The request comes after Florida health officials recently inspected 16 Planned Parenthood facilities and said three were performing second-trimester abortions when they licensed to perform first-trimester abortions. Third, Obamacare mandates certain preventive women’s health services but it doesn’t provide them. Most prominently, the “senior program officer” for the Hearst Foundations, “the charity arm of the Hearst Corporation, which owns the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle and a dizzying array of television and radio interests”, once worked for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The choice is up to each individual – not to state regulators, and certainly not to a governor who seems more interested in hurting Planned Parenthood than in defending the rights of his constituents.
Advertisement
Federal law already prohibits a person or entity from selling or purchasing fetal tissue and women must provide “informed consent” before donating fetal tissue from abortions. (Friday, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson directed the state Human Services Department to end its agreement with Planned Parenthood.).
“The allegations against Planned Parenthood are deeply troubling”, Herbert said.
Planned Parenthood has increasingly become the target of defunding efforts and criticism in the aftermath of the release of surreptitiously recorded videos that critics say show Planned Parenthood officials callously and illegally arranging the sale of fetal parts for profit. The Agency for Health Care Administration, ordered by Scott in July to undertake an investigation of the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics, has reported the abortions took place in the 13th week of pregnancy.
Donald Trump told Hugh Hewitt, about a week or so earlier, that he would cut funding for Planned Parenthood…until he changed his mind and is now Planned Parenthood’s favorite Republican candidate. “However, we also recognize that this is not a sprint but a marathon that we have been training for for a decade”, Nance said. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, sent an open letter to University of Missouri Chancellor Bowen Loftin Monday asking for the release of any possible agreement between the University of Missouri and the Columbia Planned Parenthood affiliate.
Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood knows this. A few legislators have said that this nightmare scenario would be “so great” and “the best news of the year” (in fairness, these lawmakers likely have no understanding of Medicaid funding at all and didn’t realize what they were saying). The governor said any probe of possible criminal wrongdoing would have to be conducted by the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, but he noted none of the videos – which he called “outrageous and inappropriate” – that have surfaced originate in Iowa.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, Gallagher said, the clinics have stopped performing abortions within the disputed date range. “(Department of Health Services Director) Cara Christ is passing this rule, it’s got our full support and enthusiasm and we don’t want this to be happening inside these facilities”.
