On Sunday, Republican Rep. Diane Black of Texas released a statement blasting Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards (pictured right) for an appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos – which the Congresswoman contends intensified rather than resolved mistrust of the abortion giant following revelations of its fetal organ harvesting practices.
Black pointed out that despite Richards’s insistence to the contrary, “these videos clearly show one of the organization’s senior doctors haggling over the cost of aborted babies’ organs,” and “its own employees were caught discussing plans to alter abortion procedures so as to leave the most lucrative organs intact – a violation of the NIH Revitalization Act – and even stating that the federal ban on partial birth abortion is ‘up to interpretation.”
She also took issue with Richards’s attack on pro-lifers’ calls to end Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding, which Richards characterized as “cut[ting] off funding for basic health care for women.” In response, Black noted that “defunding Planned Parenthood would not decrease the overall amount of funding for women’s healthcare. It would instead direct taxpayer dollars to other, more reputable providers like the nearly 1,200 federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) across the country that provide preventive care to low-income and vulnerable populations without performing abortions.”
Black concluded that Richards’s performance highlights the need for Congress to pass her Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015, which Live Action News reported on last week.
On Sunday, Live Action’s Susan Michelle also responded to the interview, addressing at length both the same points Black does and additional claims by Richards, such as Planned Parenthood’s alleged nonprofit status and an attempt to falsely link the pro-life Center for Medical Progress with abortion clinic violence.
