Texas Raids Planned Parenthood Clinics In Unconstitutional Plot To Intimidate Doctors
The GOP has been steadily trying to destroy one of our nation’s most beloved healthcare providers, Planned Parenthood, ever since the deceptively edited fraudulent videos from the criminal organization Center For Medical Progress were released. The videos, as well as the people behind them along with anti-choice zealots everywhere, essentially tried to paint the women’s healthcare organization as an abortion mill that sells baby body parts. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, as numerous investigations in multiple states and a Congressional hearing have found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Well, Texan Republicans, who reside in a delusional fantasy world of their own creation, aren’t giving up. They have, for reasons known only to themselves, decided to conduct raids on Planned Parenthood offices all over Texas. The raids come right on the heels of the state’s government forbidding the distribution of any Medicaid money from the state. The attempts to find evidence of wrongdoing were conducted at Planned Parenthood locations in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio on Thursday. They were the work of the Texas Inspector General, who, of course, refused to say a word about why he was doing what he was doing.
Of course the rabidly anti-choice Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott (R- Of Course), believes the videos released by CMP, and said of Planned Parenthood’s perfectly legal fetal tissue donations that “the gruesome harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood will not be allowed.”
Of course, that’s not what is happening at all. Fetal tissue is donated with only with full permission of the woman who underwent the abortion, and there is no money being made by the organization from donations. Also, fetal tissue research is responsible for many critical healthcare advances, such as the vaccine for polio and treatments for birth defects such as cerebral palsy.
Despite the fact that many investigations have concluded that Planned Parenthood has done nothing illegal, Abbott and his GOP cronies cut funding anyway, deciding that the “evidence” in the hoax videos was sufficient to declare that Planned Parenthood engaged in practices that violate the laws regarding the Medicaid program.
This will most definitely wind up in court, a battle Abbott and his band of anti-abortion zealots will certainly lose. Louisiana and Arkansas tried similar tactics to shut down this vital source of women’s healthcare, only to be sued for violating the law, with federal judges forcing them to continue Planned Parenthood’s funding.
This is what happens when you let woman-hating Republicans into positions of power. Vital healthcare services for women and men everywhere are threatened and taken away, all in the name of their personal interpretation of Christian fundamentalism. Such blind obsession has no place in the politics of responsible governments.
