Planned Parenthood Funding Comes Under Attack on Capitol Hill
September 30, 2015In a five-hour hearing, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards fell under the focused scrutiny of Republican legislators Tuesday as members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee questioned her on the ongoing investigation into the organization’s healthcare work and Medicaid reimbursements.
However she maintained that the organization, which has been a target of the GOP, has broken no laws and insisted that the charges against it were “outrageous.”
Committee chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, accused Planned Parenthood of engagement in political activity, arguing it does not need $500 million in federal funding for healthcare. “That’s money that’s not going to women’s health care…it’s a political organization,” Chaffetz said.
He drilled that the hearing was not directly related to the videos released over the summer by the Center for Medical Progress purporting to show the organization violating fetal tissue donation laws. Monday, Michigan became the sixth state to find no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood in their process of obtaining fetal tissue for donation. In her testimony, Richards said that only two of their 59 health centers procure fetal tissue from abortions. The founder of the Center for Medical Progress was not present at the hearing and is under investigation by the state of California.