Time to defund Planned Parenthood

Live Action continues to release undercover videos of its sex trafficking sting. In my opinion, the New Jersey video (released first) captured the most egregious behavior. Still, check out what’s coming out of Richmond, Falls Church, Roanoke, and Charlottesville.

The New Jersey and Richmond videos were featured in last night’s Expose Planned Parenthood webcast, which urged people to contact their federal legislators in support of H.R. 217, the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act. This bill would forbid abortion centers like Planned Parenthood from receiving money under Title X, which is the federal funding mechanism for women’s health services.

Two important things to note:

1) Under current law, Title X money cannot directly fund abortions. However, indirect funding occurs when the same organization provides both legitimate family planning services and abortion. Mike Pence, the bill’s sponsor, put it this way:

Now, in fairness, Planned Parenthood will be quick to say, well, you can’t use Title X funding to provide abortion services, and I’m sure they technically comply with that. I think we’re all adults; we understand that money is fungible. And to the extent that Planned Parenthood can use public resources to subsidize a Title X clinic, that frees up other of their resources, other streams of income, to subsidize their abortion clinic, which in many cases is in the same building– sometimes it’s right down the hallway.

2) The Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act does not reduce the amount of funding for family planning. Planned Parenthood’s supporters are attacking this as an anti-women’s-health measure. The truth is that any money that would have gone to Planned Parenthood will simply be diverted to other organizations, such as local health departments; you know, places that don’t have a record of covering up sex trafficking and statutory rape, lying to patients, and killing millions of unborn babies.