Tag: Planned Parenthood

Rep. Cole Slams Democrats’ ‘Outrageous Move’ in Scrapping the Longstanding Hyde Amendment

Susan Jones – July 16, 2021

(CNSNews.com) – Pro-life advocates are expressing deep dismay after the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved the Fiscal Year 2022 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies funding bill — omitting the Hyde Amendment for the first time in 45 years.

The Hyde Amendment, which became law in 1976, bars the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortion except to save the mother’s life or in cases of incest or rape.

The appropriations bill passed through committee on a 33-25 vote on Thursday and now goes to the full House, where some 200 Republicans already have pledged to vote against it.

Committee member Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who introduced the measure this year, said repeal of the “longstanding, bipartisan” Hyde Amendment is an “outrageous move” that “doesn’t reflect the views held by the majority of Americans who oppose publicly-funded abortions.”

During the markup, Cole told the committee, “My amendment is simple.”

Cole noted that even among Americans who support abortion, “most don’t believe tax dollars should be used for abortion. In fact, 60 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortion,” he said.

Cole said scrapping the Hyde Amendment is another “overreach” by the far-left:

“But it also threatens to destabilize the entire appropriations process because this bill will never become law if this language is not included. Democrats in Congress simply do not have the majorities capable of passing this bill without Republican votes.

https://www.cnsnews.com

South Carolina Abortion Law Suspended a Day After Passage

Newsmax – February 19, 2021

South Carolina’s new law banning most abortions was suspended by a federal judge Friday on its second day in effect.

Judge Mary Geiger Lewis put a 14-day temporary restraining order on the law and will renew it until she can hold a more substantial hearing on March 9 on Planned Parenthood’s request that it not be enforced until the group’s lawsuit against South Carolina is resolved.

Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill into law Thursday less than an hour after it was sent to him, but the national reproductive health services organization sued even before the governor put ink to paper.

The temporary restraining order was needed in part because more than 75 women are scheduled to have abortions in the state over the next three days, and most of them would be banned under the new law, Planned Parenthood and The Center for Reproductive Rights said in court papers.

The “ South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act ” is similar to abortion restriction laws that a dozen states have previously passed. All were stopped from taking effect and currently are tied up in court. Federal law, which takes precedence over state law, currently allows abortion.

Planned Parenthood’s lawyers said South Carolina is “openly flouting this law.”

The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office said in court papers filed Friday morning that Planned Parenthood can’t be sure the law will be rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. With three justices appointed by Republican former President Donald Trump, they said, the court could overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision supporting abortion rights.

https://www.newsmax.com

Missouri becomes first ‘abortion-free state’: report

Ryan Foley – January 13, 2021

A pro-life group is reporting that Missouri has become the first “abortion-free state” in the U.S. after its last remaining abortion facility ceased terminating pregnancies.

Operation Rescue released a report outlining “The Status of American Abortion Facilities in 2020” last week. According to the report, “a total of 45 abortion facilities closed or halted abortions nationwide in 2020, leaving one state without an active abortion facility.”

“Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood in St. Louis was the last abortion facility in Missouri. It remains open, but Operation Rescue has confirmed that no abortion appointments have been available there for months, and none are available anytime in the foreseeable future. All abortion appointments are now being referred to the Fairview Heights Planned Parenthood facility across the Mississippi River in Illinois.”

Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood confirmed with The Christian Post that it no longer performs abortions and refers all patients seeking abortions to its new 18,000-square-foot Fairview Heights facility, which is located 16 miles away.

Planned Parenthood’s new Fairview Heights clinic performs both surgical abortions and medication-induced abortions for women in Southern Illinois and surrounding areas.

According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, Missouri has an abortion ban that would immediately go into effect should the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide be overturned. In 2019, the state passed a heartbeat bill, which would ban abortion at the point a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks gestation. Like many similar measures passed in other states, the law was quickly subject to a court challenge.

The pro-life group Americans United for Life ranked Missouri as the eighth-most pro-life state  on its “Life List 2021,” which was compiled based on a “comprehensive analysis of each state’s law and policy protections for human life from conception to natural death.” Nearby Arkansas was ranked the most pro-life state in the U.S., followed by Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Indiana, Kansas and Arizona.

https://www.christianpost.com

Undercover Journalist Hits Planned Parenthood with Defamation Lawsuit

– September 18, 2020

Undercover journalist David Daleiden filed a defamation lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, alleging that a communications officer gave false statements to a publication regarding organ harvesting operations.

Attorneys for Daleiden at the Thomas More Society said that the nation’s largest abortion organization orchestrated a smear campaign to distract from the content of his work, which featured candid conversations with Planned Parenthood executives about the trade of baby body parts.

“We have not been surprised over their campaign to smear the reputation of Mr. Daleiden, but they are not allowed to falsely besmirch his reputation for exposing the truth,” Thomas More Society president Tom Brejcha said in a statement.

The complaint cites a quote given by a communications officer from Planned Parenthood to Rewire News that accused Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress, of having “manufacture[d] a fake smear campaign against Planned Parenthood.” It also cites a tweet from November 2019 that claimed Daleiden, who posed as a prospective buyer of fetal organs, distorted the truth in his videos.

“In reality, as PPFA and its representatives recorded on the Videos readily admit in other fora, Plaintiffs’ videos accurately record Planned Parenthood officials’ own shocking words spoken in real life,” the complaint says.

https://freebeacon.com

78 Members of Congress Support HHS Rule Protecting Healthcare Workers Who Decline to Perform Abortions

– June 1, 2020

WASHINGTON — Numerous state attorneys general and 78 members of Congress have signed on to amicus briefs supporting a new rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that aims to protect the conscience rights of medical professionals who have objections to assisting with abortions or physician-assisted suicides.

HHS was sued last year by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led a coalition of nearly two dozen other states, as she asserted that the “Conscience Rights in Health Care” rule is discriminatory and “a gross misrepresentation of religious freedom.” The abortion giant Planned Parenthood and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association sued to challenge the protections as well.

In November, a federal judge struck down the measure, opining that the rule is unnecessary and too rigidly places states at jeopardy of losing federal funding for non-compliance with the conscience protections.

“The Department’s regulations are a recent chapter in this country’s ‘long history of providing protections … on the basis of religious beliefs and moral convictions,’” wrote Ohio Attorney General David Yost in a recent amicus brief to defend the rules as the case now rests in the hands of a federal appeals court.

“That history actually begins with the states. By the time the federal Constitution was ratified, all but one of the original thirteen states already had constitutional protections for religious freedom,” he noted.

https://christiannews.net

New Jersey Adopts Mandated LGBTQ-Inclusive Planned Parenthood Sex Ed Standards

Dr. Susan Berry  –  June 4, 2020

LGBTQ activist groups and Planned Parenthood are applauding the New Jersey State Board of Education’s approval of their “gold standard” sex ed standards.

LGBTQ activists Garden State Equality and abortion business Planned Parenthood announced in a joint statement Wednesday they are pleased their recommended public school sex ed standards, modeled after the National Sexuality Education Standards for grades K-12, were approved.

“The new guidelines and educational requirements feature an updated, more comprehensive curriculum that includes expanded content topics, including LGBTQ identities and consent,” the press statement said.

The 2020 NJSLS were adopted at today’s SBOE meeting. We are so grateful for the collaboration between the NJDOE, educator review teams, and stakeholders for their contribution to the adopted standards. Please click here to access the ’21-’22 standards: https://www.nj.gov/education/cccs/

The leftwing activist groups framed their announcement about the adoption of the new standards in the context of the national events occurring in the wake of the death of George Floyd, claiming sex ed is now an “equity issue”:

As our nation reckons with the systemic racism and violence against Black communities that is a part of all of our institutions, including our education systems, we take pause today to consider how sex education is an equity issue. Sex education is essential to young people’s health, relationships, and life goals, and has a proven track record of helping young people develop the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy decisions about their relationships, their health, and their future.

However, Monica Cline, a previous Planned Parenthood-trained Title X sex ed instructor and founder of It Takes A Family, told Breitbart News Planned Parenthood and its allies are “cleverly high jacking the injustices of other populations to silence opposition to their sexualized agenda for our youth.”

https://www.breitbart.com

New Video Shows Planned Parenthood Rep Admitting Under Oath to Being Paid for Baby Body Parts

– May 28, 2020

A new video released by the same organization that conducted an undercover investigation into Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby parts shows unsealed video footage of officials being questioned under oath about their knowledge of the payments, including one who admitted that the affiliate was only paid when it provided “usable” samples. Email communication and other documents likewise unsealed by a court also reveals the affiliate had an internal awareness of the exchange of organs and tissues for monetary payment.

Planned Parenthood has denied for years that it engaged in the sale of aborted baby parts, which is illegal under federal law.

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), led by David Daleiden, released the video on Tuesday after a court unsealed the recorded testimony and documents, which came out of a lawsuit that Planned Parenthood had filed against the pro-life activist.

A number of Planned Parenthood officials gave deposition last year during the legal proceedings, being questioned in person by an attorney in relation to the subject matter in the lawsuit.

One of those that gave sworn testimony was Tram Nguyen, the director of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, who was among those who were sent a proposed contract in 2015 by Daleiden as he posed undercover as a representative of a procurement company called BioMax. The contract offered to pay $750 per fetal liver and $1,600 for each liver/thymus pair.

Email correspondence shows that Nguyen advised colleague Dyann Santos that she wanted to “move forward” with the contract. She similarly stated when questioned, “I knew I wanted to move forward with it.” When asked if there is anything in writing that shows she opposed the payment, she said “no.”

Planned Parenthood had told the media previously that it rejected the contract.

https://christiannews.ne

Pro-life activists ordered to pay Planned Parenthood over $1.2M for exposé on baby body parts scandal

Michael Gryboski – May 1, 2020

A federal judge has issued an order demanding that a group of pro-life activists who were behind a series of undercover videos taken at Planned Parenthood facilities and abortion conferences are liable for more than $1.2 million in damages.

U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California released an order Wednesday against individuals connected to the Center for Medical Progress.

At issue was an Unfair Competition Law claim brought by Planned Parenthood and the plaintiffs California Business & Professions Code.

Orrick ruled in favor of the claim, citing a jury verdict from last November that found CMP, its founder David Daleiden, and activists including Troy Newman of Operation Rescue guilty of violating several laws when investigators went undercover at Planned Parenthood facilities and events.

In addition to issuing an injunction banning those named from attending Planned Parenthood events, Orrick also found them liable for large sums of money.

This includes $1,259,370 in damages related to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, plus other damages and attorneys’ fees.

“… the illegal and fraudulent prongs of the UCL are satisfied given the jury’s verdict that defendants engaged in numerous illegal and fraudulent acts in California and emanating from California, against California-based plaintiffs and others, committed in violation of California law, Federal law, and the laws of other jurisdictions,” wrote Orrick.

In a statement released Thursday, Operation Rescue noted that Newman intends to appeal the order, arguing that he and his fellow pro-life activists did nothing wrong.

https://www.christianpost.com

Christian Round-Ups Continue: 7 Arrested for Praying Near Greensboro Abortion Clinic During Stay-at Home Order

Paula Bolyard – March 31, 2020

On Sunday, we reported that four men were arrested outside a Greensboro, N.C., abortion clinic, where they were conducting a prayer walk. Despite the fact that that a pro-life group, Love Life, had canceled its group meeting and everyone was following the rules for social distancing, the Greensboro Police Department arrested them and charged them with violating Guilford County’s stay-at-home order.

Apparently not happy with violating the First Amendment rights of four prayer warriors, the Greensboro Police Department arrested seven more people on Monday after they were caught praying in public in front of a facility that makes its money by slaughtering innocent children.

Steve Noble, an area radio host who recorded the arrests, wrote on his Facebook page that those arrested were following the county’s rules by limiting their gathering, which was held on private property with the permission of the owner, to fewer than ten people. “They were exercising their First Amendment rights [to] assemble and to exercise their religious beliefs,” said Noble. “They believe they are allowed to be there under the exemption clauses of the local county order” regarding the Chinese coronavirus rules.

Justin Reeder, the founder of Love Life, was arrested for a second time on Monday, as were Jason Oesterreich and Isaiah Burner. Also arrested were Leroy Stokes Jr., Andre Gonzalez, Richard Whittier, and John Mcatee.

In multiple videos, the men can be seen abiding by the 6-foot social distancing recommendations. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that walking alone is permissible under the guidelines, police swooped in to arrest the men, ordering ten cars to the area to deal with the peaceful prayer warriors who were there not only to pray but to counsel men and women who were contemplating having their babies killed at “A Woman’s Choice” clinic.

Noble’s video, too, shows that the men were doing nothing more than walking and praying quietly to themselves when a heavy police presence was brought in to deal with them.

https://pjmedia.com

BREAKING: Congress passes $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, blocks funding for Planned Parenthood

Calvin Freiburger – March 27, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 27, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday to pass a $2 trillion coronavirus relief spending bill. The bill, which is meant meant to give temporary relief to Americans who have lost their jobs or business due to mandatory shutdowns, provides small businesses and certain non-profits money to fund their payroll during the period of the crisis. It is apparently worded in such a way that Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion chain, will not be able to access such funds.

The bill gives $1,200 to most Americans making less than $75,000 per year (and smaller payments to Americans who make more), as well as expanded unemployment benefits, temporary waivers on student loan payments, suspension of certain rules on retirement accounts, and relief for businesses such as suspended payroll tax payments.

It has been controversial due to the sheer size of its spending, as well as it containing hundreds of millions in unrelated expenditures for various public entities, including PBS, NPR, the Kennedy Center, and salaries and expenses for members of Congress.

House leaders initially hoped to pass the bill via unanimous consent, but the opposition of libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) required House members to return to Capitol Hill for a full recorded vote. President Donald Trump excoriated Massie, stating that while he too doesn’t like everything in the bill, compromises were necessary to “save our workers”:

Ultimately, the bill passed by voice vote, Politico reports. It now awaits the president’s signature.

In one victory for conservatives, Vice reports that the final version of the bill is worded in a way that makes Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion chain, ineligible for the bill’s bailout money. It empowers Trump administration to deny Planned Parenthood access to relief loans via the Small Business Administration. These provisions remain despite the loss of language that would have made the ineligibility of Planned Parenthood – an organization that took in $616 million from taxpayers, almost $370 million in private revenue, and over $590 million in private donations last year – even more explicit.

https://www.lifesitenews.com