January 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a recently released report, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) claimed credit for helping to “shape” the Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama this past March.
“In the latter half of 2009 – in what will surely be remembered as a pivotal achievement – Planned Parenthood worked with its supporters across the nation to help shape and pass the Affordable Care Act,” wrote PPFA President Cecile Richards and PPFA Chair Valerie McCarthy, in a letter published as part of the organization’s 2009-2010 annual report.
The women credit their organization’s “tireless efforts” with the passage of a law that “expands care to millions of women and protects women’s access to essential reproductive care,” and promise their supporters “a promising new era of health care.”
According to many pro-life activists and religious leaders, however, what the “new era” touted by Richards and McCarthy promises is an end to conscience rights for Christian employers and health care providers, and an outpouring of government funding for abortion.
A 2010 statement released by the National Right to Life Committee details multiple ways that the legislation opened the door to such funding.
Supporters of the law, however, have denied that it allows for government funding of abortion services. In a statement released on the one year anniversary of the law’s passage, PPFA said that it opposes the Act’s abortion-related provisions, and would throw its weight behind an effort to liberalize those provisions still more.
According to Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, the recently released report confirms the need for a renewed effort to completely defund the organization.
“Despite an unprecedented effort by statewide and federal leaders to defund them, a wave of former employees willing to testify against them, and uniform agreement amongst Republican presidential candidates that they should be defunded, Planned Parenthood continues full-steam ahead,” she said in a statement. “They are unwilling to answer to the pro-life American majority that wants out of this business.”