Republicans want to strip Planned Parenthood of funding

The scandal with the publication of hidden video camera representatives of the "American Federation of Family Planning", discussing compensation for the provision of aborted embryos for medical research, shocked many Americans.

Speaking Tuesday in Congress, the president of the organization, Cecile Richards, said she was proud of the work of the American Planned Parenthood Federation, and that all the actions of her clinics were absolutely legitimate.

Cecile Richards, president of the American Planned Parenthood Federation, claims that one in five women in the United States at one time or another appealed to one of the centers of an organization that focuses on women's health, including the provision of abortion services. According to her, only part of abortions is funded by the state - when it comes to pregnancy as a result of incest, rape, or when it comes to a threat to a woman’s health. As for the provision of aborted embryos for medical research, then, according to her, everything is done legally.

“It is legal to use embryonic tissues for vital medical research in accordance with the law adopted in the 1993 year. The Senate approved it by voting: 93 against four votes, based on the recommendations of a high-level commission approved by the Reagan administration, says Cecil Richards. - At this stage, less than one percent of the American Planned Parenthood Federation centers contribute to donations of tissue for medical research. In these clinics, donation of embryonic tissues is made in accordance with the wishes of our patients who regularly ask to do so. ”

It was reported that the scandal began in the summer, after David Daleyden, an activist for the prohibition of abortions, began posting videotaped conversations with the American Planned Parenthood Federation, which were filmed using a hidden camera, on the Internet, where they discuss the details of possible compensation for providing embryos for medical research.

Some state authorities launched an investigation into the activities of the organization’s clinics, the congressmen demanded a hearing, and a number of republican presidential candidates were in favor of depriving the organization of state funding.

So in Missouri, checking 317 cases of abortion at a clinic in St. Louis showed that after the procedure, embryo tissue was checked for pathology and cremated.

The scandal went to the political level after it turned out that the famous neurosurgeon Ben Carson used abortive material in his research. The piquancy of the situation is that Carson takes part in the presidential campaign of the Republican Party, known for its rejection of abortion.