Abortion was front and center at the second of three presidential debates. On the topic of the economy and women in the workplace, President Obama went out of his way to express his support for taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood four times on Tuesday night.
“There are millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood for mammograms,” the Obama said in the debate.
Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel Action, says Obama is wrong about Planned Parenthood: “Not one Planned Parenthood facility offers mammograms. Not one. Just four months ago, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Obama administration admitted that Planned Parenthood facilities do not offer mammograms. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. That President Obama wants to continue funding Planned Parenthood when America faces a $16 trillion debt is astounding.”
Not only is the president advocating federal funding of Planned Parenthood, he is fighting against state initiatives to cut state funding of abortion. When legislators in New Jersey, New Hampshire, Tennessee and North Carolina voted to defund Planned Parenthood, Obama sent more federal funds to the abortion provider. The Obama administration sued Arizona, Indiana and Texas after legislators in those states voted to cut Planned Parenthood funding from their budgets. He even threatened to withhold Medicaid money when states cut Planned Parenthood funding.
Under Obama, Staver says we have seen the biggest taxpayer funding of abortion in our history. As he sees it, taxpayers should never be forced to violate their conscience and fund any abortion organization. The Obamacare HHS mandate will force religious employers to fund abortion-inducing drugs, despite their religious objections, he says, and the Obama administration is using taxpayer dollars to force other countries to liberalize their abortion laws.
“Planned Parenthood is not a women’s health organization. Planned Parenthood is responsible for the slaughter of 330,000 pre-born babies each year—half of those, pre-born women—and hurting millions of would-be mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, sisters and brothers in the process,” Staver says. “This government-subsidized holocaust must stop!”
Lila Rose, president of Live Action, agrees. She insists that Christians cannot let powerful abortion interests and their friends in high places, including the president himself, deceive everyday Americans.
“Planned Parenthood is pouring millions into elections all across the country, and meanwhile, promoting lies about their own programs. As the nation’s largest abortion chain, Planned Parenthood facilitates the killing of over 320,00 pre-born children every year,” Rose says. “The great loss of these innocent lives is hard to comprehend. And Planned Parenthood’s friends in high places, like President Obama, repeatedly deceive the public about Planned Parenthood’s bloodshed, pretending the abortion giant provides medical services they do not.”
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys, who are currently litigating multiple lawsuits against Planned Parenthood for alleged fraud and misuse of taxpayer Medicaid dollars, are also pointing out that Obama’s claim that the abortion giant provides mammograms is false.
“No one should prop up an abortion business by claiming it is helping women in ways that it does not. If Planned Parenthood is operating mammogram machines without a license, it is violating federal law,” says ADF Senior Counsel Casey Mattox. “The president’s own administration has confirmed that Planned Parenthood has no such licenses. He should correct the record and explain that Planned Parenthood does not offer mammograms so that he cannot be accused of making allegations which, if true, would mean Planned Parenthood is breaking the law.”
