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For an organization that has at the root of its business model the destruction of human life, it’s not surprising that Planned Parenthood has had to resort to deception to defend itself after taking some of its worst PR hits in its history. But the more Americans learn about Planned Parenthood, the less they like.

Purporting itself to be the arbitrators of “women’s health care,” it has successfully siphoned more than $300 million a year of taxpayer dollars out of the economy. Planned Parenthood defenders in the General Assembly, Congress and the media are quick to claim that the majority of services provided by Planned Parenthood are not abortion related. If you weren’t paying attention you’d think that without your money being diverted to its coffers women would not have access to any health care.

That, of course, ignores the truth. Now, former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson and many others are finally exposing Planned Parenthood for what it is — and what we’ve said it is all along. The organization has had to resort to deception and hiding behind the White House to protect its public financing.

Most recently, in the debate over federal funding for the nation’s largest private supplier of abortion, Planned Parenthood apologists made the assertion that abortion amounts to only three percent of the organization’s services (a claim we’ve heard over and over again in the General Assembly). For an organization that has at its core abortion and the politics of abortion, this claim makes no sense, yet politicians and pundits alike have puppeted the talking point.

According to Johnson, in an editorial she wrote for The Hill:

Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortions make up just 3 percent of its services is also a gimmick. That number is actually closer to 12 percent, but strategically skewed by unbundling family planning services so that each patient shows anywhere from five to 20 “visits” per appointment (i.e., 12 packs of birth control equals 12 visits) and doing the opposite with abortion visits, bundling them together so that each appointment equals one visit. The resulting difference between family planning and abortion “visits” is striking.

Further proof of Planned Parenthood’s emphasis on abortion is the directive that recently came down from Planned Parenthood’s national headquarters mandating that all its affiliates provide abortions by 2013. In addition, its adoption referral number is appalling, and has been decreasing exponentially for years. Per Ms. Johnson:

. . . 98 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services to pregnant women are abortion.

That’s just the beginning. It also made the claim that it provides cancer screenings such as mammograms, but the truth is that it simply refers women to facilities that do mammograms, something any free clinic can do. No Planned Parenthood clinic has the equipment to do mammograms (of course, those would cost money, and based on what we’ve seen in the debate over abortion center regulations, safety is not a high priority for Planned Parenthood).

Of course, nearly every “service” provided by Planned Parenthood, with the exception of its primary money winner — abortion — can be done at free clinics and can be paid for through Medicaid or Medicare. There is absolutely no reason that an organization that has faced accusations ranging from targeting African Americans for abortion to covering up sexual abuse of underage girls should be subsidized by taxpayers. But you knew that already.

In Virginia, we have successfully defunded Planned Parenthood by exposing the money that was being diverted to its clinics. But this reminder seems fitting during tax season: Our federal government continues to provide more than one third of this political organization’s budget with your tax dollars.

In Virginia, Planned Parenthood continues to advocate for more money, freedom from minor regulations, and against every single attempt at helping women make a better choice for their unborn children. If a proposal is going to reduce the number of abortions in Virginia, it is sure to oppose it, including funding successful abstinence education programs.

The good news is that this year, we were able to defeat Planned Parenthood over and over again. From passing abortion center safety regulations to abstinence funding to protecting taxpayers from underwriting abortion in Virginia’s health insurance exchange, to defeating its legislative agenda, Planned Parenthood suffered overwhelming defeats this year.

Let’s pray we can build on this momentum!

It was a pro-life, pro-family sweep today at the reconvened “Veto” session of the General Assembly tonight. In addition to a dramatic abortion limiting 21-20 vote within the last hour, the Virginia Senate earlier voted by the same margin to concur with Governor McDonnell and the House of Delegates to restore abstinence education funding that former Governor Tim Kaine cut out of the state budget. As with the vote to ban taxpayer dollars from use in elective abortions in the ObamaCare state run health insurance exchanges, all 18 Republicans were joined by pro-life Democrats Phillip Puckett and Chuck Colgan to get to the magic number of 20 votes and a tie in the chamber allowing pro-life Lt. Governor Bill Bolling to break the tie in favor of the amendment.

The funding, match money corresponding to a federal grant, was initially presented in the House budget but, in the final days of session, Senate conferees stripped it out in budget negotiations. But today, the House reiterated its position by a 69-29 vote, which sent it to the Senate. Senator Colgan (D-29, Manassas), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, introduced the amendment and urged its passage. Pro-abortion Senator Mary Margaret Whipple (D-31, Arlington) rebutted the argument, parroting Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League, which claim abstinence education is ineffective (despite an Obama administration study that says otherwise).

The Family Foundation thanks Governor McDonnell, Lt. Governor Bolling, and the members of the House and Senate who ensured the success of these two important pieces of legislation that soon will become law, as well as all committed pro-life, pro-family Virginians who answered our call to contact their state legislators this week. More to come tomorrow about today’s exciting developments.

The pro-abortion forces in Virginia are nothing if not masters at hyperbole. That, or downright Orwellian. Today, they held a news conference at the General Assembly Building to reinforce their message of choice since their stunning defeat on the abortion center regulation bill: That limiting abortions, and thus saving the most innocent among us, is “an attack on women’s health.” Among attendees were a who’s who of the General Assembly pro-abortion crowd: Senators Donald McEachin and Mary Margaret Whipple; and Delegates Patrick Hope, David Englin, Jennier McClellan, Scott Surovell, Adam Ebbin, Onzlee Ware, Vivian Watts and Charniele Herring — the so-called “Reproductive Health Caucus.”

They were joined not only by Planned Parenthood and NARAL, but by the ACLU and the League of Women’s Voters, whose representative enthusiastically gave herself a shout-out when Delegate Herring failed to recognize her. What abortion “rights” has to do with registering women to vote is anyone’s guess, but that moment was the most exciting thing at what had to be the most uneventful news conference in General Assembly history — nothing more than introductions, a statement by Delegate Herring, and a story by a woman whose situation was not relevant to the exchanges. Not even a question by one of the two or three members of the press who attended. Even the distributed prepared press statements were boring. Sorry, but no video, excerpted quotes, nor links worth citing. Even Planned Parenthood’s e-mail alert left a lot to be desired. An indication that the tide is turning? We’ll find out tomorrow when our electeds vote to sustain or reject two pro-life amendments passed down by Governor Bob McDonnell: One, to HB 2434, to prohibit taxpayer funding of abortion in the new state health insurance exchanges mandated by the federal healthcare law; and another, a budget amendment, restoring abstinence education funding that former Governor Tim Kaine eliminated.

These votes promise to be very close in the Senate tomorrow during the “Veto Session.” Please contact your senator Wednesday morning and ask him or her to vote for each.

Click here if you know your senator and need his or her phone number.

Click here if you don’t know who your senator is.

Meanwhile, here’s more coverage on the health insurance exchange amendment, from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot (here) and below, from WTVR-TV/CBS6 in Richmond. Both feature comments from Family Foundation President Victoria Cobb.

In addition to Governor Bob McDonnell’s amendment to HB 2434, which would restrict Virginia’s health insurance exchanges under ObamaCare from covering abortion services, Governor McDonnell also added an amendment to reinsert abstinence funding in the Virginia budget. This funding was included in the House of Delegates budget, but budget conferees left it out of the final budget which the General Assembly approved and sent to the governor. Such funding was a regular line item in the budget until then-Governor Tim Kaine abruptly stripped it out in November 2007 as a political IOU to Planned Parenthood.

Tomorrow, the General Assembly reconvenes for its annual “Veto Session,” when it reconsiders gubernatorial vetoes and amendments to bills, and will have the opportunity to include this provision back into the budget. While it is likely the House will accept this amendment, the Senate will be an uphill climb. Please contact your senator today and urge support for Governor McDonnell’s abstinence funding amendment to the budget.

Planned Parenthood, and its ally NARAL, have made it their national agenda to stop abstinence education. Both groups consistently assail abstinence programs as being ineffective. One legislator, who works closely with Planned Parenthood and NARAL, said, “The reality is with teenagers, their hormones come into play, and abstinence-only doesn’t always work.” Work for who? The more teens postpone sexual activity, the less profit the abortion industry makes.

The pro-abortion lobby also asserts that “abstinence education doesn’t work,” “parents don’t support abstinence education,” and “it’s naive to think that teenagers can be abstinent.” None of those arguments, though, are correct according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In fact, an October 2010 study paid for by the federal Department of Heath and Human Services found that abstinence education is highly effective and it is widely supported by parents and teenagers.

The HHS survey found that 70 percent of parents agreed that it is “against [their] values for [their] adolescents to have sexual intercourse before marriage” and that “having sexual intercourse is something only married people should do.” Adolescent beliefs, according to the survey, were similar. In fact, there are federal abstinence education funds that Governor McDonnell has applied for that Mr. Kaine refused. So, even the Obama administration realizes it works.

Clearly, abstinence education is not only effective, but it is widely supported among both parents and teens. So, please contact your senator today and urge support of the governor’s amendment to reinstate abstinence funding in the budget.

Click here if you know your senator and need his or her phone number.

Click here if you don’t know who your senator is.

There’s a story Planned Parenthood doesn’t want you to hear and for good reason. It’s the story of Abby Johnson, a former director there, and she’s talking and writing. Planned Parenthood doesn’t like that much and is trying to squelch this new ad by our friends at CatholicVote.org and the Susan B. Anthony List. But Ms. Johnson knows all about Planned Parenthood’s motives and inner workings. Her testimony is another voice to the many horrors that organization has perpetuated on our society. As we wrote earlier this week, it’s best to hear it from the source, directly, when it is blunt about its intentions. Now we have another voice, a brave, composed voice, shedding a necessary light on Planned Parenthood.

Abby Johnson knows first hand about Planned Parenthood and its deceptions and nefarious practices.

As with yesterday’s post about the NEA, where a high ranking official without shame articulated that group’s real objectives (money and power) in contradiction to its stated goals of improving education, today we bring you something similar, though thoroughly crude and disturbing, by Planned Parenthood. It’s a video, by our friends at Catholicvote.org, of a Planned Parenthood march and rally earlier this year. The video simply records pro-abortion radicals saying (often screaming) what they believe, while (to put it kindly) distorting what pro-lifers believe. Of course, the Mainstream Media won’t embarrass its own movement by covering such nonsense (but when there’s a Tea Party rally calling for commonsense spending restraint . . . you know what happens). Neither did the MSM cover this rally of “liberals” last year, where participants gladly called themselves socialists and communists. (But let a conservative call these radicals what they admit to being and the media contrives a firestorm.)

Still, it’s important to hear what the pro-abortion side truly believes (government funding and insurance coverage of abortion on demand), in their own (shrill) words. Nothing close to “safe, legal and rare.” Of course, liberals claim that conservatives distort their positions and it is conservatives who are out of touch. But it’s hard to claim Planned Parenthood is reasonable after watching this. As with the teachers union, what Planned Parenthood says (and how it acts) for public consumption and what it sincerely shrieks when it thinks no one is watching is vastly different.

“Government should fund Planned Parenthood.”

“I want Planned Parenthood to be like Starbucks. I want a Planned Parenthood on every corner.”

It’s a safe assumption that most of you knew that last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and Sunday morning marked the start of Daylight Savings Time. But are you aware there was another day last week that some consider noteworthy and worth celebrating? Don’t feel bad if you are not. No one here was either until we were appalled to learn, thanks to the NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia blog, that Friday was the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers. 

We wish this was a joke. Sadly it’s not. The pro-abortion group Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice even produced a video to to promote this “holiday:” 

What? You didn’t know? Friday was thank your abortion provider day! What’s next, abortion gift certificates during Christmas? Wait, Planned Parenthood has that covered, too.

This is a twisted “celebration” — the sacrifice of innocent life — especially during the 40 Day Season of Lent, when people of faith are reminded of our Savior’s sacrifice. Instead, NARAL is urging its supporters to send a note of thanks to those who staff these life-depriving centers and perform abortions. (It’s not the first time a pro-abortion group has mocked a holy season. Remember this from Planned Parenthood?)

This reminder of our culture’s disrespect for Life makes us especially grateful for your stand for Life in the face of such depravity. So, during Lent, we encourage you to consider a more appropriate note of thanks — a note of thanks to those who are on the front lines of protecting innocent life —Virginia’s Pregnancy Resource Centers. Here’s a testimonial from a couple of years ago by U.S. Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) on his local PRC, but it could apply to any PRC in the country. Hensarling is the fourth ranking member of the House Republican majority. 

Rep. Hensarling paints the life affirming contrast between PRCs and pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood.

Or, participate in the 40 Days for Life campaign: 

Stand up for life and the real ideals of the season. 

The General Assembly’s recent passage of a bill requiring the Board of Health to create regulations for Virginia’s abortion centers is a great first step in our attempt to return a respect for Life to Virginia. While others uplift a celebration of abortion in the name of “freedom” and “choice,” we hope you will be encouraged by this recent win and remain committed to the cause of Life.

An explosive article on the front page of today’s Norfolk Virginian Pilot rips the cover off a Virginia Beach abortion center owned by a New Jersey doctor under investigation for a host of questionable activities. The article also reveals that doctors associated with the clinic also are on staff at Planned Parenthood centers in Virginia. The story is more evidence of the need for abortion center regulation in Virginia.

The Family Foundation has informed legislators, media and the public about Dr. Steven Brigham’s ties to Virginia for some time now, and reminded lawmakers last month during the General Assembly debate over abortion center regulations, which eventually passed on a historic 21-20 Senate vote. Brigham lost his license to practice medicine in New Jersey recently for beginning second and third trimester abortions in that state and then transporting the patients to his Maryland facility to complete the procedure, but his history of unethical behavior dates back at least to the early-90s.

According to NJ.com:

On Aug. 13 [2010], three women seeking second-trimester abortions followed physician Steven Brigham from his Camden County office to a Maryland clinic he owns, according to claims by the attorney general’s office. They were wracked with contractions as they traveled because Brigham had given them labor-inducing drugs a day or two earlier, the state said. In Maryland, the women met another doctor, who performed their procedures. One of the women, 18, needed emergency surgery at a hospital to treat a lacerated bowel and uterus.

Family Foundation research found that Brigham’s Virginia abortion centers (Virginia Beach and Fairfax) advertised similar options on its websites, stating that they would begin the procedure in the Virginia clinics and then transport the patients to other states “for the completion of the procedure.” Virginia requires second and third trimester abortions to be done in hospitals for the health and safety of the women involved.

Another op-ed on abortion center regulations by Family Foundation President Victoria Cobb, in Tuesday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, tells some of the story. She also published an op-ed on this issue in the Roanoke Times a few days earlier.

Today’s Pilot article goes deeper, connecting doctors who worked at Brigham’s Virginia Beach facilities with Planned Parenthood. Our research found that one, Dr. David Peters, lists his business address as one of Planned Parenthood’s Richmond abortion centers. In the New Jersey incident, Planned Parenthood attempted to distance itself from Brigham. A spokesperson said it “had nothing to do with” Brigham. In Virginia, nothing could be further from the truth.

Peters defends the Brigham clinic in today’s article, even denying that the clinic does what its website advertises. He does admit, however, that instead of referring women to a hospital for a second or third trimester abortion, as required by law for safety reasons, Brigham’s abortion centers refer them to other states to avoid hospitals. Either way, it’s clear that the health and safety of patients isn’t paramount.

Another doctor the article named as working for Brigham in Virginia has a long history of restrictions on, and suspensions of, his license to practice medicine in Virginia, yet presently holds a current and active Virginia license. The article only touches on the mistakes made by Dr. Craig Cropp, but our research found at least 22 separate incidents since 1998 where he put the life of patients in jeopardy, from breaking instruments and losing pieces inside a woman’s abdominal cavity, to misdiagnosing ectopic pregnancies, to perforating a woman’s uterus (and blaming that one on his bifocals). Incredibly, Dr. Cropp still is licensed to practice medicine here and splits his time between Brigham’s two Virginia abortion centers.

Unfortunately, the Commonwealth of Virginia cannot revoke Dr. Brigham’s license to practice medicine in Virginia because he doesn’t have a medical license in Virginia. In fact, without the New Jersey story and subsequent research by The Family Foundation, it is unlikely anyone would know about Dr. Brigham’s Virginia abortion centers because the Commonwealth does not currently regulate or inspect abortion centers. Today’s Virginian-Pilot article is the first investigative piece in the Virginia media since the New Jersey story broke in the fall.

The abortion industry claims abortion is a safe procedure in no need of oversight. Today’s story about Dr. Brigham and his abortion centers is just one example of why abortion center safety regulations are desperately needed in Virginia. While Planned Parenthood, NARAL and their allies in the legislature claimed during debate that their centers are safe, they knew that Dr. Brigham was operating in Virginia. Your head has to be buried pretty deep in the sand to believe anything Planned Parenthood has to say about the safety of abortion after today’s shocking article.

Today, the Roanoke Times published an op-ed by Family Foundation President Victoria Cobb that addresses the myths pro-abortion activists and some in the media have propagated about the abortion center regulation bill recently passed by the General Assembly. Herewith, an excerpt of the op-ed. The entire column can be read by clicking here.

First, the myth that abortion centers will now have to meet the same regulatory standards as general hospitals is simply untrue. Abortion centers will not necessarily be subject to the licensing requirements or the construction standards of general hospitals.

In Virginia, there are numerous categories of “hospitals,” including general (or inpatient), psychiatric, rehabilitation, outpatient surgical and others. Outpatient surgical centers, for example, are a category of hospital, but are not subject to the same regulations as general hospitals.

Similarly, abortion centers will now be subject to regulations specifically tailored to that procedure.

Second, the myth that regulations are automatically unconstitutional is inaccurate. In fact, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, in which Virginia resides, upheld South Carolina abortion center regulations in Greenville Women’s Clinic v. Bryant.

Regulations there include licensing requirements, staffing rules, specific drug and equipment availability, safety and emergency policies and sanitation procedures, none of which are currently applied to Virginia’s abortion centers.

Third, the myth that the new law will limit abortion access is fallacious. Until 1984, Virginia did regulate abortion centers and, based on the increasing number of abortions at that time, the industry did not suffer.

In addition, considering that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest private provider of abortion and owner of several Virginia abortion centers, is a $1 billion organization that profited almost $100 million in its last annual report, one would think it could prioritize women’s health and spend some of that money on safety and less on political activity.

Finally, the myth that abortion centers are currently regulated is misleading. Abortion centers in Virginia are viewed by the state as physician’s offices, which is essentially meaningless in that the state does not inspect or license those offices.

The only standard of care in Virginia requires that abortions done in the first trimester be performed by a licensed physician, but the facilities themselves are not required to meet standards. Currently, doctors’ offices in Virginia, and thus abortion centers, do not meet any state-imposed standards of cleanliness, inspections or requirements for life-saving equipment on premises.

Abortion center safety has received increased attention recently due to two unrelated events: a botched abortion originating with New Jersey-based Dr. Steven Brigham and a horror shop abortion center in Philadelphia.

Pro-abortion advocates look at these examples and say, “Tell us of something in Virginia and then maybe we’ll listen.” The fact is that Brigham, who lost his license because he started late-term abortions at his New Jersey clinics and then drove the patients to Maryland to complete them, owns two abortion centers in Virginia and has no Virginia medical license. (He also is not licensed in Maryland.)

Additionally, Brigham’s two Virginia abortion center websites, until exposed by The Family Foundation last month, offered the following surgical abortion procedure: “Surgical abortion patients who are between 14 and 24 weeks pregnant will be referred to our Cheverly [Md.] location after their first appointment for the completion of their procedure.”

Disturbing.

That’s the word that came to mind as I reviewed a Web site associated with Planned Parenthood called imnotsorry.net. The site proclaims itself as a place “where women can share their positive experiences with abortion.”

Perhaps the hardest part of the site to read, beyond the graphic descriptions of abortions that were “positive experiences,” is the attitudes expressed on the “answers the pro-lifers” page. This is where the site’s contributors refer to unborn children in the first few weeks of life as an “alien-looking clump roughly the size of a kidney bean.”

It gets far worse. The site states in response to women who want children:

(That not) every woman gets gooey over babies and wants to be a mother. We have no doubt that the moment the human race figured out that babies were the result of sex, someone began coming up with birth control and abortion.

Babies are the problem, of course.

The idea that children are a “gift from God”?

Children are conceived through sexual intercourse between a man and a woman with either no or failed contraception. We’ve slept with men who thought they were God, but the actual Big Guy himself has no hand in it. And there’s quite a few people on the planet who (hang on to your hats) don’t believe in any sort of deity.

The rest of the response is so filled with bitterness toward God, that I’m not going to repeat it. Whoever wrote it has clearly had a painful life. I pray for him or her.

The popular line in the media and those who promote abortion is that no one is “pro-abortion.” How we wish that were true. One review of imnotsorry.net (and I warn you, there is offensive language in many of the stories) tell us that when we use the phrase “pro-abortion” to describe some people in our nation, we are being very accurate (see a story that celebrates abortion).

This Web site ignores the multitude of women who regret the decision they made to have an abortion. Whether they where coerced or unsupported by loved ones, they believed they had no options. That “choice” haunts them. They see it as anything but a “positive experience.”

It is our job to show women who have had abortions the love and compassion that God has showed each of us for the poor decisions we’ve made in our lives. It’s why ministries such as Silent No More exist, to provide support and love for women who have suffered from their decisions. We also must do all we can to make sure that every woman considering abortion has all the most accurate information available about her unborn child — such as an ultrasound — so that their “choice” is an informed one.