Claire McCaskill Responds to Planned Parenthood Defunding Request

The other day I wrote to Claire McCaskill, among others, reporting the illegal activity of Planned Parenthood in counseling a 14 year old girl to lie to obtain an abortion. My full email is included in that post. Here is her response:

Thank you for contacting me regarding my position on abortion. I appreciate hearing from you, and I welcome the chance to respond.

Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. As your U.S. Senator, I am committed to ensuring that women, especially those victimized by sexual assault or experiencing severe medical complications, have a right to emergency contraception and safe abortions if they so choose. That said, I support placing certain restrictions on partial birth abortion and requiring parental consent for minors under the age of 15.

Instead of criminalizing women and their doctors, we must focus on reducing abortions. I am a strong supporter of the Prevention First Act (S.21). This legislation seeks to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by expanding family planning education programs and increasing access to emergency contraception. The bill would also help improve women’s access to preventative health care services.

Again, I appreciate you taking the time to share your views with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future regarding other matters of interest or concern to you.

All best,
Senator Claire McCaskill

Of course, like a good politician, McCaskill totally avoids the issue. It is not enough for us to just write once. If we are not satisfied with the answer we get for our elected officials we need to press in and continue. Here is my response to her.

Dear Senator McCaskill:

Thank you for my prompt response to my inquiry. However, it did not even address my question. I specifically asked you to defund the Planned Parenthood in Memphis for its illegal activity in counseling a 14 year old girl to break Tennessee law in order to obtain an abortion. Here is the video I sent you evidencing their activity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMlrAj4v4J4

Now to address the points you did bring up in your email.

First I applaud you for supporting placing certain restrictions on partial birth abortion and requiring parental consent for minors under the age of 15. I would like to see you pushing these matters through the Senate. Will you lead on these issues that you state you are committed to?

If your concerns are primarily for victims of rape and those with serious medical conditions will you support making abortion illegal in all other instances? Though I personally do not agree with those exceptions, I would agree with that political solution. Will you?

The rest of your email I do not find quite accurate. You are not committed to make abortion safe, legal and rare. You are committed to making pregnancy safe, legal and rare. Only your plan is very faulty. You do it by teaching kids that can have sex without restraint. That is a recipe for disaster for both pregnancy and STDs. Your theory simply does not work.

I also disagree with your characterization that pro-life people are interested in criminalizing women. That simply is not true. It is a pro-abortion talking point that has no basis in reality and I ask you, as a Senator of the United States, to quite disseminating specifically false information.

Very Truly Yours

Guys we need to hold our leaders accountable. Follow up, follow up, follow up. Do not let them get away with not responding to you. You are entitled to a specific answer.

I found this point interesting. When I replied to Senator McCaskill’s email my reply bounced back and I had to go back to her website to resubmit my response.

Planned Parenthood Tells 14 Year Old to Break Law to Get Abortion

See action steps below.

Planned Parenthood is at it again. Their business is to make money. That’s it. Pure and simple. It is about the benjamins. They will do and say just about anything …even illegal things at times to get someone to give them money to kill the baby. This video exposes that they conspire and even encourage a 14 year old to break the law to get an abortion. Tennesse law requires a waiver for an abortion if the father is 18 or older in this situation. The girl clearly told Planned Parenthood that the father was 31 and the Planned Parenthood advisor specifically told her to say he was only 17 and that doing so would keep both of them out of trouble. Lies and crimes!

This morning I wrote the following sample email to Planned Parenthood and urge you to do the same. You can send yours to [email protected]:

“I saw the video posted on YouTube where your staff counseled a 14 year old girl on how to break Tennesse law to get an abortion last July. I am reporting your activity to the DOJ, Tennessee attorney general and Memphis police. Your activities are egregious. I am also writing to my Congressmen demanding that your funding be revoked.

Here is the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMlrAj4v4J4″

I then went to the Department of Justice, Shelby County District Attorney, Memphis police and my congressmen and sent them the following email:

“Please watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMlrAj4v4J4

Planned Parenthood counseled a 14 year old girl on how to break the law so she could get an abortion. I demand full prosecution and loss of federal funding.

Here is their contact information:
Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region
1407 Union Ave.
Suite 300
Memphis, TN 38104

Tel: (901) 725-1717 or toll-free (866) 711-1717
Fax: (901) 274-1660
Email: [email protected]”

Here are the links to where you can write these agencies. If we all report it maybe Planned Parenthood funding will be revoked or at least reviewed:

FBI You can submit tips anonymously.
Memphis Police [email protected]
Shelby County [email protected]
Contact your senators
Contact your representative

Go get them guys! Go team! Go!

Update 2:30 p.m. I get this email from Shelby County “The District Attorney’s office is not an investigative agency. If you
or the people in the video believe that a state law was violated, you
need to file a report with and submit this video to the Memphis Police
Department for investigation.

Jennifer C. Donnals
Communications Director
Shelby County District Attorney’s Office
Memphis, TN”

I don’t know if I believe them because the Tennesse Attorney General’s office referred me to them initially.

Speak Out Against Abortion

Yesterday I was at my local library branch in the middle of the day picking up a few books on abortion for a project I’m working on. Most of the people in my library that time of the day are homeless men escaping the elements.

An older black man walked up to me, looked at my stack of reading materials and said “you don’t have to do this.” Normally I dress pretty casually, but yesterday I looked like a liberal man-hater, so the mere fact that he approached me was huge. I thought it would be interesting to see where this conversation would go so I told him that I was just wanting to understand the options. In total humility he basically told me that there are no options and that I would regret it if I went through with it. Of course I then told him it was a project, I would never do that and invited him to join us just a few blocks away on Saturdays in front of Planned Parenthood protesting abortion.

I was blown away that this guy who obviously had no business talking to me laid it all right out there and politely was not going to let the topic go as long as he had the chance. Far too often I’m just way to busy to take those kind of everyday moments that impact a culture one by one. But what if I had actually been searching for an answer?Would this man’s courage have made a difference? I don’t know. It might have. But one thing I know for sure is that if he hadn’t spoken up he would NOT have made a difference.

We can be polite and bold. We can offer people the opportunity to engage if they want to and be sensitive if they don’t. By doing that we turn strangers into friends. And you never know…you might just be the answer to the person’s prayer. You may be the tool of God in their life. So stand up and speak!