Grassley: IRS Told Pro-Life Group to Swear It Would Not Protest Planned Parenthood

From: CNS

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that a pro-life group in Iowa was told by an IRS agent that its application would not be approved until the group’s board of directors swore it would not protest Planned Parenthood. “This comes directly from Iowa, one of my constituents attempted to establish 501(c)(3) charity called Coalition for Life of Iowa. She told my staff that an IRS agent told her ‘Your application’s ready to go. However, it will not be approved until you send a letter signed by your entire board under penalty of perjury saying that you will not protest at Planned Parenthood,’” Grassley said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

Grassley called it “outrageous” that the statement would even be “made by anybody in government that somehow you’ve got to compromise your First Amendment rights.”

In addition to the order that the group promise not to protest Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, Grassley’s constituent received a letter from the IRS with “several invasive questions, including the details of the group’s prayer meeting,” he said.

“Now stop to think about it – the government getting involved in somebody having a prayer meeting. It appears that the IRS essentially offered this group a quid pro quo – You can become a charity if you don’t protest in front of a Planned Parenthood, generally speaking so you don’t have to worry about 6103,” Grassley said.

Section 6103 of the Criminal Tax Manual refers to the confidentiality and disclosure of returns and return information.

He asked outgoing IRS Acting Commission Steven Miller if it was “appropriate even for an IRS employee to offer quid pro quo in the example like this.”

“The answer’s no,” Miller said. “We shouldn’t be trading,” he continued before Grassley interrupted him.

“Okay, let’s move on. That’s a good answer, because that’s the answer you ought to give, but how on earth could you let something like this happen under your leadership and do either of you feel any responsibility or remorse for treating American citizens this way?” Grassley asked.

“I think I started my public statement with an apology, sir, and I would continue that,” Miller said.
“I don’t know what happened in your given case, and as you well are aware, I can’t speak to it under the 6103 rules, but I do apologize for the treatment of folks, and look, there are two things that happened with these cases,” he continued.

“First was the selection, and the selection criteria was bad. Second was their treatment once they were in that group, and that too was bad, sir. It was. I don’t know whether this particular organization was inside or outside of that group, but the service that folks got was not the service that we should be providing anyone. There’s no question about that,” Miller concluded.

Planned Parenthood endorses post-birth abortion

Salon Article Says Unborn Baby is "A Life Worth Sacrificing"

From: LifeNews.com

A new article from a writer at the liberal online publication Salon is one of the most extreme pro-abortion diatribes ever written. It is so in-your-face that it is already sending shockwaves through the Internet just hours after its publication.

The content of the article, some of which is excerpted below, needs no words to show how shocking the content is from Mary Elizabeth Williams, who starts her piece saying, “So what if abortion ends a life?”

“I believe that life starts at conception. And it’s never stopped me from being pro-choice,” she writes.

Of all the diabolically clever moves the anti-choice lobby has ever pulled, surely one of the greatest has been its consistent co-opting of the word “life.” Life! Who wants to argue with that? Who wants be on the side of … not-life? That’s why the language of those who support abortion has for so long been carefully couched in other terms. While opponents of abortion eagerly describe themselves as “pro-life,” the rest of have had to scramble around with not nearly as big-ticket words like “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” The “life” conversation is often too a thorny one to even broach. Yet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.

Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.

Pro-Life Bus FIRE BOMBED in Rockford

Sex-Selection in America: Part 3 - Undercover in Arizona

Planned Parenthood Will Help You Select Your Baby's Gender, With An Abortion

George Will Skewers Planned Parenthood

Why Did Komen Stop? Planned Parenthood Doesn't Do Mammograms

From: LifeNews.com

During a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker and President Elizabeth Thompson revealed the main reason why the Planned Parenthood abortion business lost its funding. It doesn’t do mammograms.


“It was nothing they were doing wrong,” Brinker explained. “We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

She added, later in the day on Twitter:, saying the money “will be invested in programs to serve low-income, uninsured and underinsured women.”

“Our Board approved new grants standards to improve direct services to women,” she said. “New grants standards strive for grants that provide direct services and outcomes. We have to put metrics, outcomes and measures to our grants so we can translate the science we’ve funded over 30 yrs. We will continue to provide services to vulnerable populations with care, treatment and screening.”

“We’ve decided not to fund pass-through grants. What we would like is to have clinics where we can directly fund mammograms,” she added.

Komen has known since last Spring that Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms. In emails Susan G. Komen for the Cure was sending to people complaining about their grants to the Planned Parenthood abortion business, officials claim the grants are given to help women obtain breast cancer screenings. Yet, Komen also admitted Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms.

A late March expose’ from Live Action revealed no Planned Parenthood centers nationally provide mammograms.

Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site.

Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.

“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” admits a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”

In its email to people concerned about the Komen-Planned Parenthood connection, a Komen official admits Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms for women with its grant money. Komen makes it clear the money is merely funneled through the abortion business to legitimate medical centers that actually perform mammograms.

“When a mammogram is indicated, a patient is often referred to a local program, such as the state’s breast and cervical cancer program. In other cases, the Komen Affiliate’s grant to Planned Parenthood may include funds to pay for mammograms outright. When this happens, a local provider performs the mammogram, and is then reimbursed by Planned Parenthood using the Komen grant funds,” Komen admits.

David Schmidt of Live Action responded to the comments in the new letter from Komen.

He wondered why Komen would give grants to Planned Parenthood rather than legitimate medical centers when the abortion business doesn’t actually help women with mammograms.

“Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms themselves. Why then is Komen giving grants to Planned Parenthood to then in turn pay non-Planned Parenthood health centers to provide mammograms? Why not grant funds directly to the centers performing mammograms?” he asked.

That’s the big change Komen is making.

Brinker explained that three Planned Parenthood chapters will receive grants that were already in place prior to the decision — in Denver, San Diego, and Waco, Texas.

Austin Ruse, the president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, who has been very closely following the Komen decision-making process, told LifeNews in exclusive comments that those grants will very likely be the last Komen makes to the abortion business.

“Komen has five outstanding grants going out this year to Planned Parenthood. We have known about them all along. After that, the door is shut,” Ruse said. “Nothing has changed since the decision was made in December to defund Planned Parenthood after these grants are finished.”

“Could these Planned Parenthood groups apply for future grants? Of course they could. Anyone can apply for anything. Will they get them? Highly unlikely for two reasons,” Ruse added. “First, Komen’s new policy says they do not fund groups that are under investigation or groups that do not provide primary care of women or research.”

“Second, Planned Parenthood’s vicious attacks against Susan G. Komen for the Cure has engendered a great deal of hurt and anger inside the organization,” Ruse told LifeNews. “Quite simply, Planned Parenthood is utilizing a scorched earth policy against Komen and burning all their bridges. Funding will never come back to them. Keep in mind also, that Nancy Brinker may be trying to make conciliatory gestures to her former friends. But she is discovering what we have known all along, that Planned Parenthood are dishonest thugs.”

Planned Parenthood: Pre-Abortion Ultrasounds "Abhorrent"

From:LifeNews.com
Planned Parenthood has a response to the federal appeals court decision allowing Texas women a chance to see an ultrasound of their baby before an abortion. They call it “abhorrent.”Writing for the court, Chief Judge Edith Jones was frank about the other side’s failure “to demonstrate constitutional flaws with the law,” which requires women to have a sonogram 24 hours before an abortion. Judge Jones said the state has “legitimate interests in protecting the potential life within her.”

Denying her up-to-date medical information,” Jones wrote, “is more of an abuse to her ability to decide than providing the information.

”Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that the Fifth Circuit ruling “sets an abhorrent precedent” as other states prepared to consider similar laws to help women receive factual information about their baby and his or her development before making a life or death decision to have an abortion.
What Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council finds abhorrent is Richards’ reaction to the ruling.
“Her organization recognizes that the biggest weapon in the abortion debate is the ultrasound machine,” Perkins said. “For thousands of women, this window into the womb is the only persuasion they need to reconsider abortion. And, as Richards’s group has proved, pro-abortion activists will do everything in their power to stop mothers from recognizing the personhood of their unborn babies.”

“This is a country where Americans can’t even play paintball without signing a paper acknowledging the risks. How does it possibly make sense to let women undergo a major surgical procedure without giving them all the facts?” he said. “The media may be calling it a victory for pro-lifers, but in this case, women and their babies are the real winners. While Texans still have the right to “choose,” at least they’ll finally know what they’re choosing.”

Care Net President Melinda Delahoyde, the head of a network of pregnancy centers that provide women with abortion alternatives, agreed.

She said the court’s decision “affirms that women deserve full and accurate information about their pregnancy before they consent to an abortion. Once again, abortion providers tipped their hand by arguing that they alone should determine the level of information provided to a woman prior to an elective abortion.”

Delahoyde added: “Texas’s informed consent law ensures that abortion providers allow women the time and medical information necessary to make a truly informed pregnancy decision. When women have the opportunity to see their baby on ultrasound, learn about fetal development and understand the medical risks of abortion, they often find the courage to choose life. Care Net applauds the 5th Circuit for a decision that respects women and respects life.”

Dr. Sandy Christiansen, Medical Consultant for Care Net added: “Informed consent is one of the tenets of sound medical practice. Medical science has supplied the “window to the womb” in ultrasound. I can think of no better tool than ultrasound to provide a woman with critical knowledge as she makes a life changing decision.”

Judge Orders Kansas to Send Tax Money to Planned Parenthood

From: LifeNews.com

In the latest skirmish in the battle between Kansas and Planned Parenthood, a judge has ordered the state to send taxpayer funds to the abortion business following complaints from it that it lost state public funding.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten ruled today that Kansas must fund the abortion business even though it did not cancel an contracts with the agency that were in effect at the time a new state provision went into place denying taxpayer funding via the family planning program to any agencies that do abortions.

Marten, in his ruling, also rejected the state’s request to only give Planned Parenthood taxpayer money on a monthly basis while its lawsuit moves forward rather than in a quarterly lump sum covering three months.

Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Western Missouri had complained earlier today that it would have to close its Hays, Kansas abortion referral clinic by Friday if the judge did not order the stand to fork over tax money to fund it.

“The court finds no injury to the defendants in maintaining the prior payment schedule, as they will be providing funding in a manner consistent with prior practice between the parties, and to an organization which has consistently provided satisfactory family planning services,” he wrote. “Defendants shall resume funding in accordance with this order immediately and shall continue such funding until further order of this court or the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit modifying this order.”

Earlier, Marten issued an injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law after Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri argued that it would suffer irreparable harm if the law was allowed to stand and that it would be forced to close one or more of its facilities because Kansas would direct hundreds of thousands of taxpayer funds to non-abortion medical clinics that provide the same services without also destroying the lives of women and unborn children in abortions.

The Kansas Attorney General’s office filed an appellate brief in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals asking it to halt the decision placing a temporary hold on enforcing the new law de-funding Planned Parenthood. State officials say it is not complying because there are no taxpayer funds to restore. The state entered into new contracts with other agencies after the law was passed — there was no situation where a contract with Planned Parenthood was voided and a judge’s order would require the state to restore it.

In its legal papers in the case, Planned Parenthood says the taxpayer funding to the abortion business must be restored by Friday or it will have to close the Hays center, which doesn’t do abortions but refers women for them. Planned Parenthood also said it would have to start charging customers more at its Wichita center unless the funding is restored.

State officials are also bickering with Kansas over how much to pay the abortion business while the case moves forward — the state wants to only give the abortion business a monthly check as the lawsuit continues while Planned Parenthood wants a quarterly payment.

Planned Parenthood CEO Peter Brownlie told The Associated Press that Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri has not received any taxpayer funds from the state since the judge’s order and he says the abortion business is looking into legal options to force the state to comply.

“We and our attorneys are talking about what our next steps are,” Brownlie said. “The state’s refusal to comply with the court’s order is rather remarkable.”

But Kansans for Life legislative director Kathy Ostrowski commented on the Planned Parenthood request for funds while the lawsuit moves forward.

“The clock is ticking in this high-stakes matter because the federal HHS agency ordinarily requires all Title X family planning contracts to be finalized by Aug. 31,” she said. “Kansas’ legal team have objected that Marten’s order to prevent “irreparable harm” to Planned Parenthood is unfounded since the money PP seeks -$330,000– would be about 5.5% of Plaintiff’s total revenue. Planned Parenthood of Kansas Mid-Missouri had revenues of $5.6 million in 2009 (last reported year) with $1.9 million in donations. Planned Parenthood told the court that both the Hays and Wichita outlets were already operating at a $220,000 annual loss — even with last year’s Title X funding.”

She said Planned Parenthood did not have a state contract with Kansas “to be restored by Marten, and a judge hasn’t the authority to create contracts between the state and private business.”

In fact,the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has already shifted $204,000 in taxpayer funding previously meant for the abortion business to the Sedgwick County health department to expand its family planning services without doing abortions. The funds were sent to the health department three days after Planned Parenthood filed its lawsuit over a law pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback signed to revoke its taxpayer funding.

The state also indicates a non-abortion health clinic in Ellis County has agreed to accept some of the $331,000 in federal funds the state doles out for family planning that Planned Parenthood normally receives.

The state of Kansas responded to the lawsuit by arguing that the 10th Amendment allows it to determine tax funding. Planned Parenthood in Kansas has received federal funding via the family planning program the state administrators for 25 years.

“The proposed injunction would commandeer one of the State’s agencies, forcing the State to cancel past contracts and enter into new ones selected by the Court,” the state argued. “The proposed injunction would violate the State’s sovereignty and unconstitutionally replace the State’s discretion with the Court’s judgment.”

Kansas also maintains the decision is in line with the purpose of the Title X federal family planning fund and says the abortion business can apply for the funds directly from the federal government as it has in other states, but added that Planned Parenthood was not “entitled” to taxpayer funding from Kansas.

Meanwhile, the papers the state filed with the federal court where Planned Parenthood sued make it clear that Planned Parenthood has not given a sufficient reason for why it deserves the funding. They say Planned Parenthood “has made no showing, nor could it, that family planning services will not be provided.”

The abortion business claims women will have a harder time accessing family planning even though the same services will be provided by an agency that doesn’t destroy unborn children in abortions.

“The effect of this provision — and indeed, its purpose — is to prevent Planned Parenthood from participating in the Title X program because it performs or is affiliated with the provision of abortion services,” Planned Parenthood said in its own legal documents.

The budget provisions say the state’s portion of the federal family planning taxpayer funds must go first to public health agencies — a similar approach to de-funding Planned Parenthood that Tennessee is using but one that differs from the Indiana approach of cutting all funding under Medicaid to Planned Parenthood directly. A federal judge agreed to Planned Parenthood Indiana’s request to stop the law there while the lawsuit moves forward.

Keith Olbermann: Who Cares Anyway?

As I am not a viewer of Joy Behar or a follower of Keith Olbermann, I missed the bizarre turn of events regarding his tweets. S.E. Cupp was a guest on Behar's show defending the defunding of Planned Parenthood and opposition to taxpayer funded abortions. Mr. Olbermann being ever the gentleman suggested the world would be a better place if her parents had sought out the services of Planned Parenthood. Given the original topic of abortion, it's not difficult to conclude he'd prefer that S.E. Cupp had been aborted. Amazing. When he was called on it, he said he meant they could have sought PP's counseling services. Ok, so they could have counseled her parents not to have children? Wow, either way, no S.E. Cupp.

Putting aside the fact that suggesting such a fate for anyone is obscene, let me focus on the case for SE Cupp's having been brought into this world. Like many people I first became aware of and came to admire her on Fox News's "Red Eye". I never miss it. EVER. While I was disappointed that this true blue conservative (raised in Massachusetts no less) is an atheist, my dismay is tempered by the fact that she is not one to ridicule people of faith like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins. All the more respect for her because her respect for the faithful shows a just prudence in assessing herself.

Wishing a human being consigned to oblivion at the moment of conception is bad in every instance, but marginally more tragic when considering the abundant qualities brought to life in the form of Ms. Cupp. She possesses a keen eye,quick wit,clever insights and expresses it all with clarity and a near comic flirtatiousness. Fine characteristics that accent classic beauty. As an avid hunter she can make a city boy like myself whose never wielded a gun feel a bit inadequate. She is it seems to modern punditry what Carole Lombard was to the Golden Age of Hollywood. Such a presence has the ability to make a 44 year old single man ponder an alternate fate had such a woman been met twenty years ago.

Now, back to Olbermann.........

Why do we conservatives get so bent out of shape by this guy? He may be an icon of the far left, but so is Che' Guevara and Saul Alinksy. His tweets even if meant to be funny which it isn't is nonetheless a reflection of intellectual cowardice as it reflects his inability to process intelligent,informed dissent. That he would dismiss any one's life as a proper case for abortion is bad enough, but more importantly it reveals a hatred and intolerance of dissent.

As an icon of the far left he says he embraces the faith of tolerance, but like many in the left who worship at that altar, it is a dogma advanced as a means to perpetuate their specific and in their mind justified brand of hate and intolerance. He is a walking, talking contradiction and for all his faux intellectualism, he is nothing more than a vile,hate filled, intolerant old coot. He is destined it seems to spend his elder years pitching fist sized walnuts at those "damn kids who won't stay off his lawn".

Guys like Olbermann always undo themselves and wishing a 30+ year old woman should have been aborted is more evidence of his irrelevancy. God willing (irony noted) we will be blessed by an ever blossoming conservative icon like S.E. Cupp. She is relevant and compelling. Olbermann? Who Cares Anyway?

Video: Planned Parenthood CEO’s False Mammogram Claim Exposed

Subsidizing Planned Parenthood is the equivalent of taxpayer funded abortions. The article with video give one more reason why private contributions, not taxpayer dollars.

From: The Blog Prof
Video: Planned Parenthood CEO’s False Mammogram Claim Exposed

I have said many times of this organization that even though 98% of their business is dismembering babies, there is the other 2% that use for propaganda purposes only in claiming that they offer cheap healthcare to poor women. They do this in the same way that Hamas and Hezbollah provide education to the poor even though 98% of what they do is kill Jews. Via BreitbartTV, one of their memes just folded like a cheap KMart picnic table: Mammosham: Planned Parenthood CEO’s False Mammogram Claim Exposed