Photo credit: Shane Vander Hart
Pro-life activists will hold two rallies in Iowa at Planned Parenthood Clinics as part of a nationwide rally protesting the nation’s largest abortion provider in 130 locations on Saturday, April 28, 2018.
The rallies will be held at Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s Iowa City Health Center at 9:00a and Rosenfield Health Center on the south side of Des Moines at 12:00p.
The rally marks the third annual National Day of Prayer and Protest Against Planned Parenthood. This nationwide day of prayer and protest is being coordinated by #ProtestPP, a coalition of more than 75 national, state and local pro-life organizations, in response to Planned Parenthood’s aggressive new agenda.
In February, Planned Parenthood executive vice president Dawn Laguens declared that the organization is “going on the offense,” pursuing abortion expansion plans in “all 50 states.” This month, Planned Parenthood announced their participation in the “Win Justice” project, devoting $30 million to advancing their agenda in the November elections.
“Planned Parenthood is on the warpath,” said Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, and one of three national #ProtestPP co-directors, “but too few Aurora residents know the truth about this controversial organization—including the fact that they’ve cornered 35% of the U.S. abortion market. Planned Parenthood makes about $190 million a year in abortion— three-fifths of their clinic income.”
Monica M. Miller, another of the national #ProtestPP co-directors and head of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society commented: “Planned Parenthood claims American women rely on them for healthcare, but in reality, four out of five women will never set foot in one of their centers. Planned Parenthood provides about 2% of manual breast exams, less than 1% of pap tests and zero mammograms. They’ve also been caught shielding child predators, defrauding Medicaid, and harvesting fetal tissue for profit.”
The protests to be held April 28 will also call on federal authorities to stop Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding. The effort to fully defund the organization of all federal tax dollars—about $430 million annually—has stalled in Congress. But an effort is now underway to revise Title X family planning rules to block Planned Parenthood as a recipient and deprive them of some $60-80 million annually.
Iowa has redirected family planning dollars, approximately $3 Million, away from abortion providers but Planned Parenthood still receives Iowa’s taxpayer money from other sources.
The co-directors of #ProtestPP emphasized that every dollar taken from Planned Parenthood would be redirected to healthcare providers that are not involved in abortion. “The effort to defund Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with taking healthcare away from poor women and families,” explained #ProtestPP co-director Mark Harrington, who leads the pro-life group Created Equal. “It’s about taking tax dollars away from the nation’s largest abortion chain.”
#ProtestPP is a coalition of more than 75 local, state and national pro-life groups, headed by three national pro-life activist organizations: Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Created Equal, and the Pro-Life Action League.