August 30, 2015
Column #1770
Planned Parenthood in Big Trouble
By Mike McManus

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Dr. Mary Gatter is President of the Medical Directors Council of Planned Parenthood – the top physician. She met with a person who pretended to be interested in buying fetal organs of aborted babies. Gatter said she’d have to check with other PP Centers to learn how much they are getting paid. “If it is still low then we can bump it up. I want a Lamborghini,” she said laughing.

“What did you say?” asked the buyer, laughing.

“I said I want a Lamborghini,” she repeated with a laugh.

But the “buyer” was actually an undercover investigator posing as an official with a biotech company that acts as a middleman to sell aborted baby body parts to universities and other researchers. Actually, the “buyer” is an employee of the Center for Medical Progress, who used a hidden camera to secretly tape the conversation to reveal a new side of Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills that killed 327,653 babies in 2013 – the sale of baby livers, kidneys, brains and other organs. The payments were to range from $50 to $100 per part.

“To hear these senior Planned Parenthood doctors and executives coldly pricing baby body parts - liver, heart, lungs, kidneys, brains and limbs – with such casual disregard for the unborn children killed to obtain those parts is reprehensible,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, America’s largest pro-life group.

“The ease with which they talk about the unborn child being used for their own gains is disturbing and should cause even the most hardened abortion activist to face the grisly reality of abortion. It’s time to put a stop to this brutality and enact laws that will protect unborn children,” Tobias added.

What laws? Pro-life groups are urging Congress to pass the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.” It would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks of gestation since there is evidence that babies can feel pain at that stage. The bill passed the House in May, but not the Senate. The law would “at least begin to limit the ability of the abortion industry to deliver intact, well-developed baby body parts to order,” Tobias charged.

Twelve states have enacted Pain-Capable laws. The Senate should do so.

Few Americans realize that 17 European countries, such as France, Germany and Denmark – do not permit an abortion after 12 weeks! Only a handful of countries such as China, North Korea, Canada and the U.S. permit them up to 24 weeks.

So far, the Center for Medical Progress has released three taped conversations with Planned Parenthood physicians, and nine more will surface in upcoming weeks. The first tape made public two weeks ago featured a Planned Parenthood doctor eating a salad and drinking wine while she discussed selling fetal tissue.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Presidential candidate, attended a rally against Planned Parenthood this week where he charged, “This callous disregard expressed over wine and cheese should inflame and infuriate us all. And we should stop once and for all any penny of money going to Planned Parenthood.”

CBS News aired a soundbite from Hillary Clinton: “And I think it is unfortunate that Planned Parenthood has been the object of such a concerted attack for so many years.”

ABC News broadcast this comment by Cecile Richards, the organization’s President: “Planned Parenthood does not at all profit from fetal tissue donation, which is an important element of health care research in this country.”

Planned Parenthood hardly seems in need of additional revenue. It received $202 million of taxpayer funding in 2000 for 197,070 abortions – but $528 million in 2013 for 327,653 abortions. Its government revenue nearly tripled while the number of abortions rose only about a third.

Of course, Planned Parenthood says it does not use federal funding for abortions, but to provide women with other health services. What health services? It provides no mammograms, for example. In 2013 it made 1,830 adoption referrals, a paltry number compared to its abortions. And those adoption referrals are down from 2,486 in 2000.

According to its latest annual report, Planned Parenthood is wealthy beyond belief. It has more than $1 billion in net assets. In 2014 its revenue exceeded its expenses by $90 million.

It does not deserve any public funding – certainly not a half billion taxpayer dollars annually. Let private donors give if they wish.

The Senate has fast-tracked a vote next week to end federal funding.

If it does so, that would be great progress.