On April 22, attorney Kevin Paul testified on behalf of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. He appeared at a hearing of the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee, where Senate Bill 268 – a fetal homicide law – was being debated. (The bill passed the committee that day.)
Two things must be noted before delving into Paul’s rather outrageous and revealing claims. First, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains is a particularly corrupt branch of Planned Parenthood – embroiled in a host of unsavory activities including forced abortions, sending a minor girl back to her rapist, suggesting illegal sexual activity to a minor, and grandly misusing illegally gained taxpayer dollars.
Second, this isn’t the first time a Planned Parenthood spokesperson has revealed the true heart of the organization at a legislative hearing. In Florida, in 2013, Alisa LaPolt Snow argued, on behalf of Planned Parenthood, for the right to post-birth abortions.
You’ll soon discover that Paul’s statements were equally concerning.
As a bit of background, Colorado Senate President Bill Cadman introduced SB 268 to cover a gap in Colorado law. A 2013 law, backed by Democrats and Planned Parenthood, was not comprehensive enough to clearly allow a murder charge in the case of Dynel Lane. In March of this year, Lane stabbed, strangled, and nearly killed pregnant mother Michelle Wilkins and kidnapped her seven-month-old preborn baby girl, Aurora.
A family photo of Michelle Wilkins from her GoFundMe page.
Baby Aurora did not survive, though Wilkins did. District Attorney Stan Garnett – who is personally tied to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry – claimed he could not bring a charge of murder for Baby Aurora’s killing. Understandably, much of Colorado was outraged, and Senator Cadman introduced SB 268, a fetal homicide bill that is more closely patterned off of the federal fetal homicide law.
Naturally, Planned Parenthood opposes SB 268 tooth and nail. The abortion giant regularly rejects any law that gives a single shred of recognition to the humanity of the preborn child.
While – similar to the federal fetal homicide law – SB 268 would recognize the child as a person for purposes of homicide and assault from conception, the Chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee asked Paul if Planned Parenthood would support the bill if viability were the measurement instead of conception.
Paul replied that Planned Parenthood’s “position is that it’s not appropriate at any point in pregnancy” to “apply a certain set of rights to that developing pregnancy.”
Note Paul’s absolute refusal to acknowledge that “that developing pregnancy” is, in fact, a living, growing human being. Even a cursory glance at the most basic science textbooks tell us this.
Paul continued to step over himself, again and again, to avoid calling any preborn baby, at any age, a child – or even a human being.
Senator Lundberg: “Is it fair to use the terminology unborn child? … Let me put it this way: are we talking about a human being or something else?”
Kevin Paul: “Of course, when we get into definition of terms like human being and child, we have to take into account individual concerns and individual backgrounds – cultural differences, religious differences, um, all sorts of differences between us individually, and those are words that are sometimes hard to define in our public policy in a way that is appropriate for application to everyone.”
Planned Parenthood says she is just a pregnancy.
Notice that Paul specifically said that is is hard to define “child” – not just “unborn child” – in the law. Planned Parenthood would indeed prefer that every mother gets to decide for herself whether her child is a child. How can the majority of the American public not realize how insane Planned Parenthood’s true talking points are?
It’s probably because such statements are often made in hearings like this one, barely reported on by the news.
Even though Paul consistently referred to preborn babies of any age – including Michelle Wilkins’ daughter – as mere “pregnancies,” he denied his propensity to do so.
“I would never, speaking on behalf of Planned Parenthood, refer to ‘just a pregnancy.’ For every woman who desires to become pregnant and have a child, a pregnancy is a very important period of her life and something that Planned Parenthood through its prenatal program here in Colorado facilitates every day of the week.”
Really? “Every day of the week”? Does Paul speak of the same Colorado Planned Parenthood who turned away my friend, saying they couldn’t help her if she wanted to keep her baby? Does he speak of the same Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains who has failed to report any number of women for the “prenatal services” they’ve supposedly provided in their annual reports for the last several years?
Another oops: the “program” Paul is apparently speaking of is called the Prenatal Plus Program, run by the Rose Medical Center in Denver. Interestingly, while Paul claims this is Planned Parenthood’s program, it’s not even done at a Planned Parenthood facility. Additionally, on the Prenatal Plus Program’s web page, there’s this statement: “Prenatal Plus is a program of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.” Not “of Planned Parenthood.”
Here are a few other gems, mined from Paul’s extensive comments:
- Planned Parenthood prefers a definition of conception that suits its goals.
“There are various different definitions of the word conception. The dictionary definition…at times will refer to the term as fertilization of the human egg. I know that in medicine, the doctors that I represent, prefer to use the term after the implantation of a human egg within the uterus.”
Yes, naturally. Such a definition enables Planned Parenthood to falsely tell women that hormonal birth control, IUDs, and the Morning After Pill can’t end the life of a baby who has already been conceived. When you alter the definition of pregnancy, it becomes easy to alter the information you give women.
- Planned Parenthood is apparently troubled by even the phrase “unborn child,” used in relation to a mother.
“When I read that phrase, that uh, ‘for purposes of this section, nothing shall apply to an act committed by the mother of her unborn child,’ I don’t honestly understand what that would apply to. …
This, as I read it, this is not clear to me, and particularly the phrase ‘of her unborn child’ – that modifier to the word mother doesn’t make sense to me. …
It adds the phrase ‘of her unborn child’ which I…is not clear to me. …”
- Planned Parenthood is worried that its abortionists could be prosecuted under this particular fetal homicide law.
“I of course have heard the argument that the bill contains an exception with regard to medical procedures. I cannot read that exception and understand what it means. I cannot use it to advise the doctors and nurses that I represent to, uh, with any level of certainty, that they would not be exposed to prosecution under this bill in certain circumstances.”
If you read the bill for yourself, it’s incredibly clear that there is an exception for abortions, provided the mother consents and it is performed by a licensed medical professional.
While allowing a mother to kill her child when no one else can is a violation of equal protection, that’s clearly not Planned Parenthood’s objection here.
As an attorney myself, the only way I could see being worried that your “doctors and nurses” wouldn’t be covered under this exception in “certain circumstances” is: 1) if they are performing abortions without proper medical licensing and 2) if they are performing abortions without the mother’s consent.
We already know that Planned Parenthood in Colorado has done number two. Are they also doing number one? Why is Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains so worried about potential prosecution if this law passes?
