During the entire 2016 presidential campaign, there has been a witch hunt on Planned Parenthood. There were some videos released which showed Planned Parenthood doctors supposedly talking about selling fetus parts. These videos were found to have been doctored by a pro-life organization.
Many states, including my own, Alabama, tried to defund the clinic, but luckily, the judge blocked Planned Parenthood from being defunded in most cases.
A committee in Congress, the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, started by former House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and continued by the current House Speaker, Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), investigates Planned Parenthood for this reason.
Democrats in Congress tried to get the committee disbanded, as multiple investigations already cleared the women’s health organization of any wrong-doing.
Committee chair, Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), sent two letters to the Obama Administration asking it to investigate new charges of privacy law violations involving Planned Parenthood and the biomedical company, StemExpress.
The names of several researchers and other staffers were included in these letters, unredacted.
Democrats in Congress raised concerns over clinic employees’ safety ever since the shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood in November. The gunman killed three people and injured nine others.
Mike Reynard, a spokesman for Rep. Blackburn’s office, said this about the leak:
“The chairman has been very clear about redacting the names and staff just made a mistake.”
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said this about the leak in a statement to Mother Jones:
“The Select Panel is becoming more reckless and irresponsible by the day … It should have been disbanded long ago. Now this disclosure, deliberate or not, is further endangering the lives of women, researchers and health workers. Too often we’ve seen clinics and other facilities struck by violence; why place the people there at risk like this? It’s irresponsible in the extreme.”
The anti-abortion rhetoric has gotten so scary that the FBI actually sent warnings to abortion clinics months before the shooting warning of something like this. There is a lot of anti-choice hate going on, and clinics need to be kept safe from it.
I know there are many people out there who are against abortions, but killing abortion providers is not the answer. This is the sweet story of a Planned Parenthood volunteer and former patient:
Featured Image By Charlotte Cooper via Flicker/CC by 2.0
