When Taxes Become Blood Money

According to their most recent annual report, Planned Parenthood receives over a billion dollars in total revenue each year. Their CEO, Cecile Richards, is the daughter of Texas Governor Ann Richards; she lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where the average household net worth is $1.2 million, and she makes $400,000 per year, as much as the President of the United States. She is a one-percenter. But Planned Parenthood still gets to enjoy non-profit tax status. Planned Parenthood also performs about one thousand abortions a day, roughly one abortion every 96 seconds, which totals roughly the population of Pittsburgh each year. Planned Parenthood also receives one million dollars per day from American taxpayers, even though half of the country identifies as pro-life, and even though millions of Americans are struggling in this economy. Planned Parenthood spends millions each election year on pro-abortion politicians. There are better things that we could do with one million dollars per day. That’s more than the federal government spends on brain cancer research, colorectal cancer research, and lung cancer research. Is this not an extreme misplacement of priorities? Last week, video was released that shows Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Barbara Nucatola, talking about the sale of livers, heads, lungs, hearts, muscles, and “lower extremities.” Apparently these aren’t just a clump of cells after all. Of course, in years past, several other videos have surfaced showing lower-ranking Planned Parenthood employees speaking approvingly of statutory rape, prostitution, and sex-selective abortions—that is, abortions motivated by discrimination against the gender of the unborn child. Every American should be shocked by how casually Dr. Nucatola speaks about the body parts of dead human beings. Here is just one excerpt: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.” If they aren’t human beings whose organs are being harvested, then what are they? How do they have human organs, yet somehow are not human? And if they are human beings, why is Planned Parenthood intentionally and brutally killing them?  It is fashionable to invoke the word equality for a wide variety of causes today. But what makes us equal is our humanity, as it is the only thing we share completely and equally in common every moment of our lives. Dr. Nucatola admits in the video that some decisions she makes about procedural methods depend not upon her medical expertise, but upon the kind of organs that are in demand that particular day. In order to preserve the organs, methods that increase the mother’s risk of injury must be used. Not only does Planned Parenthood not care about unborn babies, but they are willing to take risks with women’s safety in order to make even more money. It is even possible that some of these procedures cause live births, or partial birth abortions, which are forbidden under federal law. Apparently Dr. Nucatola has also been reading Supreme Court opinions over the past few years, because she states that “what ultimately happens doesn’t matter” as long as she states her intentions to the contrary. What happens does matter: lives are being lost, and in a most barbaric fashion. Planned Parenthood has not fired Dr. Nucatola or even disciplined her. They have apologized for her tone of voice, but they will not apologize for her regular dismemberment of unborn children even after the 5th month of gestation, because that is one thing they pay her to do. This week, we found out even more about Planned Parenthood’s senior staff. On Tuesday, another video was released, this time showing Dr. Mary Gatter, President of Planned Parenthood’s Medical Directors Council, discussing human body parts just as cavalierly as Dr. Nucatola did. Dr. Gatter talks about 60 abortions in the second trimester, which she regards as “low” volume, and even haggles over the compensation amount Planned Parenthood would receive for their body parts. She hesitates to name her price because, in her words, “the person who throws out a figure first is at a loss, right?” Still more shocking than that is Dr. Gatter’s graphic details about suction methods used for extracting the corpses. Dr. Gatter says that she “wouldn’t object to asking [the surgeon] to use a [manual vacuum aspirator]…in order to increase the odds that we get an intact specimen.” Once again, their methods are being dictated not by science, but by demand for body parts. How many more videos must be released before people accept the humanity of the unborn child? Rep. Joe Pitts, R-PA, represents Pennsylvania’s 16th Congressional district.