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Religious Right Rebels Against Latest GOP Budget Proposal

Submitted by Brian Tashman on March 15, 2011 - 11:47am

It looks like it barely took two months for major Religious Right groups to panic over the GOP leadership’s agenda. Speaker John Boehner decided to pass another temporary continuing resolution that includes funding towards family planning and health services groups like Planned Parenthood, which anti-choice organizations fiercely opposed. With Republican leaders ready to ignore their pleas, many are now on the attack.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association did not mince words in his attack on Republican leaders:

The new temporary Continuing Resolution, which will be voted on in the House tomorrow, is perfectly terrible. It does not defund Planned Parenthood, abortions in D.C., ObamaCare, NPR or the EPA. The GOP leadership right now is only agreeing to stuff that Obama said he didn't want anyway. This is an inkling that there may an alarming lack of spine in House GOP leadership. This is the optimum time to strike down funding for Planned Parenthood, after Lila Rose's undercover investigation exposed its willingness to aid and abet those who traffic in child prostitution by arranging for underage girls to get flatly illegal abortions. The question on defunding is simple: if not now, when?

The Family Research Council will score the vote on the continuing resolution in its ratings of members, and Tony Perkins called on the group’s allies in Congress to vote against it:

Much to the displeasure of voters and dozens of organizations like FRC, the proposal sidelines every pro-life provision for which we fought. Apparently, some Republicans are worried that the bill will get hung up by the language to defund Planned Parenthood and D.C. abortions. All the more reason to have this battle now and move on.

Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List said the defunding of Planned Parenthood was a “non-negotiable” issue:

If Congress can’t cut off taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, a willing partner of the exploitation of women and young girls, how can it be serious about cutting spending anywhere else? The time to end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood is not next week, or in three weeks, or in a month, it’s now. Ending taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood in both short-term and long-term Continuing Resolution bills is a non-negotiable.

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Anti-Choice Activists Remind GOP That Defunding Planned Parenthood is "Non-Negotiable"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on March 1, 2011 - 10:09am

Last week, a group of anti-choice activsts sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders declaring tha that "defunding Planned Parenthood must be a non-negotiable in the Continuing Resolution and we urge you to accept nothing less than this outcome."

That letter apparently didn't have much influence on Boehner, as just a few days later he admitted that Republicans have no intention of insisting that the provision to defund Planned Parenthood remain in the Continuing Resolution if that means shutting down the government.

But Religious Right anti-choice activists are continuing to draw a line in the sand, and dozens of them - including Tony Perkins, Tom Minnery, Penny Nance, Phyllis Schlafly, Charmaine Yoest, Richard Land, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Andrea Lafferty, and Bob Vander Plaats - have signed on to a new letter [PDF] to Speaker Boehner and Rep. Eric Cantor to ostensibly thank them for supporting efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and remind them that this issue is "non-negotiable"

Funding Planned Parenthood and its affiliates does not decrease abortion. Rather, it increases the incidence of abortion, while it also encourages irresponsible and sometimes illegal activities that harm young women. In addition, Planned Parenthood’s abortion machine massively outpaces its adoption referrals. In 2008 a woman entering a Planned Parenthood clinic was 134 times more likely to have an abortion than be referred for adoption.

As debate over the Continuing Resolution continues, you and your colleagues will undoubtedly receive pressure from Planned Parenthood and its allies. Spending must be reduced, and taxpayers do not need to be, and do not want to be, funding the abortion empire. Defunding Planned Parenthood is a non-negotiable for this budget.

We hope you will continue to champion the Pence provision to ensure that it is not removed during the legislative process. 

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Anti-Choice Leaders Demand that Boehner Refuse to Negotiate on Planned Parenthood Funding, Or Else

Submitted by Brian Tashman on February 25, 2011 - 9:27am

After the Republican-controlled House voted to strip federal funding of Planned Parenthood for procedures like cancer screenings and STD tests, activists opposed to a woman’s right to choose want to make sure that the amendment defunding the woman’s health organization remains in the budget bill after the House negotiates with the Senate on the final Continuing Resolution. A group of prominent Religious Right leaders signed a letter insisting that Boehner “accept nothing less” than the elimination of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, and rely heavily on Live Action’s discredited and doctored smear videos to justify their demands. Signatories include Lila Rose, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Tom McClusky, Penny Nance, Phyllis Schlafly, Frank Cannon, Gary Bauer, and Erick Erickson:

Dear Speaker Boehner,

Planned Parenthood, a scandal-plagued abortion organization, must be held accountable for abusing innocent young victims while receiving hundreds of millions in federal dollars each year.

They must be defunded of federal tax dollars, and now is the time to do it. The House vote in support of Rep. Mike Pence’s Amendment No. 11 to the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (H.R. 1) to prevent government funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, is an excellent start.

However, the House vote on the Pence Amendment is nothing more than symbolic unless it remains intact through the legislative process. Defunding Planned Parenthood must be a non-negotiable in the Continuing Resolution and we urge you to accept nothing less than this outcome.

…

As debate over the Continuing Resolution continues we urge you to do everything you can to ensure that the Pence Amendment remains intact in the final version of the Continuing Resolution. Planned Parenthood is not safe for women, it is not safe for young girls, and it must be defunded now.

Meanwhile, Randall Terry led a sit-in at Boehner’s office where protesters, except for him, were arrested, and threatened Boehner and other House Republican leaders with primary challenges if Planned Parenthood’s funding wasn’t withdrawn. “If they do not fulfill this obligation,” Terry said, “we will run primaries against Mr. Boehner and other House leaders,” as it would be “a betrayal of God Himself.”

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Right-Wing Leaders Hail House Vote to Strip Planned Parenthood of Funding

Submitted by Brian Tashman on February 18, 2011 - 4:07pm

The amendment to block funding to Planned Parenthood passed by a vote of 240-185, achieving a long-held goal of Religious Right groups that vehemently oppose the healthcare organization. During the debate, House Republicans frequently touted the hoax videos produced by the extreme group Live Action and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) even pledged to go after Planned Parenthood’s non-profit status.

Taxpayer funding of abortion is already barred under federal law, and this new amendment would stop Planned Parenthood from receiving funds to provide the medical services which comprise the vast majority of the group’s work, like cancer screenings, tests for sexually transmitted infections, and family healthcare.

But an amendment devastating women’s healthcare is a reason to celebrate for anti-choice leaders and their allies in Congress:

Mike Pence:

This afternoon’s vote is a victory for taxpayers and a victory for life. By banning federal funding to Planned Parenthood, Congress has taken a stand for millions of Americans who believe their tax dollars should not be used to subsidize the largest abortion provider in America.

I commend my colleagues in both parties for taking a stand for taxpayers and a stand for life. I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to support this legislation and end federal funding of Planned Parenthood once and for all.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, Susan B. Anthony List:

“Ending taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood is a non-negotiable,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “It must be a top priority in the Continuing Resolution battle. Taxpayers have strongly rejected their complicity with Planned Parenthood in the sex trafficking of underage girls. Pro-life America demands that our leaders in the Senate step up and take on this fight and that the House leadership holds its ground. Americans have spoken and the time to defund Planned Parenthood, a habitual and unapologetic ally of those who deal in the exploitation of minors, is now. This is a black and white issue and we will accept nothing less than the total defunding of Planned Parenthood in the Continuing Resolution.”

Tony Perkins, Family Research Council:

“We commend Mike Pence and the bipartisan majority of House Members who stood with the American people in saying that enough is enough. Planned Parenthood, a scandal-plagued abortion organization, must be held accountable for abusing innocent young victims while receiving hundreds of millions in federal dollars each year.

“The fact that Planned Parenthood not only left minor girls trapped in prostitution, but encouraged it, shows an incredible lack of humanity on their part. What goes on behind the windowless offices of Planned Parenthood, as Live Action's videos show, is both saddening and shocking, but the fact that it has often been done with taxpayer dollars is indefensible.”

National Right to Life Committee:

“This landmark vote demonstrates that most House members now recognize Planned Parenthood is a hyper-political, under-regulated, out-of-control mega-marketer of abortion as a method of birth control,” said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.

…

“Now senators, too, will go on record on whether to push the snout of this bloated abortion mega-marketer, Planned Parenthood, out of the U.S. Treasury feeding trough,” said NRLC's Johnson.

Jay Sekulow, American Center for Law and Justice:

“There’s no better place to begin the budget cutting process, than putting a stop to funding Planned Parenthood,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “It’s stunning that Planned Parenthood receives more than $360 million dollars a year in federal taxpayer funds. According to its own filings, Planned Parenthood reported more than 330,000 abortions in 2009 alone, a number that continues to climb. By receiving this windfall of federal funds, Planned Parenthood is able to free-up other resources enabling them to continue to promote and expand their pro-abortion agenda. The approval of the Pence Amendment in the House is long overdue and sends a strong message - American taxpayers are no longer willing to subsidize the nation's largest abortion provider.”

Even GOProud tried to take credit and tweeted:

Victory! @GOPROUD supported effort to defund Planned Parenthood passes the House. #tcot

Update:

Traditional Values Coalition:

Planned Parenthood is not in the industry of health care, nor has it ever been. Just this year, Planned Parenthood demanded that all Planned Parenthood clinics will offer abortions -- no exceptions. The Pence Amendment will strip $170 million in Title X funding intended for health care services away from the national abortion provider from Planned Parenthood, and I couldn’t be happier.

As the Pence Amendment inevitably reaches the U.S. Senate, taxpayers need to strenuously remind their lawmakers that each taxpayer dollar spent on Planned Parenthood frees up one dollar for Planned Parenthood to spend on its abortion arm. Those who defend Planned Parenthood’s abortion business are on the wrong side of history and the American taxpayer.

Priests for Life:

As illustrated by the outcome of this afternoon’s vote, members of the newly-elected House of Representatives are moving forward with various bills to defund the abortion industry. The argument here is not simply that we should not be forced to pay for things with which we disagree. The argument is that we should not pay for the killing of children. Remember, many of the most ardent supporters of abortion admit that it kills a child. Our government, indeed our civilization, is built on the premise that life is to be protected, not destroyed.

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Republican Congressmen Embrace Lila Rose and Live Action’s Hoax Videos

Submitted by Brian Tashman on February 9, 2011 - 4:57pm

Live Action’s ongoing smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, where actors playing a pimp and a prostitute used hidden cameras to try to dupe clinic staffers into a sex trafficking ring, has ran into numerous hurdles. The radical group’s videos have found to be heavily doctored and actually show clinic workers acting properly and lawfully. In fact, before Live Action even released the edited tapes, Planned Parenthood alerted the FBI about visitors who sought advice for “underage girls who were part of a sex trafficking ring.” Live Action is led by anti-choice radical Lila Rose, who previously collaborated with notorious trickster James O’Keefe and likes to compare herself to Martin Luther King Jr. Rose also has a long history of deceptively editing videos.

But the Religious Right and leading Republicans have increasingly embraced Rose and her hoax videos, and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) is using the discredited videos to promote his bill that would end federal funding of Planned Parenthood, imperiling women’s health services.

Tomorrow, leading GOP congressmen plan to join Rose and Pence to demand Congress strip Planned Parenthood of its funding. Congressmen Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Virginia Foxx (R-NC) , Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) , Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), and Andy Harris (R-MD) will speak with Rose and Pence, along with Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List and Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America.

All of the Congressmen mentioned have a long history with extreme anti-choice activism:

Schmidt railed against reproductive rights in a speech to 1st graders in an elementary school; Buerkle served as the spokesperson for the extreme group Operation Rescue; Hartzler backed bills that would compel women seeking an abortion to view their sonograms and even supported legislation that would force the state to file murder charges against women and their doctors if they performed a late-term abortion; Foxx wants to ban emergency contraception like RU-486 and Ella; Harris wanted to allow pharmacists to refuse contraception to customers and challenged a moderate pro-choice Republican incumbent in 2008, and Ellmers is an avowed opponent of legal abortion who recently justified receiving taxpayer-subsidized health care by claiming that Washington DC is too expensive to live in with a $174,000 per year salary, while pushing to defund health services for low-income women.

But having such an extreme group of anti-choice congressmen standing with Rose is no surprise, as Rose herself has called for abortions to “be done in the public square.”

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Far-Right Already Using Live Action’s Smear Campaign to Push Anti-Choice Legislation

Submitted by Brian Tashman on February 2, 2011 - 12:20pm

As Kyle notes, Religious Right organizations have launched a coordinated effort to bring down Planned Parenthood just as the House is set to hold hearings on the misleadingly-named “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” H.R. 3, that attempts to end insurance coverage for abortion and even redefine 'rape.' The House may also take-up Rep. Mike Pence’s “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,” which would strip funding to Planned Parenthood that goes towards women’s health services.

Republican leaders have had no problems using smears in their drive to pass anti-choice legislation in the past. Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Michele Bachmann falsely claimed that women in Pennsylvania were using federal dollars to pay for abortions as a result of the health care reform law. Bachmann suggested that defunding Planned Parenthood would help solve the country’s budget deficit, and Pence even used the unemployment rate as a reason to end funding to Planned Parenthood.

Rep. Chris Smith, the chief sponsor of H.R.3, and Rep. Joe Pitts, who sponsored the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and is the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Health, both participated in a 2009 Religious Right campaign warning of a “a massive effort to mandate taxpayer-funded abortions” through the health care reform law and blasting Planned Parenthood funding: “Citing the $350 million in taxpayer money handed over to Planned Parenthood, the U.S. abortion industry’s largest business, it warned, ‘Now they want even more!’” And Pitts absurdly claimed on Fox News that the health care reform law would “compel communities who don’t have [abortion] service to provide it.”

That same year, Religious Right leader Gary Bauer called upon activists to attack Planned Parenthood just as James O’Keefe targeted ACORN: “Planned Parenthood deserves the same treatment ACORN is getting and should be stripped of the hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars it receives annually.”

Earlier this week, Smith told Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association that the GOP leadership is solidly behind his bill, and that “Planned Parenthood and the others in the abortion rights movement” who oppose his legislation “are just are trying to poison the waters while they literally poison the child to death.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List is already using Live Action’s video in her demand for Congress to pass anti-choice legislation:

The horror exposed in the video released yesterday was not an isolated incident in the history of a group willing to be a chief ally in the exploitation of women and girls. The unbroken chain of Planned Parenthood's violations is appalling. Yet, this organization insists that it deserves taxpayers' continued support. The moment for taxpayers to reject their compulsory funding of the exploitation of women has arrived. If this organization doesn't shut down its gruesome business altogether, it should at least operate on its own dime. The SBA List and other groups in this coalition are calling upon pro-life America to contact their Representatives and urge them to support the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act. Planned Parenthood must be defunded.

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Live Action Video Just The Beginning of Religious Right's Latest Attack on Planned Parenthood

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on February 2, 2011 - 10:54am

Within hours of the release of Lila Rose's latest hoax video attack on Planned Parenthood, Religious Right anti-choice leaders had already lined-up in support and began using it to demand that the organization be de-funded.

Taking down Planned Parenthood has been a primary goal of the Religious Right for years and it looks like plans have been in the works to exploiting this latest video for some time now, because these same leaders have already launched a new effort called Expose Planned Parenthood complete with its own website:

Anti-abortion groups will launch today an aggressive campaign aiming to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding.

A new website, Expose Planned Parenthood, went live late Tuesday backed by a coalition of national and local anti-abortion groups. The website, previewed exclusively to POLITICO, will serve as a hub for the movement’s efforts to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal funds.

...

The new anti-Planned Parenthood campaign, led by Susan B. Anthony List and Live Action, also includes Concerned Women for America, Americans United for Life, 40 Days for Life, Students for Life, the Family Research Council, and New Jersey Right to Life.

“If there is a point where we can say ‘this is too much,’ this is it,” Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser told POLITICO. “Contributing to a group willing to be a chief ally in the exploitation of women and girls is indeed too much. Taxpayer support of Planned Parenthood is just that.”

The site hosts an online action center where anti-abortion activists can lobby their members of Congress to support Rep. Mike Pence’s (R-Ind.) Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would strip the group of federal funding. The outreach campaign will ask activists to lobby members through emails, letters to the editor and letters to local Congressional offices.

And these same leaders are all joining together for a webcast tomorrow to be hosted by the Family Research Council:

A new undercover sting operation shows abortion giant Planned Parenthood's willingness to exploit the victims of child prostitution.

Shocking undercover video footage reveals a Planned Parenthood clinic manager assuring a pimp that the clinic would secretly offer full access to abortions and other services -- despite knowing full well that the girls were underage victims.

To respond swiftly to this crisis -- and to take decisive action to strip Planned Parenthood of all taxpayer funding -- the pro-life movement is uniting this THURSDAY NIGHT on a nationwide webcast ... and your attendance is critical!

Register today for our webcast and you'll be among the first to see the disturbing undercover video footage -- that already has Planned Parenthood in panic mode -- and you'll learn how YOU can take action to help defund Planned Parenthood, which received more than $363 million in taxpayer dollars over the last year

FRC Action President Tony Perkins will be joined by Lila Rose, president of Live Action. Lila will show the video footage, explain the specifics of the sting operation, and detail Planned Parenthood's inexcusable actions.

Joining the Webcast will be top pro-life leaders, including:

* LILA ROSE, Live Action
* MARJORIE DANNENFELSER, Susan B. Anthony List
* TONY PERKINS, Family Research Council
* DAVID BEREIT, 40 Days for Life
* ABBY JOHNSON, Former Planned Parenthood Director, Now Pro-Life Activist and Author
* DR. ALVEDA KING, Priests for Life
* WENDY WRIGHT, Concerned Women for America
* CHARMAINE YOEST, Americans United for Life
* STEVE WAGNER, The Renewal Forum
* KRISTAN HAWKINS, Students for Life of America

Amazing, isn't it, how in less than 24 hours after the release of this video, the Religious Right had already unified behind a press release, created a website, and coordinated a webcast. 

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Religious Right Leaders Rush To Embrace Hoax Video Attack on Planned Parenthood

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on February 1, 2011 - 1:27pm

As Brian noted earlier, Live Action has finally gotten around to releasing its hoax video attack on Planned Parenthood, despite the fact that Planned Parenthood had already reported the "potential sex trafficking" to law enforcement officials.

And despite the fact that Live Action's Lila Rose got her start working with James O'Keefe and that this new video heavily resembles O'Keefe's own notorious ACORN smear job, Religious Right are already lining-up behind Rose and using the video as an excuse to attack Planned Parenthood:

Marjorie Dannenfelser - President, Susan B. Anthony List

"The exploitive roots and track record of Planned Parenthood is a largely untold story that now cannot be ignored. The horror of the logic behind Planned Parenthood's founding has come to roost in this modern form: it is the primary partner of those who degrade and exploit women. The exploitation of women by men through abortion was vehemently rejected by the early feminists. Yet today's footage and the unbroken trail of like evidence is a natural extension of founder eugenicist Margaret Sanger's worldview, who saw vulnerable citizens like African-Americans, the poor, and immigrants as 'human weeds' and 'reckless breeders.' She believed 'the most merciful thing a large family does to one of its infants is to kill it.' Certainly, this is not a heritage that embraces the intrinsic value of every human being. The unbroken chain of examples of such exploitation is appalling, and to further the injustice, this organization insists that it deserves the continued support of taxpayers. The moment for taxpayers to reject their compulsory involvement in Planned Parenthood has arrived. If it stays in business at all, it should do so on its own dime."

Abby Johnson - Former Planned Parenthood Clinic Director turned Pro-Life Advocate, Author of Unplanned

"As a former Planned Parenthood director, it is not surprising to me that this organization would protect individuals involved in sex trafficking. It actually seems like a natural fit. Planned Parenthood is involved in the violent killing of children and has no regard for life. People who traffic these young women for sex have no regard for their lives and are often involved in violent crimes. As someone who has witnessed this connection first hand as a clinic worker, I am so thankful Planned Parenthood's connection to this industry is being exposed."

Marie Tasy - Executive Director, New Jersey Right to Life

"New Jersey taxpayers and every state and federal elected official and law enforcement agency throughout this country should be outraged that an organization claiming to conduct 'extensive community outreach' has been caught on tape doing everything in its power to conceal the sexual abuse and exploitation of girls as young as 14. When Planned Parenthood says they provide 'family planning' services and brags that 'we welcome everyone -- regardless of race, age, income, sexual orientation, or disability,' what they really mean is that they're willing to make money on anyone, even child sex slaves."

Tony Perkins - President, Family Research Council

"Planned Parenthood has again proven that they are nothing more than a money-grabbing and highly corrupt abortion organization that will conceal a crime as disgusting as child prostitution -- and ensure that it quietly continues. Americans work too hard for their dollars to fund an organization this devoid of concern for young women and basic decency, much less to the tune of $350 million a year."

Dr. Charmaine Yoest - President & CEO, Americans United for Life

"This video will help Americans see the appalling truth behind Planned Parenthood's glossy public relations machine. The world's largest abortion provider poses as the defender of women's health in the glare of the spotlight. But when real women enter their doors, only money matters. We must make defunding Planned Parenthood a national priority: not one tax dollar should be given to fuel the abortion industry. Americans United for Life is proud to stand with Lila Rose and Live Action in their courageous work exposing the threat to women posed by the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood."

Wendy Wright - CEO, Concerned Women for America

"Sex traffickers will take their victims to abortionists to end pregnancies or test for sexually transmitted diseases in order to keep their victims usable for sale. Planned Parenthood has apparently realized this, and that they could make not only one sale, but repeat sales. Medical professionals are on the front lines to detect a sex trafficking victim and are duty-bound to rescue the victims. Imagine the crushing despair of a trafficking victim, taken outside the shadows to a 'respectable' government-funded health care provider, only to learn that they are partnering with the trafficker to assist his illegal abuse. This latest tape confirms that Planned Parenthood continues to partner with abusing men against the women and girls they claim to serve. Congress and state governments need to quit funding Planned Parenthood and their corrupt practices that abuse women."

David Bereit - National Campaign Director, 40 Days for Life

"As the father of a young girl, I cannot imagine any parent trusting Planned Parenthood with their daughter after watching this shocking and disturbing video. The revelation that a Planned Parenthood office is willing to aid and abet illegal trafficking of sex slaves -- to help line the pockets of pimps with cash -- raises the question: Who else is being exploited at Planned Parenthood's other 820 locations? This demands an immediate federal investigation for the sake of all our daughters, and -- at the very least -- Congress should freeze all taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood until the investigation is complete."

Kristan Hawkins - Executive Director, Students for Life of America

"This explosive video confirms what many of us in the pro-life movement have long suspected; that Planned Parenthood engages in practices that exploit women and underage girls in human sex trafficking and statutory rape. Now, thanks to this sting operation, we have the proof. Pro-Life students must share this video with their classmates, friends and teachers. Planned Parenthood can’t be trusted on -- or off -- campus."

Dr. Alveda King and Fr. Frank Pavone - Priests for Life

"Now we know that Planned Parenthood is not only targeting the abortion of black babies, but they are eager and willing to cover up the prostitution enslavement of young girls -- including minorities -- so long as they make money doing it. We must defund Planned Parenthood and their bogus claims of protecting women."

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SBA List’s Marjorie Dannenfelser Claims Victory Over “Social Issues Truce”

Submitted by Brian Tashman on January 11, 2011 - 2:27pm

Indiana Governor and potential presidential candidate Mitch Daniels has taken a pounding from the Religious Right, since June and even up to today, for suggesting that there should be a “truce” over social issues in order to increase attention to the country’s economic problems and debt. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the head of the fiercely anti-choice and poorly named group the Susan B. Anthony List, writes in the National Review that the debate over the next chairman of the Republican National Committee shows that GOP has decidedly rejected any moderation on social issues such as the right to choose and gay rights. She praises the conservative views of the RNC chair candidates and also points out that Daniels himself even backpedaled on his own call for a truce. But while Dannenfelser believes the GOP is united over the importance of social issues, CPAC’s growing crisis reflects otherwise.

The debate was completely devoid of the kind of fireworks that political commentators love. As SBA List and National Organization for Marriage Skype pre-interviews had suggested, each of the five candidates affirmed without hesitation their determination to support the Republican platform’s social-issue stands and to honor that support in the party’s programs, from recruiting candidates to buying ads to micro-targeting votes.

The aura of unity sorely exasperated professional cynics like the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who fumed for his readers, “The candidates were nearly dissent-free. Abortion? All opposed. Lower taxes? All in favor. Gay marriage? All opposed. Cutting spending? All in favor.” Jon Stewart found comedy in the comity.

Far from being a dull affair, however, the debate proved that the 2011 GOP has an unshakable core — and this core exercises real influence over the expressed convictions of the GOP’s national leaders. After all, only two short years ago, current RNC chairman Michael Steele — who was a board member of the pro-choice Republican Leadership Council — told GQ magazine that he believed abortion was an “individual choice.” Maria Cino, one of the four leading challengers he faced this week, served on the board of WISH List, a political action committee devoted solely to electing pro-choice Republican women.

At the debate, both Steele and Cino expressed profound pro-life conviction and commitment.

…

Governor Daniels, for his own part, made another attempt just after Christmas to explain away his “truce talk,” saying that his message was not directed at social conservatives but at the people “aggressively trying to change the definition of marriage.” His advice to the liberal activists: “Stand down for awhile” so the country can focus on its deepening fiscal crisis.

All of this is progress — and rapid progress at that. It’s also recognition that the conservative resurgence this past November involved a confluence, and not a divergence, of the social, fiscal, and national-security streams within the GOP. One week into the two-year cycle that leads to the reelection or defeat of Barack Obama, the GOP truce on internal disunity is turning out to be the one that really counts.

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Anti-Choice Crowd Celebrates as GOP Picks Joe Pitts, Presses for New Restrictions on Abortion

Submitted by Brian Tashman on December 8, 2010 - 10:47am

When Michigan Republican Fred Upton was tarred as a “moderate” during his campaign to lead the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, leading anti-choice groups including the National Right to Life Committee and the Susan B. Anthony List suggested back in November that they could support Upton if he picks Joe Pitts to chair the Health Subcommittee. Pitts, the co-author of the restrictive Stupak-Pitts amendment during the health care reform debate, is one of the most fervently anti-choice members of Congress. Now, Upton won his campaign to lead the committee and selected Pitts to chair the Health Subcommittee which not only deals with health care legislation but also sets policy with regards to abortion rights and reproductive health.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser called Pitts’s appointment “a major pro-life victory,” and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council told LifeNews that Pitts is committed to passing anti-choice legislation to stop the purported taxpayer funding of abortion.

While the nonpartisan PolitiFact already determined that rightwing claims of taxpayer funding for abortion are false and simply untrue, the facts didn’t stop groups like SBA List, CitizenLink (formerly Focus on the Family Action), and the Family Research Council from spreading the badly misleading claim.

The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” better known as “Stupak on steroids” would impel private insurers to drop abortion coverage by taking away the insurance plans’ tax deductions, make the Hyde Amendment permanent, and prevent “any government department from funding any program that touches on abortion in any way, however notional.” There is already a drive by Mike Pence and Michele Bachmann to pass the "Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act," which would de-fund reproductive healthcare organizations which provide abortions, like Planned Parenthood, even though such financing does not go to abortion coverage.

During an interview with CNSNews, Bachmann was asked “What should Republicans do to advance protections for the lives of those unborn babies who are being slaughtered in this country?” Bachmann repeats the two baseless and fallacious claims that women in Pennsylvania received taxpayer funding for abortions and that “for the first time in American history under Obamacare, socialized medicine, under President Obama, we have federal funding of abortion.” She also calls for the reinstatement of the global gag rule, which cuts off US funding to international family planning services.

Watch:

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