Following the release of videos that show Planned Parenthood embroiled in a baby body parts scandal, more fraudulent activity by the abortion giant has been uncovered in Colorado.
Public records, requested and released from Colorado State University, show that Planned Parenthood has been paid by CSU to supply aborted baby body parts. CSU has also purchased nearly $100,000 in body parts from Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) since 2010. A lawsuit recently filed in a Colorado district court alleges that these payments are fraudulent and unconstitutional.
Nick McIntyre
Nick McIntyre, the Executive Director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition of Colorado, told Live Action News that his group has spearheaded this lawsuit.
He explained that Planned Parenthood, CSU, and ABR have all acted in violation of a clear provision of Colorado’s constitution – Article 5, Section 50. Colorado is one of the only states in the nation, according to McIntyre, that has a constitutional provision forbidding the use of public money to “directly or indirectly” pay for abortion.
Invoices obtained from CSU by McIntyre indicate that the publicly funded university has been subsidizing both Planned Parenthood and ABR by paying far above the actual costs for baby body parts. Planned Parenthood has been receiving $160 per specimen, and ABR appears to have been given far more. One check to Planned Parenthood was designated for “administrative start up” and “instrument supply.”
McIntyre explains how this violates the state constitution:
Planned Parenthood, CSU, and ABR have…used state funds to fund abortions in Colorado. Per our state constitution, “No public funds shall be used by the State of Colorado, its agencies or political subdivisions to pay or otherwise reimburse, either directly or indirectly, any person, agency or facility for the performance of any induced abortion.”
We have supporting evidence that shows that PP and CSU entered into direct contracts for fetal tissue transfers, using CSU bank accounts (our state funds). We also know that PP has performed abortions directly at their clinics using the same staff, equipment, and facilities that they routinely use for their other services, failing to ever show that the millions of dollars in state funds they receive have been separated from their lucrative abortion services. ABR has acted as a “middle man,” buying and selling baby parts from/to these groups.
For far too long our legislature, our governors, and our state agencies have completely ignored Article 5 Section 50, instead sweeping it under the rug and playing politics with the abortion business. Regardless of the moral implications of abortion, we can all agree that the government should not be funding it. Fortunately in Colorado, the voters have twice affirmed this provision, voting to protect Colorado taxpayers from having to fund abortion.
Unfortunately, the Ritter administration (as well as Governor Hickenlooper), decided to skirt the rule of law, appease the abortion lobby, and reinstate funding for the group [after it had been stripped by Jane Norton during the Owens administration]. Their politicizing of this issue has cost Colorado taxpayers millions of dollars and has allowed Planned Parenthood to continue murdering innocent babies on our dime.
We want to uphold our constitution, and our elected officials need to know that if they do not uphold their oaths to our state, they will be held accountable by all of us.
Attorney Barry Arrington (who filed the lawsuit) with ADF attorney Michael Norton.
McIntyre also detailed why Faith & Freedom took on this historic lawsuit.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of the Center For Medical Progress, evidence of this issue was brought to light. When we saw that one of the videos was filmed right here in Colorado, we knew that it was our responsibility to dig deeper and get to the bottom of it. Grassroots groups like Faith & Freedom represent Colorado taxpayers and people of faith, so it was clear that it was our job to hold our government accountable on this constitutional issue.
Once we saw clear evidence that our state constitution was being violated (and has been for years), we were obligated to take action on behalf of Colorado taxpayers.
The lawsuit also takes an interesting twist, as it uses a document Planned Parenthood filed in a separate case against the organization. In Smith v. Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, Inc., a 13-year-old girl’s mother sued the abortion giant for performing an abortion on her daughter without notifying her and for failing to report the girl’s rape and sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather, who brought her in to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. Planned Parenthood later settled with the mother in a closed settlement, after the judge commented that PP’s conduct was so outrageous that punitive damages would be appropriate.
In filed documents in a related case, Sisk v. Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood revealed through a series of admission that state dollars are funneled to its locations that perform abortion – despite PPRM’s earlier denials and claims that its abortion business was separate from its other business in Colorado.
Based on these admissions, Faith & Freedom believes that Planned Parenthood has been fraudulently taking money from the state of Colorado for years. Over $14 million has been transferred from Colorado to PPRM, and due to recent admissions in legal documents, it seems these millions have been indirectly (and perhaps directly) funding abortions for years.
McIntyre hopes that the current lawsuit will return at least a small portion of this money to Colorado and will put an end to public dollars being funneled through CSU to “despicable groups like Planned Parenthood that use public money to perform abortions.”
