Donald Trump continues to talk about the Planned Parenthood abortion business and, in a new interview late Tuesday, he said Planned Parenthood should possibly be de-funded if it doesn’t stop doing abortions. That seems almost a guarantee since abortion is the central component of Planned parenthood’s business — though the Republican candidate didn’t appear to know that.
Tuesday morning on CNN, Trump said he supported de-funding the abortion aspects of Planned Parenthood but thought funding for non-abortion components ought to remain — which had pro-life advocates concerned he would leave the status quo of $550 million in taxpayer funding in place.
Then last night, Trump appeared on the Sean Hanity show and wrongly claimed that abortion was a small part of the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
Trump said: “There’s two Planned Parenthoods, in a way. You have it as an abortion clinic. Now that’s actually a fairly small part of what they do, but it’s a brutal part. And I’m totally against that and I wouldn’t do that. They also, however, service women. And one of the things that I thought was so terrible, when Jeb Bush the other day talked about women’s health issues he was so bad. It’s like what is he doing? We have to help women. A lot of women are helped. So we have to look at the positives also for Planned Parenthood.”
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Them, Hannity corrected Trump and pointed out that Planned Parenthood does 330,000 abortions a year and that funding its non-abortion aspects frees up money to promote and perform abortions. Responding to that, Trump said “maybe” Planned Parenthood should be de-funded.
“Maybe unless they stop with the abortions, we don’t do the funding for the stuff that we want,” Trump said.
Here’s the video of Trump’s remarks, which begin at 16:50:
Responding to the newest comments, Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser told LifeNews she’s concerned that Trump considers himself pro-life, but said he supports federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
“Donald Trump completely mislead Americans by repeating tired Planned Parenthood talking points. According to its own annual reports, Planned Parenthood’s abortions are on the rise – nearly one million in the last three years. Meanwhile, their already limited non-abortion services have dropped significantly. We’re talking about a profit-driven abortion business receiving more than $500 million taxpayer dollars a year and with little interest in real health care for women. At one point yesterday Donald Trump called Planned Parenthood an abortion factory, and he ought to have stopped there,” she said.
She continued: “Why should a scandal-plagued, inept organization like Planned Parenthood be receiving $1.5 million in taxpayer dollars a day? If Mr. Trump is truly concerned about women’s health, he should support immediate defunding of Planned Parenthood and the reallocation of those funds to organizations better suited to women’s health care needs. There are more than 9,000 federally qualified health care centers nationwide that do not sell abortions to vulnerable women and seek to profit further off of the flesh of their children.”
Yesterday morning, as LifeNews.com reported, Trump called the Planned Parenthood abortion business a “abortion factory” and said government shouldn’t be funding it. But Trump also said he would be open to funding Planned Parenthood’s few non-abortion activities, something he is going to have to explain and clarify in the future.
“The problem that I have with Planned Parenthood is the abortion situation. It is like an abortion factory, frankly,” Trump said. “And you can’t have it. And you just shouldn’t be funding it. That should not be funded by the government, and I feel strongly about that.”
When asked about the smaller non-abortion component of what Planned Parenthood does, Trump appeared to be alright with taxpayer funding.
“What I would do when the time came, I’d look at the individual things they do, and maybe some of the individual things they do are good. I know a lot of the things are bad. But certainly the abortion aspect of it should not be funded by government, absolutely,” he said.
Trump added, “I would look at the good aspects of [Planned Parenthood], and I would also look, because I’m sure they do some things properly and good and that are good for women, and I would look at that, and I would look at other aspects also. But we have to take care of women.”
The problem is that the $550 million in taxpayer dollars the Planned Parenthood abortion business currently receives comes under the auspices of family planning funding and technically can’t be used to pay for abortions — though it frees up Planned Parenthood funds to promote and perform abortions. That has some pro-life advocates saying Trump is essentially supporting the satus quo right now — where the Hyde Amendment prohibits abortion funding but Planned Parenthood still receives well over $550 million in taxpayer funds.
The Planned Parenthood abortion business responded to Trumps comments and took them to mean that he flip-flopped on taxpayer funding.
“Donald Trump seems to have realized that banning all abortions, shutting down the government, and defunding Planned Parenthood are extreme positions that are way too far outside the mainstream for even him to take,” said spokesman Eric Ferrero in a statement.
“We hope that the rest of the GOP field will wake up and reconsider their extreme and unpopular positions on defunding preventive care, abortion bans, and the other economic issues that women and their families care about,” Ferrero added
Lila Rose, the head of LiveAction, a pro-life activist group, also took Trumps comments as changing his previous stance supporting abortion funding.
She told LifeNews.com: “Trump’s vacillation on Planned Parenthood funding is deeply troubling, and reveals an ignorance about their horrific abortion practices–their killing over 320,000 children a year, and bartering to sell the body parts of those they abort. It’s obvious from Mr. Trump’s comments that he has not watched the Planned Parenthood videos released by Center for Medical Progress. That is the only way he could recommend to continue funding this abortion conglomerate that is totally unnecessary and any organization that engages in these human rights abuses does not deserve a penny of tax payers’ money. It would be better spent on health services that would save the lives of women and babies. I challenge Mr. Trump to watch the videos.”
Where pro-life presidential candidates stand on de-funding Planned Parenthood is important given that a new pro-life president is necessary to de-fund the abortion business since Democrats in the Senate are blocking legislation to de-fund it.
In an interview last week, Trump was more strongly in favor of de-funding Planned Parenthood. He was asked on “The Hugh Hewitt” show Monday night if he supported shutting down the federal government in order to de-fund Planned Parenthood.
“Well I can tell you this: I would,” Trump replied.
Last month, in an interview, Trump told Dana Loesch that Planned Parenthood should be defunded in light of the recent videos showing their top executives negotiating the sale of aborted babies’ body parts.
Trump said, “It’s disgusting. And absolutely they should be defunded. I thought it was so cavalier, so horrible.”
In the past, Trump has shared that he is pro-life on abortion. For example, in January he said, “I’m pro-life and I have been pro-life. It’s an issue and a strong issue.” However, Trump admits that at one time he wasn’t against abortion but changed his mind after developing relationships with close friends who have children.
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In an interview with the Des Moines Register newspaper, he explained, “If you look at it, I said, ‘It really, really troubles me, and it really, really bothers me, the whole concept of abortion.’ This was years ago, and even then it really bothered me, but I went on the other side of the line,” Trump said. “But in thinking about it over the years, I’ve had instances, and one instance in particular, a friend had a child who they were going to abort, and now they have it, and the child is incredible. And the man, he changed his views also because of that.”
“As I’ve grown older, as I’ve seen things happen in life, I’ve changed my views — and others have also,” he said.
