue — and display the message “Planned Parenthood Betrays Women. Investigate. Prosecute. Defund.” Staffers from Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit representing before the Supreme Court some of the challengers to President Obama’s birth control mandate, will also participate in the tour.
But it’s uncertain how successful GOP efforts to block Medicaid and family planning funds to Planned Parenthood will be. President Obama is sure to veto any defunding bill that lands on his desk. And last month, federal judges in Louisiana and Alabama ordered Republican governors to restore state payments to the group.
Planned Parenthood didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the tour protesting its centers.
