Donald Trump’s comments on CNN this morning regarding Planned Parenthood are drawing fire from pro-life quarters.
Lila Rose, the president of Live Action, is accusing Trump of “waffling” on the issue.
“Trump’s vacillation on Planned Parenthood funding is deeply troubling, and reveals an ignorance about their horrific abortion practices–their killing over 320,000 children a year, and bartering to sell the body parts of those they abort,” Rose said in a statement.
“It’s obvious from Mr. Trump’s comments that he has not watched the Planned Parenthood videos released by Center for Medical Progress. That is the only way he could recommend to continue funding this abortion conglomerate that is totally unnecessary and any organization that engages in these human rights abuses does not deserve a penny of tax payers’ money. It would be better spent on health services that would save the lives of women and babies. I challenge Mr. Trump to watch the videos.”
As the Weekly Standard noted, Trump seemed to be suggesting on CNN that he was open to allowing Planned Parenthood to keep the more than $500 million in taxpayer funding it receives every year.
“I would look at the individual things that they do, and maybe some of the things are good, and maybe, I know a lot of the things are bad. But certainly the abortion aspect of it should not be funded by government, absolutely,” Trump said.
This is at odds with the other GOP candidates who are calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded entirely. At the RedState Gathering over the weekend, more than one of the candidates reportedly also demanded a criminal investigation of the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Trump’s position on Planned Parenthood is also at odds with what he told Hugh Hewitt less than two weeks ago, when he said that he would support shutting down the government to defund Planned Parenthood.
It took Trump a full seven days after the first Planned Parenthood investigative video was released to espouse an opinion on — as Philip Wegman at the Federalist put it — “the institutionalized slaughter and sale of innocent, healthy, and viable unborn babies.”
The rest of the GOP field reacted the day the first ghastly video dropped.
UPDATE:
Planned Parenthood weighs in:
Planned Parenthood is happy about the comments Trump made about them this morning http://t.co/rErC9WnGpz
— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) August 11, 2015
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