Planned Parenthood’s Christmas Wish List for Obama Includes Forced Abortions
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 6, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — In its first email to supporters following pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama’s victory Tuesday night, Planned Parenthood announced its Christmas wish list for an Obama administration. Included in the list is a request for funding for a UN agency involved in forced abortions in China.
"People around here are finally exhaling, after eight long years," Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards told donors in the email.
"Just think, the massive amount of time, energy, and resources that the Planned Parenthood community had to spend shielding women and teens from the harm caused by the Bush administration can now be directed to expanding women’s access to [abortion]," she added.
Richards also thanked her supporters for their hard work to also defeat pro-life ballot measures in California, Colorado and South Dakota.
It didn’t take long for the head of the nation’s biggest abortion business to turn her attention to working with her new White House ally.
"We have to pledge to seize our new opportunities with as much energy and tenacity as we’ve used to fend off the risks and challenges of the last eight years," she said.
At the top of Richard’s list is sending $34 million of taxpayer funds per year to an organization that has been involved in the China family planning program that forces couples there to have no more than one child.
"It’s up to us to take up that challenge and urge Barack Obama to act on his deep commitment to women’s health and reproductive freedom by reversing the global gag rule, restoring funding for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund," Richards said.
The UNFPA has denied any involvement with the China program, which involves forced abortions and sterilizations for offenders while other violators are thrown in prison, face job loss and family harassment.
Obama would likely restore the funding to the controversial group.
In April 2005 Obama supported an amendment to nullify the Mexico City Policy, which prevents forcing taxpayers to fund performing or promoting abortions in other nations.
Noticing the vote, Catholic writer Deal Hudson said he expects Obama to grant Planned Parenthood’s wish.
"Millions of dollars, taxpayer dollars, have been taken away from Planned Parenthood and the United Nations Population Fund," Hudson explained. "If Obama is elected, all this money, and more, will be restored."
Richards mentioned another item on Planed Parenthood’s Christmas list.
She said her group would make sure Obama is "acting quickly to overturn any dangerous last-minute anti-choice regulations that the lame-duck Bush administration may seek to put in place."
Those regulations include beefing up federal laws that protect doctors, hospitals and medical professionals from being forced to be involved in abortions.
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is expected to put the added protections in place any day now that would yank federal funding for any state or local government or medical facility that discriminates against medical staff who do not want to be required to participate in abortions.
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