The following article, Planned Parenthood Sounds Alarm As Liberals Weaponize Abstinence (Video), was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

Without a consequence-free hook-up culture, Planned Parenthood’s business model collapses. The left’s response to Trump’s election is an existential threat… to itself! If you ever wondered why Democrats are all-in with abortion, Planned Parenthood is a massive cash source for Democrat candidates. As just one example, WaPo wrote a 2017 story about Ralph Northam (the one whose …

Continue reading Planned Parenthood Sounds Alarm As Liberals Weaponize Abstinence (Video) ...

Two items in the news lately have captured Wesley's attention.

If you think it is respectable to consider babies, whether born or unborn, to be an inferior stage of human life, you can easily come to think that they have few rights that fully developed persons are bound to respect.

In this special edition of Ancient Faith Today, Kevin speaks, in this extensive interview, with David Daleiden, the director of the Center For Medical Progress, the pro-life activist organization that planned and produced the ​exposé videos that have shaken the abortion industry in the United States.

Without a consequence-free hook-up culture, Planned Parenthood's business model collapses. The left's response to Trump's election is an existential threat... to itself!

The post OOPS: Planned Parenthood Sounds Alarm As Lefties Weaponize Abstinence appeared first on Clash Daily.

The Trump administration's argument for letting lots of employers opt out of covering birth control is…not exactly bulletproof.

Yesterday, Vox reported that the Trump administration is considering a broad exemption to Obamacare's mandate on contraceptive coverage, according to a leaked draft of the proposed rule. If passed, the rule would allow virtually any employer, not just a religious one, to remove birth control coverage from its insurance plan if contraception violates the organization's religious beliefs or "moral convictions"—a broad and murky standard.

But, in a curious twist, part of the Trump administration's justification for the move hinges on the existence of hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics, many of which the White House is actively trying to close by "defunding" Planned Parenthood.

As the draft text explains, the administration believes the past rationale for Obamacare's contraception mandate is insufficient. The document lists several reasons why this is the case. Here's one of them:

"There are multiple Federal, state, and local programs that provide free or subsidized contraceptives for low-income women, including Medicaid (with a 90% Federal match for family planning services), Title X, health center grants, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. According to the Guttmacher Institute, government-subsidized family planning services are provided at 8,409 health centers overall. Various state programs supplement Federal programs, and 28 states have their own mandates of contraceptive coverage as a matter of state law. For example, the Title X program, administered by the HHS Office of Population Affairs (OPA), provides voluntary family planning information and services for clients based on their ability to pay.

...

"The availability of such programs to serve the most at-risk women identified by IOM [Institute of Medicine, now known as the National Academy of Medicine] diminishes the Government's interest in applying the Mandate to objecting employers."

The implication here is that since there are already programs like Medicaid and Title X to help low-income women afford contraception, the requirement that most employers provide no-cost birth control is less pressing.

But there are a couple of glaring contradictions here: First of all, of the 8,409 health centers that provide Medicaid and Title X family planning services, as cited in the rule, 817 of them are run by Planned Parenthood—the very group that Congress and the administration are trying to exclude from using Title X and Medicaid funds to provide health care.

Trump has already signed a bill into law allowing states to exclude Planned Parenthood and other providers who offer abortions from receiving Title X family planning funding—never mind that Title X funding is used exclusively for nonabortion services. Beyond that, there are several more proposals moving through government—including in the House's American Health Care Act and in the Trump budget proposal—to withhold Medicaid and other federal dollars, including Title X, specifically from Planned Parenthood.

The problem with the White House's logic boils down to this: As the nation's largest provider of federal Title X-funded care, in 2015 Planned Parenthood centers served more than 40 percent of women nationwide using Title X-funded family planning care—a whopping 1.58 million patients. But if Planned Parenthood can no longer receive a single federal dollar to provide contraception and other family planning care—an oft-repeated goal of the Trump administration—then these nearly 1.6 million low-income patients will suddenly lose their family planning care. And now their employers may not cover that care either.

An Iowa judge has ruled unconstitutional a state law that would have blocked Planned Parenthood of the Heartland from receiving federal money to provide sex education programs to Iowa youth. Fifth...

An Iowa judge has ruled unconstitutional a state law that would have blocked Planned Parenthood of the Heartland from receiving federal money to provide sex education programs to Iowa youth.

Fifth Judicial District Judge Paul Scott on Wednesday ruled the law “has no valid, ‘realistically conceivable’ purpose that serves a legitimate government interest as it is both irrationally overinclusive and under-inclusive.”

“The act violates (Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s) right to equal protection under the law and is therefore unconstitutional,” Scott ruled in issuing a permanent injunction to prevent the law’s implementation.

House File 766, passed in 2019 by the Republican-controlled Iowa House and Senate, excluded any Iowa organization that “provides or promotes abortion” from receiving federal dollars that support sex education and related services to Iowa youth.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and ACLU of Iowa challenged the law, filing a lawsuit shortly after Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the bill into law.

Polk County District Court issued a temporary injunction blocking the law, which was to go into effect July 1, allowing Planned Parenthood to continue providing sex education programming throughout the past year.

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

In its lawsuit, Planned Parenthood and ACLU argued that by blocking the abortion provider from the two federal grants — the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and the Community Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (CAPP) — the law violated protections of free speech, due process and equal protection.

“The decision recognizes that the law blocking Planned Parenthood from receiving grants to provide this programming violated the constitutional requirement of equal protection,” ACLU of Iowa Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said in a statement Thursday.

Though Planned Parenthood would be excluded, the law did allow “nonprofit health care delivery systems” to remain eligible for the federal funding, even if they are contracted with or are affiliated with an entity that performs abortions or maintains a facility where abortions are performed.

By doing so, the law effectively singles out Planned Parenthood, but allows other possible grant recipients to provide an array of abortion-related services, according to the court documents.

“The carved-out exception for the ‘nonprofit health care delivery system’ facilities undermines any rationale the State produces of not wanting to be affiliated with or provide funds to organizations that partake in any abortion-related activity,” Scott ruled. .

In fiscal year 2019, Planned Parenthood received about $265,000 through the federal grants, including $85,000 to offer PREP curriculum in Polk, Pottawattamie and Woodbury counties.

It was awarded $182,000 this year to offer CAPP curriculum in Linn County, as well as in Dallas, Des Moines, Jasper, Lee, Polk, Plymouth and Woodbury counties.

The grants are administered by the Iowa Department of Human Services and the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Planned Parenthood has provided sex education to students in 31 schools and 12 community-based youth organizations in Iowa using state-approved curriculum since 2005, according to a new release.

The focus has remained “on areas with the highest rates of unintended pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections,” the news release said.

“Today’s decision ensures that teens and young adults across Iowa will continue to have access to medically accurate sex education programs, despite the narrow and reckless policies of anti-abortion lawmakers,” said Erin Davison-Rippey, executive director of Planned Parenthood North Central States.

Comments: (319) 368-8536; michaela.ramm@thegazette.com

The puppet's felt hair bounces as she stage-whispers to the other puppets, almost conspiratorially, about their plans.…

(United States Supreme Court) - Upheld an Indiana law relating to the disposition of fetal remains by abortion providers. The Seventh Circuit had struck down the law, which altered the manner in which abortion providers may dispose of fetal remains; for instance, the law prevents incineration of fetal remains along with surgical byproducts. The U.S. Supreme Court concluded in a per curiam decision that the law passes rational basis review. Only two justices dissented.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. A preliminary injunction against enforcement of state laws requiring parental notification in the case of pregnant unemancipated minors seeking abortions was upheld.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Held that the State of Texas should not have been enjoined from terminating Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood facilities. Concluded that the district court applied an incorrect standard of review, in this case involving the facilities' alleged noncompliance with accepted medical and ethical standards. Vacated a preliminary injunction and remanded.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. A preliminary injunction against enforcement of state laws requiring parental notification in the case of pregnant unemancipated minors seeking abortions was upheld.

Mila Kunis has found a way to let Vice President Mike Pence know she's not fond of him. Every. Single. Month.

The Justice Department today filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Richard Retta for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act).

Donny Eugene Mower of Madera, Calif., pleaded guilty in federal court today to one count of arson, one count of damaging religious property and one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

Donny Eugene Mower, 38, of Madera, Calif., was sentenced in federal court today following his October 2011 guilty pleas to one count of arson, one count of damaging religious property and one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes it a federal crime to damage the property of a reproductive health services facility. These charges stem from Mower’s lighting a fire inside a Planned Parenthood clinic and throwing a brick at a mosque in Madera.

The Justice Department announced today that Jedediah Stout, 30, of Joplin, Mo., was charged today in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Mo., with the attempted arson of a Planned Parenthood facility.

Benjamin David Curell, 28, of Ellettsville, Indiana, pleaded guilty in federal court today to one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes it a federal crime to damage the property of a reproductive health services facility because of the services offered there. The plea stems from an incident that occurred during the early morning hours on April 11, 2013, when Curell broke into the Bloomington, Indiana, Planned Parenthood Clinic and caused extensive damage to the clinic building and its equipment

As much of the U.S. remains on lockdown, abortion rights are under attack nationwide. We get an update on the fight for abortion access with Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "Our bodies have literally been deemed essential," she says, "and yet the control of our bodies and the right to control our own bodies has not."

The conservative Center for Medical Progress in 2015 released video it secretly filmed, purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials haggling over the sale price for aborted human fetuses.

Whether or not Chris Christie donated money to Planned Parenthood is becoming a he said, he said between the New Jersey governor and GOP rival, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.