Bills introduced to target planned parenthood
Published 8:50 pm Wednesday, April 13, 2011
On Tuesday U.S. Representatives, Diane Black (R-TN) and Martha Roby (R-AL) introduced a bill—HconRes36—that would aid in defunding Planned Parenthood.
The bill would be a cost-saving measure, cutting $38 billion for the remaining six months of the Fiscal Year 2011.
“It is our responsibility to listen to those who elected us to make hard decisions. We must fight for those who do not have a voice, the unborn,” Roby said, in a press release. “We have heard repeatedly from the American people that Planned Parenthood is not—absolutely not—where they want their tax dollars to go.”
According to statistics provided by research through the Guttmacher Institute, in fiscal year 2006, the federal and state governments funded 177,000 abortion procedures for low-income women and contributed to the cost of 191 procedures while the remainder were entirely funded with state dollars.
The statistics show a growing trend among women ages 15-44 years of age procuring abortions, which, according to 2009 statistics cost an average of around $451 at 10 weeks’ gestation.
Roby said the organization, which is the nation’s largest abortion provider has become “independently wealthy” and continues to grow.
“To date, it has accumulated nearly $1 billion in net assets,” she said. “The more taxpayer dollars awarded to Planned Parenthood, the more abortions the group will perform.”
The Black-Roby resolution defunding Planned Parenthood will be brought to the House floor on Thursday for a “stand-alone” vote during consideration of the Continuing Resolution (CR).
“American taxpayers should not be compelled to support activities that they consider offensive and immoral,” Roby said, in a press release. “Our resolution will offer members of both the House and Senate an opportunity to vote up or down on whether to continue this funding.”
If the resolution passes both the House and the Senate, then it will be added to the full CR and sent to the president for signing.
According to the press release highlighting the introduction of the bill, conservative estimates indicate that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates receive $363 million of its nearly $1 billion budget in taxpayer funds.
For Sav-A-Life Administrator Lois Finlay, that amount of money is more than a good enough reason to call for the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
“Our law says federal money cannot be used to fund abortion,” Finlay said. “We hear about it in the news, that federal money is being used to fund abortion. We’re breaking the law and doing nothing about it. We have got to defund it.”
The pro-abortion organization is actually more of a “for profit” business in stark contrast with its “non-profit” status.
In addition to combating state and federal funded abortion, steps are being taken to define at what point a person “becomes” a person.
A couple of Personhood bills, which would define the term “persons” to include all humans from the moment of fertilization were the topic of a public hearing early Wednesday morning.
Ben DuPré, attorney at the Foundation for Moral Law, drafted the state Personhood bill and said there were a half-dozen people on both sides of the issue debating during Wednesday morning’s hearing.
“This bill would put all the abortion clinics out of business, so there’s a lot of money at stake for those folks,” DuPré said. “The reason we’re pushing for it is because it is a human life. Science has proven that, which we’ve known from the Bible for many years. It’s not only a theological issue, it is a scientific fact.”
DuPré said pro-abortionists won’t join them on the issue and, instead, want to talk about how “it would hurt women.”
According to DuPré, the Personhood bill cuts to the heart of the issue.
“Is it a human life, and if so, is it worthy of the protection of the law,” DuPré said. “That is the issue that Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry doesn’t want to talk about. They want to specifically ignore that issue and just say, ‘it’s a woman’s right.’”
A woman’s right to do what?
DuPré said what the argument from Planned Parenthood amounts to is advocating a woman’s right to kill their baby.
A quote from the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, taken from the Personhood Alabama website, reads, “The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a person within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment … If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.”