Thousands of Americans demand the end of federal funding to Planned Parenthood via #WomenBetrayed rallies and social media following the release of #PPSellsBabyParts videos. The Senate votes on Monday on the defunding of the national abortive facility.
"There will be no reduction in overall federal funding available to support women's health," author of the bill, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said.
The bill would redirect funding to the other 8,000 federally funded Community Health Centers that offer everything Planned Parenthood has to offer (STD testing/treatment, pregnancy tests, and routine gynecological exams) and more, except abortions. It would take American's tax money out of the hands of "some scandal-plagued organization," Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said.
"Let [women] know that there are these health centers, that don't have an abortion agenda, that will actually benefit them and give them options of life," 19-year-old, sophomore at University of Wisconsin La Cross, Maddie Schulte said. "We should reach out with information on natural family planning and chastity and the gift of human dignity and self worth."
Planned Parenthood has continually reduced the very resources it touts. Only about 5 percent of pregnancy services make up prenatal care while more than 94 percent consists of abortions, according to The Family Research Council’s PP Fact Sheet, formulated with Planned Parenthood’s own annual reports.
- From 2009 to 2013, cancer-screenings and prevention programs declined by about 50 percent.
- From 2009 to 2013, prenatal services declined by more than 50 percent.
- From 2009 to 2013, breast exams declined by 42 percent. (PP doesn't do mammograms)
- From 2009 to 2013, adoption referrals declined by 18 percent.
"[Pregnancy Resource Centers] have one thing in common that Planned Parenthood lacks: a choice architecture that really gives women options, good choices, and doesn’t use our tax dollars to ensure that 94 percent of pregnancy-related contact results in an abortion, as it currently does under the direction of Cecile Richards," C. C. Pecknold, an associate professor of theology at the Catholic University of America, said.
More and more Americans are protesting this abortive facility.
"We need to awaken women in our country to see what PP is actually doing. Not only are they failing at the services that they claim to do but they also are performing partial birth abortion and are selling body parts," 21-year-old, sophomore at the University of New Mexico, Sadé M Patterson, said.
(Sadé M Patterson is the second woman from the left with her 8-month-old son)
On Tuesday, more than 12,000 Americans gathered in 65 different cities across the United States after the third released undercover #PPSellsBabyParts video showing Planned Parenthood executives bartering deals for the collection and delivery of baby body parts.
“Planned Parenthood tells [women] that they are just aborting tissue but then they turn around and they sell their children that they’ve aborted and they sell these baby parts. These women weren’t told that this baby they were aborting had a heart, lung, liver, pancreas, they weren’t told any of that. That where that #WomanBetrayed came from," Katie Lodjic, senior at Western Washington University, said.
Students for Life Regional Coordinator, Lisa Atkins, at Women Betrayed rally in Seattle, WA
"To see a senior Planned Parenthood official laughing and saying that she hopes she sells enough body parts of unborn children to buy a Lamborghini, there is no ambiguity in what we’re seeing. When we see the truth, after a time for truth comes a time for action. Today is a time for action,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas said at the Washington, D.C. rally.
The rallies were organized by Students for Life of America and many other national and local pro-life organizations. More rallies and videos by the Center for Medical Progress are scheduled for release in the next few months.
