Legislature passes bill to make funding of public health providers priority over state’s Planned Parenthood affiliates
June 22nd, 2009 | Contact: 323.454.3304, media@liveaction.org
LOS ANGELES – Inspired by undercover videos from a Planned Parenthood clinic in Memphis released earlier this year, Tennessee legislators passed a law yesterday that threatens to strip Planned Parenthood of over $1 million in federal grant funding. The videos show a counselor urging a 14-year-old girl to lie about the age of the 31-year-old “boyfriend” who impregnated her so she can obtain a secret abortion.
“We are very happy that Tennessee legislators saw the harm Planned Parenthood is doing to little girls and took the necessary steps to ensure that the organization’s negligence will no longer receive preferential treatment when taking our tax dollars,” said Lila Rose, president of Live Action and the UCLA student who went undercover in the videos.
Under the new statute, local community health clinics will be given priority for Title X family planning funds instead of Planned Parenthood.
This is the second state this year in which Live Action videos showing abuse cover-up at Planned Parenthood prompted public officials to revoke taxpayer subsides. In California, after a community member alerted the Orange County Board of Supervisors to more of Live Action’s undercover videos of Planned Parenthood counselors agreeing to protect adult-child sexual relationships, the Board in March refused to renew Planned Parenthood’s $291,788 contract with the county.
The undercover videos are part of the Mona Lisa Project, a multi-state expose that documents Planned Parenthood’s willingness to repeatedly violate mandatory reporting laws for statutory rape in order to obtain secret abortions for young girls. The Memphis video is the 5th video released in the series so far. See all videos here: http://liveaction.org/monalisa.
“We will continue to expose Planned Parenthood for endangering the lives and well-being of young girls in service of its abortion-first mentality,” said Rose. “It is our hope that other elected officials will soon follow the examples of Orange County and Tennessee in seeking to de-fund Planned Parenthood of all public subsidies for their lawless activity.”
