US Senate passes bill to stop scandal-ridden organization from receiving taxpayers' money

WASHINGTON, United States – The United States Senate passed a budget reconciliation bill Thursday that includes a provision terminating federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The organisation was caught on camera this year negotiating the harvesting and sale of baby organs. While the U.S. is reacting to the facts presented in the video, the Planned Parenthood affiliates in Europe and around the globe remain unchallenged and continue to receive public funding.

“The same organisation that is under criminal investigation in the U.S. is part of a network which operates across Europe,” said ADF International Director of EU Advocacy Sophia Kuby. “Planned Parenthood is part of the wider International Planned Parenthood network that the European Union funds. If the European Commission wants to be coherent with its own human rights standard, it must look into this.”

The allegations are based on several undercover videos, which a recent forensic analysis found are “authentic and show no evidence of manipulation.” Prompting criminal investigations in the U.S., the videos show high-ranking Planned Parenthood executives describing the organisation’s willingness to harvest and sell the organs of aborted children, allegedly for profit. The footage places on display the potentially illegal activity of negotiating the sale of baby parts and descriptions of how to alter abortion procedures to secure intact organs and fetal cadavers.

Several members of the European Parliament asked the European Commission over the summer if it was aware of the videos, produced by the Center for Medical Progress, and if it intends to condemn Planned Parenthood’s actions and suspend funding until U.S. authorities complete a thorough investigation. In a written answer, the commission concluded that Planned Parenthood’s “tissue donation program” is legal while American authorities are still carrying out criminal investigations against the organization.

“If the European Commission has facts that allow the conclusion that all allegations against Planned Parenthood are baseless, we’d be interested to see them,” Kuby said. “If it doesn’t, it is taking a political position in favor of Planned Parenthood, which it is not entitled to do.”

“Many members of the U.S. Congress recognize that taxpayer money should go to fund local community health centers, not to subsidize a scandal-ridden, billion-dollar abortion business,” Kuby added. “In Europe, citizens fund the same organization that pushes for one global agenda: abortion as a human right, especially for poor women. It is time for the European Commission to reconsider its funding of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.”

ADF International is an alliance-building legal organisation that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.