Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul joined dozens of pro-life activists outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday who gathered to urge Congressional lawmakers to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood as they work to reach a budget deal by the end of the month.
The #WomenBetrayed rally, held just one day after the House Judiciary Committee began a series of hearings about Planned Parenthood’s selling of aborted fetus body parts, featured remarks by the Kentucky senator, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and several post-abortive women.
A number of pro-life women arrived at the rally Thursday fresh out of a meeting with House Speaker John Boehner, who was booed by thousands of Tea Party activists at a separate rally on Wednesday against President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. In late July, the Ohio Republican refused to commit to the effort to defund Planned Parenthood until he had his “facts first,” advising his conservative colleagues in Congress to do the same.
Paul, who holds the No. 10 spot in the Washington Examiner’s presidential power rankings, said Thursday that Republicans who’ve said the party lacks enough votes to block federal funding of the controversial women’s health provider “get it exactly wrong.”
“The other side has to find 60 votes to fund Planned Parenthood and as long as we separate the bills and we tell them, ‘You go out and find 60 people willing to fund Planned Parenthood’ … there has never been a better time,” Paul told the modest crowd.
The GOP candidate added that he and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz once discussed at what point a baby should be defined as having rights and Wasserman Schultz allegedly responded, “that’s a private matter.”
“You know what, when you have a five or six-pound baby, it’s no longer a private matter,” he said. “When you have Planned Parenthood turning the baby around so they can get access to their organs and sell them, that’s no longer a private matter. And when we have an organization that we are giving taxpayer dollars to, that is no longer a private matter.”
One pro-life activist who introduced the senator, said those seeking to defund Planned Parenthood are “not asking” for a government shutdown, but for “the leaders we elected to stand up and say, ‘No more women will be betrayed, no more children will be ripped apart.'”
Should the federal government shut down due a congressional battle over the issue, Paul says “so be it.”
“I think the country’s going in our direction, but what we need is leadership in Washington,” he said Thursday. “If the Democrats want to shut down government, we should point the finger and say, ‘If you want to shut down the government to spend money on harvesting organs of babies, so be it.’ But we should take a stand.”
Nancy Givens, a woman who endured a painful abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington, D.C., took the stage shortly after Paul’s remarks to deliver a more personal message.
“Planned Parenthood has lied to me and betrayed me in a very personal way,” Givens said through tears as she described the day she terminated her pregnancy and watched as the doctor “emptied the contents onto a tray right in front of my eyes.”
“I was taken into another room for recovery where there were women lying on cots and staring blankly at the ceiling. Then I was told to ‘get dressed,'” she said, adding that “instead of the healthcare they espouse, [Planned Parenthood] did not care.”
“They depersonalized me, they depersonalized my baby,” she continued.
Wasserman Schultz responded in an email statement Thursday, saying: “It’s not Planned Parenthood that has betrayed women, it’s the Republican Party.”
“The Republican Party does not support women’s health care, the right to choose, equal pay, paid sick and maternity leave, or a minimum wage increase,” she wrote, adding “the distinction couldn’t be more clear.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., reportedly said Wednesday that his committee plans to investigate the allegations that Planned Parenthood has engaged in illegal activity by harvesting and selling fetal body parts in addition to examining whether there are “gaps in the law that should be filled.”
“The Committee is aggressively seeking answers to these questions,” Goodlatte said.
