Thursday, August 27, 2015

Planned Parenthood Audit Rejected

By Douglas V. Gibbs

California State Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, requested an audit of Planned Parenthood.  Her request was a response to videos by a pro-life organization using undercover style reporting revealing Planned Parenthood officials discussing selling the body parts of aborted babies on the black market.  She intended that the audit of California's Planned Parenthood locations would ensure the organization is not illegally profiting from the donation of aborted baby tissue. Her request was rejected by a State legislative committee on Tuesday, August 25.

Planned Parenthood contends the videos that exposed their alleged dealings in the body-tissue black market were deceptively edited and that the organization only seeks to cover the cost of shipping fetal tissue, which is used in medical research.

U.S. Congressional Republicans, responding to the outrage among pro-life supporters in the wake of the release of these videos, have been working to defund Planned Parenthood.  Their efforts would begin the process of defunding Planned Parenthood by first removing any federal funding or federal influence with the "Family Planning" organization.

So far, five states have investigated Planned Parenthood’s handling of fetal tissue and their investigations found that no laws were broken.

Melendez is pro-life and said she’s not asking to defund Planned Parenthood, but to investigate. She said that if a law enforcement agency that confiscates guns was seen on video discussing selling those weapons they had confiscated, there would be no question about the need for an audit. “I am not asking we harm Planned Parenthood. That is not my intent. But what I don’t understand is why someone would oppose looking into the allegations that have been made and assuring the public that that is not going on…[if] nothing is being done illegal, wouldn’t it be great if you could put that to bed?”

Opponents to Melendez's request were skeptical that any evidence existed of Planned Parenthood’s wrongdoing. Democrat State Senator Richard Roth of Riverside said, “In the absence of evidence, I’m wondering how we justify the audit and the request.”

State Senator Connie Leyva (D-Chino) said while she doesn’t think Melendez was on a witch hunt, it’s important to conduct an audit based on facts. “Women need these services,” Leyva said. “And if we continue to go after Planned Parenthood or any entity that is helping women and we don’t have our ducks in a row … then I think we are doing them and the women they serve a disservice.”

Assemblyman Brian Jones, a Republican who represents the 71st Assembly District which includes inland San Diego County and a small portion of south Riverside County said enough evidence existed to support an audit.

In the end, the audit failed along party lines, with the only support coming from Republicans, who are drastically outnumbered in California's State Legislature in Sacramento.

The Declaration of Independence lists three of our rights in its text to emphasize the importance of our “God-given” rights (which would also make them God-defined rights), and the first of those three is “life” (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).  Abortion, and medical procedures, are not listed in the Constitution as an authority of the federal government, so any and all funding and influence by the federal government is unconstitutional in the first place.  Additionally, as "persons," the unborn are entitled to be treated equally under the law.

As for Planned Parenthood, as indicated in the book Silenced Screams: Abortion in a Virtuous Society, In 1939, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and a proponent for abortion and forced sterilization in the United States for the purpose of exterminating “undesirable” people, Margaret Sanger, proposed that abortion and forced sterilization must be used to support the agenda of those that defended eugenics. The 1939 Negro Project was designed to convince the black population to participate in the program, and for the black population to accept abortion as an important tool for their well-being as a segment of society.

Sanger’s Birth Control Policy included the “racial hygiene theory.” Racial hygiene theory, according to Sanger, would “cleanse” humanity of the "morons," "human weeds," and the "feeble-minded” that negatively affected our populations. In 1922, in Sanger’s book, The Pivot of Civilization, she wrote, “Birth Control, which has been criticized as negative and destructive, is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method, and its adoption as part of the program of Eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to that science… as the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial health.” (Page 189)

Sanger also wrote that she believed “The emergency problem of segregation and sterilization must be faced immediately. Every feeble-minded girl or woman of the hereditary type, especially of the moron class, should be segregated during the reproductive period.... we prefer the policy of immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited to the feeble-minded.” (Pages 101-102)

For Sanger, the purpose in promoting birth control was "to create a race of thoroughbreds," as she wrote in the Birth Control Review, November 1921 (p. 2).

The drive for racial purification included the extermination of what she considered to be lesser races, including blacks. "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she said, "if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."

Sanger’s writings and influence led to the passage of segregation laws, sterilization laws, and the Immigration Act of 1924 that included a provision excluding from entry any alien who by virtue of race or nationality was ineligible for citizenship.

Despite Sanger’s efforts, the abortion issue from a legal standpoint remained as it had been – illegal unless the medical community recognized, on a case by case basis, that it was absolutely necessary to save the life of the mother.

Though the issue seemed to be resolved in the United States, underground, a culture of death targeting the innocent lives of unborn children, still existed. A number of illegal abortionists performed the procedure in what today those that advocate for legalized abortion call “back alley abortions.” Europe, however, remained intent upon moving towards making abortion more prevalent, establishing methods designed to make the killing of the unborn “safer.” In 1961, vacuum aspiration-style abortion spread throughout Europe, and it didn’t take long before the pro-abortion segment of American Society caught on to the idea.

In 1963, The Society for Human Abortion (SHA) was established in San Francisco. The organization, designed to promote and legalize “elective abortion” without “harassment,” supported the repeal of all anti-abortion laws. The SHA challenged anti-abortion laws by openly providing information on abortion through providing speakers and literature to libraries, medical schools, physicians, family planning agencies, and individuals. The information avalanche also included providing their view of abortion through the publishing of a quarterly newsletter. In 1968 the SHA maintained a free Post-Abortion Care Center (PACC), which was sponsored by the American Humanist Association. SHA disbanded in 1975.

In addition to the SHA, a parallel organization was established to safeguard the SHA's tax-free educational status, while enabling the group to carry out underground activities. The Association to Repeal Abortion Laws (ARAL) made referrals to abortion specialists, while preparing and disseminating printed material about specialists and about self-induced abortion. The ARAL also held classes on abortion-related laws, provided information on Mexican abortion specialists, and sought to teach pregnant mothers on self-induced abortion techniques. For a small donation, pregnant women received a kit prepared by ARAL containing annotated lists of abortion specialists in Mexico, Japan, Puerto Rico, and other countries, instructions for going through customs, an evaluation form to be returned to ARAL after completion of the abortion, summaries of laws, and directions for self-induced abortion. The evaluations were used to update the list of abortion specialists.

When California was legalizing abortion with Governor Reagan’s signature in 1967, abortion was classified a felony in 49 states and Washington, D.C. In California, Dr. Leon Belous was convicted for referring a woman to an illegal abortionist, which was the case that led to the 1969 California Supreme Court decision that ignited the battle over abortion in that State.

Today, in New York City, more black babies are aborted than born. Sanger’s vision of genocide through abortion is not only being carried out, but it has expanded into an evil that cases like Kermit Gosnell, and the recent videos regarding baby body parts being sold, have exposed.  Yet, the media and the Democrat Party are doing all they can to cover up the horror, and I fear that these horrific images and conversations about the selling of aborted baby body parts are only the tip of the iceberg in regards to how horrifying this all truly is.

How the California Democrats could reject Assemblywoman Melendez's request to at least audit Planned Parenthood is beyond me.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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