The Supreme Court has refused to take a case against the Obama administration, which faced a lawsuit after it defended the secrecy of a $1 million grant to the New Hampshire affiliate of the Planned Parenthood abortion business in 2011. The abortion giant is getting new national attention after it was caught selling aborted babies and body parts from aborted babies.
The Obama administration is keeping documents secret related to a non-competitive grant the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded directly to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in 2011 without going through state approval or standard protocols and despite the fact that the state decided not to fund Planned Parenthood that year.
Obama administration officials say it can’t release the documents because doing so might affect Planned Parenthood’s “competitive position” if it faces a commercial grant competitor in the future. HHS also refused to produce information about its own debates over how to sell the controversial decision to the public.
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned Parenthood Immediately
Alliance Defending Freedom represented a pro-life group seeking to expose the documents with details about the grant, but the Supreme Court has declined to take the case.
ADF attorneys and allied attorney Michael Tierney represent New Hampshire Right to Life in New Hampshire Right to Life v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a lawsuit that seeks the public release of information under the Freedom of Information Act about a Title X “Family Planning” grant HHS awarded to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in 2011.
In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit permitted HHS to shield information about the grant and the department’s discussions on how to portray the controversial grant to the public.
Now, the nation’s highest court has declined to review that decision.
But, in a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, argued that the high court should have reviewed the case: “The First Circuit’s decision warrants review. It perpetuates an unsupported interpretation of an important federal statute and further muddies an already amorphous test.”
“Americans deserve to know if their tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it,” said Tierney, one of more than 2,600 private attorneys allied with ADF.
He added: “We had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would consider this case, which would have addressed whether the government can continue to veil its support for Planned Parenthood. HHS is withholding documents that are critical in evaluating apparently illegal funding that the administration provided to the abortion giant despite New Hampshire’s grave concerns and without following normal protocols. We are pleased, however, that the district court ruled in our favor on the vast majority of other documents we requested.”
“Americans are already being forced to fund Planned Parenthood, which has become the subject of numerous investigations, with more than $500 million in taxpayer dollars annually,” said ADF Senior Counsel Casey Mattox. “At the very least, the government must be transparent about this money.”
In June 2011, New Hampshire chose not to award a Title X subgrant to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, in part because of concerns that the affiliate was improperly using the funds to subsidize its abortion business and was not being transparent about its activities. The Obama administration responded and awarded Planned Parenthood a controversial sole source non-competitive replacement grant.
When New Hampshire Right to Life sought documents concerning the grant, HHS stonewalled until a federal court order required it to produce some, but not all, requested information about the grant, ADF said.
As the ADF reply brief explains, the Freedom of Information Act “requires ‘full agency disclosure unless information is exempted under clearly delineated statutory language….’ The documents at issue in this case, all relating to a rushed non-competitive grant by HHS after the state of New Hampshire refused to award funds over concerns that Planned Parenthood was unlawfully using tax payer funds to subsidize abortions, could not have been done ‘in confidence.’ In fact, the state’s decision not to award funds and HHS’s decision to grant the funds were both highly publicized and of interest to many in New Hampshire and elsewhere….”
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must Investigate Planned Parenthood for Selling Aborted Baby Parts
The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all eleven:
- In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “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.”
- In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
- In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
- In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
- In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
- In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
- In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
- In the eighth video: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
- The ninth video: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
- The 10th video: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies.The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
- Unreleased Videos: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
- The 11th video catches a Texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
