Jeb Bush: Planned Parenthood ‘Not Actually Doing Women’s Health Issues’

For the second time this month, Jeb Bush has said something that is bound to end up in a general election attack ad, should he ever surpass Donald Trump.

Answering a question about federal funding for Planned Parenthood at a town hall meeting in Colorado, the Republican candidate reportedly said, “I, for one, don’t think Planned Parenthood ought to get a penny though, and that’s the difference because they’re not actually doing women’s health issues.”

It was at the Southern Baptist Forum in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this month that Bush uttered the line, “I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues.”

In both instances, Hillary Clinton’s campaign fired back at Bush, this time highlighting the services Planned Parenthood provides beyond just abortions:

Hillary ClintonVerified account‏@HillaryClinton

Hillary Clinton retweeted Juana Summers

Jeb is just wrong. 2.7 million patients for 900K cancer screenings and 4.5M STI tests and treatments/year

Hillary Clinton added,

Juana Summers @jmsummers

Jeb Bush: "I don't think Planned Parenthood ought to get a penny because they're not actually doing women's health issues."

• RETWEETS2,291
• FAVORITES3,244
• 

8:31 AM - 25 Aug 2015

Similarly, Planned Parenthood tweeted at Bush with a graphic that detailed 10.6 million services it provided to women in 2013:

Planned ParenthoodVerified account‏@PPact

FYI, @JebBush: This is women's health care. And it's what #PlannedParenthood does.

• RETWEETS103
• FAVORITES75
• 

11:15 AM - 25 Aug 2015

Via: Mediaite

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[VIDEO] Rubio: 'I'll Support Any Legislation that Reduces the Number of Abortions'

Via: Meet The Press

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Boehner Wants More ‘Facts’ Before Ending Planned Parenthood Funding. Here’s 8.

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that he wants to put “facts first” before using the appropriations process to end federal funding to Planned Parenthood. The most recent reports of harvesting and selling body parts from aborted unborn babies have renewed the call to end the more than half a billion dollars that the organization receives in government funding each year.

Here are just a few more facts that Boehner (and all of Congress) should consider before continuing to send the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers to the nation’s largest abortion provider:

Fact #1: Planned Parenthood Has Become a Billion-Dollar Organization on the Backs of Taxpayers

Planned Parenthood has ridden the waves of taxpayer funding to millions of dollars in annual surpluses. During its last reporting year, like many before it, the organization reported revenues over expenses exceeding $127 million and net assets of more than $1.4 billion. During that same year, Planned Parenthood received over $528 million in taxpayer-funded grants and reimbursements from federal and state coffers – 41 percent of the organization’s total revenue. As a Government Accountability Office reportreleased this past March demonstrates, a large portion of that taxpayer money comes from a variety of federal sources, including Title X and Medicaid.

Fact #2: Planned Parenthood Performs 1 in 3 Abortions in the U.S.

In the 2013-2014 reporting year alone, Planned Parenthood reported performing 327,653 abortions- and nearly 1 million abortions over the pastthree years. There have even been allegations from former employees of mandatory “abortion quotas” that affiliates must meet and the national organization recently announced that all affiliates would have to begin providing abortion services.

Fact #3: Planned Parenthood has Decreased Preventive Care, While Increasing Abortions

While, according to the organization’s most recent report, Planned Parenthood affiliates performed 327,653 abortions during the last reporting year, they made only 1,880 adoption referrals and provided just 18,684 prenatal services. Indeed, abortion accounted for 94 percent of the organization’s pregnancy-related services (abortion, adoption referral, prenatal services). According toanalysis by Americans United for Life, even cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood have decreased 50 percent since 2004, while the number of abortion procedures has increased by about 70,000 each year during the same time period. And despite some supporters’ statements to the contrary, Planned Parenthood does not and cannot provide mammograms.

Fact #4: Planned Parenthood Has Been Accused of Financial Fraud with Taxpayer Dollars

Planned Parenthood affiliates have been accused of potential fraud when it comes to government reimbursements for services. In 2013, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast agreed to pay an over $4 million settlement for Medicaid fraud according to the Texas Attorney General. Summaries of state audits of family planning programs have indicated similar abuse and fraudulent practices by Planned Parenthood affiliates to the tune of over $8 million across 9 states.

Fact #5: Planned Parenthood Fights Commonsense Laws that Protect Women and Children

Along with its many challenges to commonsense state laws regulating abortion doctors and clinics and fighting a bill in Congress to limit dangerous and gruesome late-term abortions, Planned Parenthood has even opposed legislation that would protect infants born alive after failed abortions. More recently, Planned Parenthood was involved in attempts to derail an anti-human trafficking bill in Congress because the legislation included a longstanding and widely-supported policy against taxpayer funding of abortion.

Fact #6: Planned Parenthood Stands Accused of Jeopardizing the Safety and Health of Women and Girls

While claiming to support the interests of women, Planned Parenthood has also been accused by pro-life advocacy groups of abetting the sex trafficking of minor girls and at least four affiliates in Delaware, Virginia, Colorado and Illinois have been similarly accused of neglecting the health and safety of patients.

Fact #7: Women Can Receive Wider Range of Care at Other Centers

Health care services are already being provided for those who need them without unethical practices or entanglement in abortion. More than 2,000 pregnancy centers provide medical testing, prenatal care, ultrasounds and child-birth classes, among other services to women facing unplanned pregnancies, empowering them with life-affirming options.

In addition to those resources specifically for pregnant women, the federal government funds roughly 1,200 federally qualified health clinics across the country that served 21 million people in 2012 alone and often provide birth control options, cancer screenings and women’s health exams, not to mention a wide-range of primary health services for women, children and men.

Fact #8: Planned Parenthood Advances a Culture that Devalues Life

Planned Parenthood is the leader of a gruesome and ruthless industry, which daily adds to the 56 million unborn children and countless women harmed by abortion.

The videos released over the last week have merely shown the nation where the logic of abortion-on-demand inevitably leads: to where tiny livers and lungs are useful for harvesting, but the nameless baby they come from is too small, dependent, disabled, or simply too inconvenient to be allowed to continue living. The value of a life within Planned Parenthood’s walls is measured by its utility and convenience – rather than the inherent dignity of every human being.

Congress Must Stop Funding Planned Parenthood

Regardless of the outcome of the very necessary congressional inquiry, there is no reason to continue entangling federal money with an organization nearly allof whose pregnancy-related services are abortion procedures.

There is nothing stopping individuals, organizations and businesses from continuing to fund Planned Parenthood with private dollars (although, requests by Coca-Cola, Ford and Xerox to remove their names from Planned Parenthood’s corporate donors list may be indication that even the private sector isn’t too happy with the latest, horrific revelations about the non-profit).

Policymakers looking to put limited taxpayer funds to more efficient and effective use should redirect those dollars to centers and clinics that can provide more comprehensive care for women. All women – but especially those facing difficult circumstances – deserve better care for their health and more options than the cold doors of an abortion facility.

No society that is truly committed to protecting basic human rights can continue funding an industry that harms women, takes the lives of the most vulnerable children and cheapens our respect for life – especially when its leader allegedly harvests and sells tiny organs for profit.

Those should be all the facts Congress needs to end funding of Planned Parenthood.

Via: Daily Signal

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House Dems want Medicaid to cover abortion

House Democrats are renewing their attack on the Hyde Amendment, the controversial budget provision that bars federal funds from paying for abortions.

Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Diana DeGette (D-Col.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) introduced a bill Wednesday that would require Medicaid to cover abortion services – currently banned under the Hyde Amendment.

The legislation, the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Woman Act, is backed by dozens of women's health groups, who say it will help reduce unplanned pregnancies. About 65 lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors.

Under current law, women enrolled in Medicaid, the government’s low-income insurance program, are not covered for abortion. The Hyde Amendment, though not part of a permanent law, has been attached to appropriations bills since 1976.

The bill was unveiled Wednesday at a packed press conference at the House Triangle, where dozens of supporters gathered with posters.

“Henry Hyde and others said, 'Well if we can’t stop people from making their own moral decisions ... we will do it financially. Through the Hyde Amendment, we will say to low income women, you can’t use your health insurance for abortions because we say it’s wrong,'” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told the crowd.

"Today we are fighting back against that moral arrogance."

The effort to undermine the Hyde Amendment has been led by a coalition called All Above All, which includes Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union. 

“For far too long, this country has penalized low-income women seeking abortion — forcing those who have the least to pay the most in order to access safe, legal care,” Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, wrote in a statement Wednesday.

About 56 percent of voters support the bill, according to the group’s polling.

Via: The Hill

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Federal judge rules part of Texas' new abortion law is unconstitutional

A federal judge on Monday blocked part of a recently signed Texas law that requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

District Judge Lee Yeakel wrote Monday that the provision violates the rights of abortion doctors to do what they think is best for their patients and would unreasonably restrict a woman's access to abortion clinics. Attorney General Greg Abbott is expected to file an emergency appeal of Yeakel's order to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers brought the lawsuit, arguing that a requirement that doctors have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic would force the closure of a third of the clinics in Texas.

They also complained that requiring doctors to follow the Food and Drug Administration's original label for an abortion-inducing drug would deny women the benefit of recent advances in medical science.

The Texas attorney general's office argued that the law protects women and the life of the fetus.

Via: Fox News

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[VIDEO] Abortion Clinic Worker Threatens To "Run Over" Pro-Lifer With Car

Miguel Abaunza has a heart to pray for the unborn. Abaunza prays on the sidewalk near the Hilltop Women’s Reproductive Clinic in El Paso, Texas. He is a part of a local 40 days for Life group in El Paso. On October 16, 2013, Gloria Martinez, the RN at the Hilltop clinic drove her BMW directly towards Miguel in an attempt to run him over. The RN pressed on the breaks at the last second, rolled down her window and told Miguel that “one of these days I am going to run over you.”

Miguel recorded the car coming towards him on video. He recorded her because this was not the first time Martinez threatened him verbally or with her car. Abaunza was shaken up by the event and is concerned Martinez won’t stop the next time she drives towards him. The 40 Days for Life El Paso group prays with families who bring their children near the clinic.

Abaunza fears Martinez’s attempts to slam into him could endanger the children. Others who’ve gone to the center to pray have also made reports that Martinez threatens them and yells explicit remarks. Abaunza has filed a report with local police over Martinez’s actions.

This is not the first time the police have been called to the clinic.

Via: Life News

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California Enacts Law Allowing Nurses to Perform Some Abortions

California's Democratic governor signed a law on Wednesday that will allow nurses and midwives to perform some abortions, a move aimed at increasing access to the procedure even as other states are tightening the rules.

Under the law, the most populous U.S. state would allow nurse-practitioners, nurse-midwives and physician assistants to perform a procedure known as aspiration, which uses suction to dislodge an embryo from the uterine wall during the first few weeks of pregnancy.

Four other states - Oregon, Montana, Vermont and New Hampshire - already allow non-physicians to perform early stage abortions, but California is the first to codify the practice into law.

"Timely access to reproductive health services is critical to women's health," the bill's author, California state Assemblywoman Toni Atkins said in a statement after Governor Jerry Brown announced the signing of the law.

The intent of the law, said Atkins' spokeswoman, Dale Kelly Bankhead, is to expand access to abortion in areas of the state where there are no providers.

"In more than half of the counties in California there is no abortion provider," Bankhead said. "Women have to travel long distances to access these services."

California Assemblyman Brian Jones, the Republican caucus leader, said he was disappointed in the governor, calling the new law "dangerous for women."

"It's truly disheartening and disingenuous that Governor Brown and legislative Democrats created a law to lower the standard of care for the women under the guise of creating access," Jones said.

The measure, the progress of which has been closely followed by activists on both sides of the abortion debate, comes as a handful of states, primarily in the country's South and middle, have passed or enacted laws restricting abortion

Via: Newsmax

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