House Republicans grilled Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards Tuesday morning on her group’s generous employee salaries, spending on parties and travel, contributions to political causes and efforts to get Democrats elected, but largely ignored the issue that generated the hearing in the first place, which was the group’s involvement in providing aborted fetal tissue to researchers.
Richards, who heads the prominent chain of women’s health and abortion clinics, faced Congress for the first time ever to defend her group in the face of newly-energized GOP efforts to block it from getting federal dollars. A series of undercover videos from anti-abortion investigator David Daleiden highlighting Planned Parenthood’s involvement in providing aborted fetal tissue have prompted widespread outrage among Republicans and abortion opponents.
Two other House committees have also held hearings on Planned Parenthood this month, but Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee was focused Tuesday on Planned Parenthood’s funding sources and how it spends its dollars. Chaffetz said the group needs to be examined as a political entity.
“It’s a political organization and that’s something that needs to be ferreted out,” Chaffetz said of the organization that benefits from hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, mostly through Medicaid and family planning reimbursements for providing health services to low-income women.
“They’re pretty good at fundraising, they don’t necessarily need taxpayer dollars,” Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz said that acccording to tax records, Planned Parenthood spends $14,000 a day on travel and spent $600,000 in 2012 and 2013 on “blow-out parties.” He noted that Richards earns more than $500,000 annually and said some of the group’s top officers are paid salaries around $400,000. And he blasted the group’s political action committee, which spends heavily on getting Democrats elected.
Planned Parenthood has said it has done nothing illegal or unethical by providing fetal tissue for medical research. While emphasizing that only a small fraction of its hundreds of clinics participate in fetal tissue programs, Richards also criticized Daleiden, the maker of the videos who disguised himself in order to obtain the footage from top Planned Parenthood officials.
“Planned Parenthood has been the focus of extensive discussion and scrutiny for our health centers’ limited involvement in fetal tissue research as a result of a deliberate and systematic effort by David Daleiden and other opponents of safe and legal abortion to infiltrate our health centers, try to entrap our staff into potentially illegal conduct, and create discredited, doctored videos designed to smear Planned Parenthood,” Richards said.
Democrats are also irate that Republicans are pressing the defunding issue, defending the group for providing health services to many low-income American women. Ranking member Elijah Cummings noted that most of the group’s taxpayer funds come through Medicaid reimbursements, which must be used on healthcare.
“Today’s hearing is very important because it will reveal whether this committee is more interested in facts or fiction,” Cummings said. “The questions members will pose will show whether they’re engaged in an even-handed search for the truth or a partisan attack based on ideology.”
Planned Parenthood relies about taxpayer dollars for about 40 percent of its total funding. Besides questions of spending, Republicans blasted Richards over how its clinics don’t provide mammograms, instead referring women to other facilities for those services.
Richards responded that Planned Parenthood follows the practice of most women’s health providers, who don’t offer mammograms in-house but instead send patients to radiological centers.
There was also a heated exchange as Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tried to get Richards to explain why she issued a public apology in July after the first video was released. Richards apologized for the tone and statements made by another top Planned Parenthood doctor who was shown discussing how to keep fetal organs intact during abortions.
“In my opinion, it was inappropriate to have a clinical discussion in non-confidential, non-clinical setting,” Richards told Jordan.
That response appeared to be unsatisfactory to Jordan, who pressed Richards on which specific statements she was apologizing for.
“You can’t say I’m apologizing for statements in one video and then not say what those statements were,” Jordan said.
“We may just have to agree to disagree on this matter, I think I’ve explained myself,” Richards responded.
For their part, Democrats excoriated Republicans for the nature and tone of the hearing. At one point, Cummings criticized Republicans for not investigating corporations like Lockheed Martin who receive tax breaks and whose top executives earn millions.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said Republicans believe in individualism except when it comes women “controlling their own bodies and making their own health decisions.”
“The disrespect and misogyny rampant today shows what’s really going on here,” he said.
