Indiana: Gregg Attacks Pence on De-Funding Planned Parenthood

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 18, 2012   |   1:04PM   |   Washington, DC

Indiana’s Democratic candidate for governor, John Gregg, calls himself a pro-life Democrat in a recent interview but attacks pro-life Republican candidate Mike Pence for his efforts to revoke federal funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Pence was a leader in Congress to de-fund the biggest abortion business in the nation and the House of Representatives ultimately approved his measure to make the abortion giant operate without forcing taxpayers to fund its family planning efforts. The state of Indiana followed suit and Gov Mitch Daniels signed a bill that would eliminate state taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.

That’s not something Gregg supports, according to a recent interview.

Times seem to be tough and politics seem to be nothing but polarizing, why is that?

“There have been three major attacks from Indianapolis and from Washington D.C.; An attack on working men and women in labor and the middle class, an attack on education, and an attack on women through healthcare.  I’m a prolife Democrat, I am a minority in our party, but I am also a cancer survivor and I know the importance of early screening.  You can’t do abortions with federal funds, and that is fine, but to want to shut down Planned Parenthood’s health care services, breast exams, cervical exams, preventive screening, contraception, denying healthcare services to women is wrong.  Yet my opponent wanted to shut the government down over this, over denying basic healthcare for women?  That’s wrong,” Gregg said.

Mike Fichter, the president of Indiana Right to Life, responded to Gregg’s comments in an email to LifeNews.

“It is reprehensible that John Gregg wants our tax dollars to fund Indiana’s largest abortion business Planned Parenthood.  His comments not only show that he will be Planned Parenthood’s best friend as governor, but that he will work overtime to expand its agenda into our schools and communities,” he said.

“Gregg’s comments are a political attempt to fan the phony ‘war on women’ theme and are a complete misrepresentation of the issue,” Fichter added. “The Indiana legislature voted to end all state-directed funding for Planned Parenthood due to its involvement in killing over 5,000 unborn children per year in Indiana.  There are hundreds of alternative sources for healthcare for women in Indiana that do not involve the business of abortion, so to play the card that women are denied health care under Indiana’s defunding law is just a lie.”

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During the debate over his amendment, Pence talked about the importance of not having federal funds flow to Planned Parenthood.

“By banning federal funding to Planned Parenthood, Congress has taken a stand for millions of Americans who believe their tax dollars should not be used to subsidize the largest abortion provider in America,” he said after the vote. “I commend my colleagues in both parties for taking a stand for taxpayers and a stand for life. I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to support this legislation and end federal funding of Planned Parenthood once and for all.”

Pence led the way in fighting for the amendment to ensure that none of the federal funds in any program or department would go to the abortion business, which does more than 324,000 abortions annually and receives more than $363 million in federal, state and local taxpayer funds.

“I believe that ending an innocent human life is morally wrong,” Pence told his colleagues. “I also believe it is morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund organizations that provide and promote abortion-like Planned Parenthood of America.”

Pence talked about the myriad of ways in which Planned Parenthood has been proven to exploit women.

“The headlines and years of investigations speak for themselves,” he said. “In 2002, Planned Parenthood was found civilly liable in Arizona for failure to report statutory rape. In 2008 it violated reporting laws in Indiana and California. In 2009 it instructed a girl in Tennessee to lie about her age so she could get an abortion without her parents’ knowledge. Recently in California, Washington, New Jersey, and New York, Planned Parenthood clinics have been accused of fraudulent accounting or overbilling practices. And last week, undercover videos showed Planned Parenthood employees apparently willing to aid human sex traffickers by coaching them on how to falsify documents and secure secret abortions for their underage prostitutes.”

“As the father of two teenage daughters, there are not words strong enough to portray my contempt of this pattern of apparent fraud and abuse by Planned Parenthood,” he said.