Obama Gives Planned Parenthood Abortion President Frequent White House Access

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Feb 16, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Obama Gives Planned Parenthood Abortion President Frequent White House Access

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 16
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Visitor logs reveal what pro-life advocates suspected would happen once President Barack Obama took over as presdient. He and his administration have allowed the Planned Parenthood abortion business unfettered access to the White House and top staffers.

The visitor logs reveal Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards has visited the White House and spent time with Obama administration officials on four occasions.

The documents show Obama wasted little time in giving Richards access, with her first visit coming on January 20 — the date of Obama’s inauguration — for a luncheon reception with 299 total people.

Richards’ next visit appears undocumented in the visitor logs.

The Obama administration put together a White House health care summit in March 2009 which saw Richards and Planned Parenthood invited to promote abortion while pro-life groups were left out.

The visitor logs also reveal Richards attended a private meeting with Obama administration staff on June 6 and July 7.

The June meeting saw 28 people gather at an event coordinated by Valerie Jarrett’s White House Office of Public Engagement. Kathleen Richardson, who headed the public-relations offensive designed to woo groups to support the health care bills, coordinated the meeting. The logs don’t reveal how long Richards stayed.

The July event had Richards in a one-hour private meeting with Tina Tchen, the executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, which pro-life advocates say is promoting abortion on a worldwide level. The meeting likely included discussion of plans for Tchen to appear at a Planned Parenthood event held just two weeks later.

The logs also show Richards met privately with Anita Dunn, the then-White House communications director, for almost an hour on October 28.

That’s the day House Democrats unveiled the House version of the pro-abortion health care bill prior to the Stupak amendment that banned abortion funding.

Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America, told LifeNews.com the "visitor logs document the close relationship that the Obama administration has with the largest abortion provider in the country."

"For a president who claimed he would fight against lobbyists’ influence, these records reveal a different story," Wright said.

"Planned Parenthood’s many visits to the White House as the administration shaped its legislative priorities helps to show this abortion provider stands to gain multi-millions of dollars in government funding if Obama’s policies become law," she added.

The White House visitor logs also appear to omit a special August meeting Richards attended on behalf of Planned Parenthood.

In a note she posted on Facebook, Richards revealed some of the details about the meeting and the Obama administration’s strategy for getting the pro-abortion bill approved.

"Yesterday I attended a special meeting at the White House to discuss women and health insurance reform," Richards writes.

"The basic message was that we’ve got to remind folks why we became so dedicated to reforming the health care system — or more particularly, the health insurance system — in the first place," she said at the time.

Richards says the Obama administration "appreciate[s] all the mighty Planned Parenthood supporters speaking up for reform in the states."

The revolving door for Richards and Planned Parenthood goes the other way as well.

Tchen spoke to more than 400 pro-abortion activists at the 2009 Planned Parenthood Organizing and Policy Summit. During the mid-July event, Tchen told the Planned Parenthood activists that if they want abortion as a part of the health care restructuring plan Congress is considering, they need to "bring it" — and up their lobbying efforts.

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