Life Legal’s client David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress released a new video today, as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on legislation to defund Planned Parenthood this evening. The bill (H.R. 3762) prohibits federal funding under the Affordable Care Act to any “prohibited entity,” i.e., any entity that provides abortions.
As soon as the bill is passed, it will go to the President’s desk…where it most assuredly will be vetoed.
So, why is it important for Congress to pass legislation that we know the President won’t sign into law? A few reasons: 1) It lets the American people know that the majority of our Senators and Representatives are pro-life; 2) it lays the foundation for an actual withdrawal of funds from Planned Parenthood in the event the next president is pro-life; and 3) it is the ONLY piece of pro-life legislation that has come across President Obama’s desk since he took office over 7 years ago.
While we would certainly like to see more from Congress in the way of protecting the unborn, we recognize that this is a difficult climate in which to enact pro-life legislation. Still, we are thrilled that the videos released by David Daleiden and The Center for Medical Progress have resulted in a commitment by Congress to investigate the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Taxpayers currently subsidize almost half of Planned Parenthood’s operating budget at a cost of over $500 million annually. CMP’s investigation—including the video released earlier today—has uncovered extensive evidence in the abortion industry of willingness to engage in criminal activity, including the sale of fetal body parts for profit and the alteration of abortion methods to procure fetal body parts for research. The videos also demonstrate Planned Parenthood’s callous indifference toward the highly developed human fetus by practitioners of late-term abortion. This is information the public has a right to know.
Yet last July, just weeks after the first video was published, a federal judge ordered that no additional footage or other information related to David’s investigation of the National Abortion Federation can be released—even though it is clear that the videos serve an important public interest.
Life Legal continues to fight to ensure that the public, law enforcement, and policy makers have access to information about Planned Parenthood’s business practices involving the harvesting and sale of baby body parts.
Click to watch latest video.