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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
You are currently browsing the archives for the Planned Parenthood category.
Today the Illinois Supreme Court handed down a ruling [PDF] in Sandholm v. Kuecker, a libel case involving many of the same issues involved with my own libel suit against Planned Parenthood, Scheidler v. Trombley.
Both cases involve the Citizens Participation Act (CPA), enacted in 2007 to protect citizens from so-called “SLAPP” cases—”strategic lawsuits against political participation.” A SLAPP is a meritless lawsuit filed only to discourage free speech or protest activity. The plaintiff bringing the suit does not intend to win it in court, only to punish or intimidate the defendant by imposing the heavy costs of mounting a defense.
In the Sandholm case, a former high school coach and athletic director, Steve Sandholm, sued a group of parents and a media company for libel and slander for statements they made during an ultimately successful effort to get him fired.
Sandholm’s case was dismissed by the trial court under the CPA, citing an earlier ruling by the judge in my case, Judith Brawka. [Continue reading ...]
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards had a laugher of a letter to the editor in the New York Times this week in which she wrote:
In “He’s a Quarterback, He’s a Winner, He’s a TV Draw, He’s a Verb” (This Land column, front page, Jan. 14), Dan Barry writes about a 2010 Super Bowl commercial telling how Tim Tebow’s mother decided not to end a life-threatening pregnancy and he adds, “There was no tebowing that week in the halls of Planned Parenthood.”
That suggests that Planned Parenthood does not celebrate birth or a remarkable story like Mr. Tebow’s. In fact, the Tebow story exemplifies the health care environment that Planned Parenthood promotes — a world in which women and families are supported in the medical decisions they make for themselves and their families without government interference. [emphasis added]
Seriously? Cecile Richards actually wants you to believe that Planned Parenthood celebrates “a remarkable story like Mr. Tebow’s”? And that “the Tebow story exemplifies the health care environment that Planned Parenthood promotes”?
Maybe in Bizarro World that’s true, but not in the real world. [Continue reading ...]
Planned Parenthood recently released their annual report [PDF] for the 2009-2010 year, and the numbers revealed some very interesting information.
Jill Stanek reports the downward trend in most of their numbers, making Planned Parenthood look like a company in decline. And, as usual, Jim Sedlak at STOPP has an intricate breakdown of everything the numbers can tell us.
But if you’ve only been listening to Planned Parenthood’s rhetoric for the last year or so, you’d never know they were the largest abortion chain in America. You might think they were a breast exam and cancer screening business who did an abortion once a few years back. [Continue reading ...]
2011 was a huge year in the abortion battle and the Pro-Life Action League was busier than ever fighting abortion on the front lines with hard-hitting grassroots activism.
To show you a sample of what 2011 looked like for the League, we’ve put together this 2 minute video displaying a few of the things we did each month. We hope you enjoy this look back at the last year and that you’ll join us in making 2012 an even bigger year for life!
I wouldn’t exactly call it the highlight of Advent, but today marked the return of an annual experience for me since I signed up for Planned Parenthood’s e-mails a few years back: receiving an e-mail from Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards wishing me a Merry Christmas “healthy and safe holiday season.” (See the message in its entirety here.)
Of course, the message was really just a fundraising appeal. It contained three links to their donations page within the message itself, not to mention the big pink “GIVE NOW” button that was impossible to miss. Only one sentence of the e-mail was written in boldface — because, of course, this was the one thing they wanted to focus their members’ attention on, so as to gin up donations:
Opponents of women’s health haven’t given up—day in and day out, they’re attacking Planned Parenthood and every woman’s right to make her own medical decisions.
“Opposing women’s health,” “attacking women’s rights” — same old, same old. We’ve heard it all a thousand times before.
Note also that Richards trotted out the tired old “Choice on Earth” slogan for this year’s Christmas holiday message.
What this tells us is that Planned Parenthood has nothing new to offer.
I have to agree with Richards on at least one point, though. Her opening paragraph reads: [Continue reading ...]
Planned Parenthood’s Aurora mega-center [Photo by Eric Scheidler]
Pro-life activism is work where you don’t always see the fruits of your labor right away.
Sidewalk counseling is a perfect example of that. You may not know till you get to heaven how many people chose not to abort their babies simply by your presence and your peaceful outreach.
But sometimes God gives us the gift of seeing our work pay off here and now. That happened to sidewalk counselor Joe B. last weekend in Aurora, Illinois. [Continue reading ...]
What could cause pro-life Christians to join forces with Planned Parenthood?
Lies. Planned Parenthood’s go-to move, and, I believe, the largest reason why Mississippi’s Initiative 26 ballot measure was defeated at the polls yesterday.
The measure, a proposed “Personhood” law, would have declared “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof” to be a person deserving of the full protection of the law. Resulting laws the measure would require, would likely ban all forms of abortion.
There were strong indications prior to yesterday’s vote that the measure stood a very good chance of passing and that many, even most, Mississippians supported the idea. So what happened? [Continue reading ...]
“Planned Parenthood is the most cost-effective provider of family planning services in this country.”
Cecile Richards may rue the day she said these words in an interview last month with an Oregon newspaper.
Jill Stanek is reporting that a former employee of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast has filed a whistleblower’s complaint [PDF] with the Attorney General of Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice alleging that PPGC’s management engaged in an elaborate Medicaid fraud scheme:
Karen Reynolds, who worked as a “health care assistant” from 1999 to 2009 at the Lufkin, Texas, branch of the affiliate formerly known as Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, has submitted company memos and emails to support her charge that PPGC has engaged in a systemwide scheme to bilk Medicaid, Title XX, and the Women’s Health Program of tens of millions of dollars over the course of at least a decade.
The complaint alleges that PPGC’s policy of which medical services to provide and charge for depended largely on who was paying. If the patient was self-paying, then only “services based on medical necessity” were provided. But if the government was footing the bill through a program like Medicaid, then Planned Parenthood would run up quite a tab, “often provid[ing] services on an ‘across the board’ basis even when such services were not medically necessary.” [Continue reading ...]
Swedish Hospital in Seattle, Washington
A strange story emerges out of Seattle, brought to our attention by Catholic blogger Mark Shea, that finds Planned Parenthood pitted against their longtime allies at the National Organization for Women (NOW) as well as the hospital establishment.
Swedish Health Services, a secular healthcare organization, and Providence Health & Services, a Catholic healthcare organization, have tried over the last decade to find a way to join forces to provide the best possible medical services at Seattle’s Swedish Hospital. A detailed account of the situation can be found here.
They’re poised to come to a historic agreement that would allow both organizations to do the most good for everyone, but controversy has crept in because, as part of the agreement, Swedish is committing to not perform elective abortions.
NOW is in an uproar that any hospital anywhere would dare to not provide abortions. But Planned Parenthood is actually excited about the move. Why? Why else: money. [Continue reading ...]
Planned Parenthood in Kansas has been under investigation since 2003, spearheaded by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Kline brought charges in 2007 of 107 counts of falsifying abortion records and committing illegal late-term abortions, 23 of which are felonies.
Today the judge in the case granted prosecutors two weeks to re-work their case based on new evidence that records crucial to the case were destroyed in 2005 under the watch of then Kansas governor and current Obama Administration Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. The League protested Sebelius earlier this month when she spoke at a NARAL luncheon.
It also appears that Planned Parenthood may have falsified records to make it appear that they had complied with record-keeping laws after the fact.
Sebelius was a known ally of Planned Parenthood and notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller, both of whom filled her campaign coffers with large donations, but it’s surprising that even she would sink to the depths of destroying evidence to protect her cronies.
The story is developing and we’ll know more when prosecutors return to court after reviewing the evidence. Until then, get the full story from these reports:
