For the first time, the official Republican Platform names Planned Parenthood as a target for the withdrawal of taxpayer funding. The abortion behemoth has been receiving beaucoup bucks from taxpayers’ pockets for many years, and Pro-Lifers across the party divide have had enough.
The 2016 Republican Platform reads, in part:
We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare. We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts. In the meantime, we call on Congress to ban the practice of misleading women on so-called fetal harvesting consent forms, a fact revealed by a 2015 investigation. We will not fund or subsidize healthcare that includes abortion coverage.
As framed by the platform, Planned Parenthood earned specific mention in the platform when the abortion business engaged in – and were caught – transacting the sales of body parts from babies killed by abortion in their facilities. The platform references “a 2015 investigation,” which is the undercover video series released by the Center for Medical Progress in which Planned Parenthood officials all over the country – including right here in Southeast Texas – were exposed making arrangements to sell children’s body parts for profit.
Unsurprisingly, Planned Parenthood called the new language “an attack”, and used the change to in turn attack Donald Trump. “This attack in the party’s platform is unconscionable, and explains why Trump has a gender gap of historic proportions,” said Planned Parenthood VP Dawn Laguens. “Trump is doing exactly what he said he would do: trying to unite the party by making women and their access to health care a target.”
Pro-Life SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser, on the other hand, called the platform a response to “Democrat extremism on abortion.” Dannenfelser’s statements to media read, in part:
The Republican platform has always been strong when it comes to protecting unborn children, their mothers, and the conscience rights of pro-life Americans. The platform ratified today takes that stand from good to great. Firstly, it is reflective of Donald Trump’s pro-life policy commitments to appoint pro-life Justices, to advocate for and sign into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, and to defund America’s largest abortion business Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood currently receives, on average, about half a billion dollars from taxpayer coffers every single year.