Speaker Paul Ryan has recently announced that the Republican lawmakers' push for the repeal of the heavily-criticized and contentious Obamacare would also include defunding the equally controversial and questionable Planned Parenthood. Conservatives welcome the idea that under the leadership of incoming President Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated Congress, there's a big opportunity to introduce a new health care system for Americans, and in the process to kill two dubious realities for them-the Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.
The Washington Examiner just came out with an editorial today supporting just that, saying the renewed efforts of Republicans to repeal Obamacare, and along with it, Planned Parenthood is a " step towards a more decent society".
The news site also recalled troubling undercover videos that came out in 2015 taken by pro-life activists where Planned Parenthood officials were seen negotiating with a biomedical tissue procurement firm over the price of aborted baby body parts. The exposé created such a public uproar that even known pro-choice and pro-abortion liberal Hillary Clinton also found the video disturbing.
So disturbing indeed that revelation was, and the callous attitude of Planned Parenthood employees who even had the temerity to laugh and sip wine and even casually joke about using the money from the transactions to buy a sports car, as if they were not discussing what is, in reality, a deplorable trade.
Congressional Republicans convened a special investigation into the matter and last week came out with their final report with 471 "disturbing" pages. The report cites evidence that Planned Parenthood illegally made a profit from trading in tissue from aborted fetuses to biomedical researchers for money.
Another shocking and condemnable revelation is that Planned Parenthood abortionists broke the law by adjusting or fitting the type of abortion they performed to meet the needs of the researchers, even on instances that put the fetuses at higher risk of being born alive. There were also cases of corrupt practices as investigators discovered several affiliates took money for services they did not render.
The report recommended further investigations into 15 possible criminal cases including five Planned Parenthood facilities, three procurement companies and abortion clinics in four states. Republicans then recommended a ban on federal funding of research using tissue taken from most abortions. Predictably, the Democrats opposed Republicans' moves against the Planned Parenthood.
Battles over Planned Parenthood between party lines are in effect proxy wars on abortion. The Washington Examiner editorial argued that regardless of one's views about the fundamental questions on abortion, there is general agreement that it would be unjust to force the public to fund abortions in the staggering amount of more than half a billion dollars a year, and coursed through an organization as disreputable as Planned Parenthood.
