June, 2011

NARAL NY director admits to felony theft; Planned Parenthood Virginia official caught stealing wine

  • June 23, 2011
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Things that make you go, hm.

Today, the former NARAL NY director plead guilty to felony theft:

A former president of a prominent abortion-rights group’s New York chapter admitted Wednesday she got the organization to pay for thousands of dollars in a summer house rental, child care, clothes and other personal plums by passing them off as business expenses.

Former NARAL Pro-Choice New York leader Kelli Conlin pleaded guilty to falsifying business records, a felony. Her case will be closed without jail time or probation if she pays more than $75,000 in restitution.

A Planned Parenthood official in Roanoke, Virginia, was caught stealing wine:

David Nova, vice president of Planned Parenthood Health Systems in Roanoke, was charged earlier this year with three counts of petit larceny. The charges stem from bottles of wine Nova took through a self-checkout line at the Cave Spring Kroger. The incidents occurred on two separate dates in January, according to online court records.
As part of an agreement reached in Roanoke County General District Court last week, Nova was not convicted. The case was continued for a year, with the understanding the charges will be dismissed after Nova completes his jail time and avoids further charges.
In 2002, the then-director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin was convicted of felony theft in a remarkably similar situation:

Using her NARAL checkbook, Katherine Venskus siphoned off $12,939 from the organization over the next several months, according to the criminal complaint. She was charged with felony theft and forgery in April 2002 in Dane County Circuit Court and pleaded no contest to the theft charge in August of that year, with prosecutors dropping the forgery charge. Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article here.

Statutory rape ad campaign launches in Milwaukee

  • June 23, 2011
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Back in May, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote about an effort by United Way of Greater Milwaukee to reduce teen pregnancy in Milwaukee. The effort involved an ad campaign using Disney-type fairy princesses; the ad campaign was put on hold due to concerns of copyright infringement.

Today, the “Fairytale statutory rape ad campaign” launched at bus stops throughout the city. Read more here. Image below.

Eliminating teenage pregnancy is something we’re all in favor of, but mixing United Way, Planned Parenthood, sex ed and Disney princesses into the mix is hardly the solution.

United Way is tied very closely to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (click here for a 2010 pledge form, listing PPWI as a “Community Health Charity”). In addition, United Way and PPWI are members of a “Healthy Youth Alliance,” pushing comprehensive sex ed across Wisconsin. The list of ties goes on and on.

The point is this: United Way refers these young girls to PPWI for treatment or “services.” PPWI has been shown willing to cover up purported statutory rape, sending these young girls right back to their abusers. It’s a vicious circle, rather than a deplorable societal injustice moving toward an end point.

Through its ties to Planned Parenthood, United Way is assisting in the cover-up of statutory rape, exacerbating the problem and allowing it to continue.

Continuing to push “comprehensive” sex ed on young girls starting at age 8, and then wondering why the teenage pregnancy rate is so high, is akin to holding a lighted match next to a piece of paper and then wondering why it catches on fire. If young girls are told it’s OK to have sex with a wink and a nod, and there are cultural factors at play here as well, that’s something an ad campaign can’t fix.

I highly recommend reading this article about teenage pregnancy in urban high schools, titled “Nobody gets married anymore, Mister.” It’s long but worth the read. It will make you think, and wonder where our society is going. Excerpt here:

Within my lifetime, single parenthood has been transformed from shame to saintliness. In our society, perversely, we celebrate the unwed mother as a heroic figure, like a fireman or a police officer. During the last presidential election, much was made of Obama’s mother, who was a single parent. Movie stars and pop singers flaunt their daddy-less babies like fishing trophies.

None of this is lost on my students. In today’s urban high school, there is no shame or social ostracism when girls become pregnant. Other girls in school want to pat their stomachs. Their friends throw baby showers at which meager little gifts are given. After delivery, the girls return to school with baby pictures on their cell phones or slipped into their binders, which they eagerly share with me. Often they sit together in my classes, sharing insights into parenting, discussing the taste of Pedialite or the exhaustion that goes with the job. On my way home at night, I often see my students in the projects that surround our school, pushing their strollers or hanging out on their stoops instead of doing their homework.

Planned Parenthood: Wisconsin has never seen an administration more fundamentally opposed to birth control

  • June 21, 2011
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You know you’re doing something right when HuffPo writes snide editorial remarks as news.

It’s important to note, however, that this budget does NOT even come close to defunding Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. It’s a step in the right direction, as it eliminates some funding, but it’s not a total defunding, like Indiana.

In 2010, PPWI received $18 million in state and federal taxpayer funds. Read a summary from Jill Stanek here about the effort to defund Planned Parenthood by state. Catholic Vote also covered the defunding PPWI effort, which you can read here.

From Huffington Post:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is expected to sign a budget bill on Tuesday that eliminates state and federal funding from nine of the state’s Planned Parenthood health centers, making Wisconsin the fourth state to defund the family planning provider after Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina did so earlier this year.

The new state budget also cuts men out of BadgerCare, the state’s Medicaid-funded family planning program, and tightens the eligibility restrictions for women, which could jeopardize the entire program. The U.S. Department of Health would have to agree to such dramatic changes to BadgerCare that state officials worry the program might end altogether, leaving 57,000 uninsured patients without access to health care.

A Planned Parenthood spokesperson said Wisconsin has never seen an administration more fundamentally opposed to family planning and birth control. Walker was the first gubernatorial candidate to seek and win the official endorsement of Pro-Life Wisconsin — a group that considers birth control a form of abortion and opposes sex education for teenagers.

Numerous state lawmakers have expressed their disdain for Planned Parenthood.

“There’s a very ugly side to this organization, and I regret that they’re going to take such a tiny cut in this budget,” said state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) during negotiations on the budget.

The new budget eliminates $1 million a year in funding for nine of Wisconsin’s 25 Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide low-cost preventative health care to over 12,000 uninsured women in small communities like Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Eau Claire and Kenosha.

Wisconsin Legislature passes budget that respects taxpayers’ consciences

  • June 17, 2011
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Last night the Wisconsin State Senate, in concurrence with the State Assembly, passed a biennial budget bill that 1) redirects $1 million in state and federal family planning funds away from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, the state’s largest abortion provider, 2) applies current law abortion funding restrictions to the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics (UWHC) Authority, and 3) removes boys/men aged 15-44 from the BadgerCare Family Planning Program and requires parental notification for minor girls in the program.

Pro-Life Wisconsin legislative Director Matt Sande offered the following comments:

“Pro-Life Wisconsin applauds the Wisconsin Legislature for passing a budget that respects the consciences of pro-life taxpayers who wholly oppose the use of public funds for the direct or indirect subsidization of abortion. Whether such funds are state and federal family planning grants to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI), the state’s largest abortion provider, or state payments to UW medical residents for abortion training, pro-life Wisconsinites are saying ‘Enough is enough!’ We thank the State Legislature for listening to them. In particular, we thank Representative Andre Jacque for his advocacy for the pro-life provisions in this budget.

In 2010 PPWI collected more than $18 million in federal and state family planning funds which they repeatedly claim lower the abortion rate. Yet chemical and surgical abortions in Wisconsin continue to rise. PPWI performed 5,439 abortions in 2009, a 56% increase from 2008, when PPWI was responsible for 3,053 abortions. The biennial budget bill effectively prevents PPWI from receiving close to $1 million annually in state and federal Title V Maternal and Child Health family planning funds, a good start down the long road toward totally defunding them of all taxpayer dollars.

Applying current law abortion funding restrictions to the UW Hospital and Clinics (UWHC) Authority will prohibit them from using state funds to perform abortions. The UWHC Authority pays medical residents in the UW School of Medicine OB/Gyn Department for two four-week rotations at a Planned Parenthood facility in Madison where they view and perform abortions, a grisly practice which stains the reputation of Wisconsin’s flagship hospital. Furthermore, the UWHC Authority’s ability to perform late-term abortions at the Madison Surgery Center or some other location, should they choose to resume such plans, would be obstructed under the funding restrictions.

Finally, we applaud the common-sense changes to the BadgerCare Family Planning Program which currently provides free, taxpayer-funded birth control to 15, 16 and 17-year-old boys and girls without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Removing boys from the program and requiring parental notification for minor girls in the program will go a long way toward restoring parental authority in the sensitive area of teen sexual health.”

Pro-life legislator booed for first speech on Planned Parenthood

  • June 16, 2011
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The Wisconsin State Assembly passed the budget at 3am this morning on a party line vote. The budget is currently in the hands of the State Senate, who is expected to vote on it and pass it soon. The budget will then go to Gov. Scott Walker to be signed. Walker has the last say on the budget.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Madison — Freshman Rep. Andre Jacque (R-Bellevue) gave his first speech, getting the customary applause from colleagues but boos from some demonstrators in the public galleries.
Jacque spoke against a Democratic amendment that seeks to restore certain state funding for Planned Parenthood offices. The amendment was tabled.

In the Assembly, a lawmaker’s first speech is always applauded. Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) noted that some of those in the public gallery applauded later.

“I don’t think many of them realized it was his first speech,” Suder said.

We commend Rep. Jacque for his eloquent defense of the defenseless. It’s quite the pro-life badge of honor for a legislator to make his speech on Planned Parenthood.

Pro-Life Wisconsin commends the Wisconsin State Assembly for defeating a budget amendment that would have restored close to $1 million annually in state and federal Title V Maternal and Child Health family planning funds to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI), the state’s largest abortion provider. All money is fungible. Family planning funds free up resources within PPWI to engage in the surgical abortion business.  Abortion is not health care. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, a ‘non-profit’ organization with a net worth of $9.8 million that profits from killing unborn babies and exploits women in distress, should not be considered a health care provider. Wisconsin cannot continue to throw money at organizations that perform or refer for abortion.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel prints letter-to-the-editor from Milwaukee partial-birth abortionist

  • June 15, 2011
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Partial-birth abortionist Fredrik Broekhuizen had the below letter-to-the-editor in the June 11 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Broekhuizen stated, in part:

I am appalled that my patients’ well-being doesn’t matter to our state Legislature, whose Joint Finance Committee has voted to stop the Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin from receiving state and federal grants (“Budget to rein in aid for family planning,” June 4).

I spent a day recently at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Milwaukee screening patients for cervical cancer. This basic health care saves lives, and as the medical director of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, I am proud to provide it. Most of our patients are uninsured or underinsured and have nowhere else to go.

I am proud that some Planned Parenthood clinics offer abortions along with cancer screenings, contraception, prenatal care, testing for sexually transmitted infections and other vital services. Safe clinical settings are needed where patients can find physicians to have safe, legal abortions. Countless studies have demonstrated that access to comprehensive reproductive health care improves women’s health and saves their lives.

Broekhuizen is the “medical director” at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. He is also a practicing physician at Froedtert/Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in their “fetal concerns program.” Broekhuizen performs abortions at Froedtert, which we already know for a fact.

Broekhuizen testified in U.S. District Court in 2004 about how he does abortions and admitted much of the same in Planned Parenthood v. Doyle in 1999.

Partial-birth abortion is STILL legal in Wisconsin, since the “exceptions” cases were written into the law [document here from the State of WI]:

The law does not prohibit a partial-birth abortion when required to save a woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness or physical injury and there is no other medical procedure to save her.  These life-endangering circumstances include those caused by the pregnancy.

In his letter-to-the-editor, Broekhuizen fails to note his career as an abortionist. Interesting, because as little as 7 years ago, while testifying in District Court in 2004, Broekhuizen went into graphic detail about how he performs abortions, what the best method is, and so on. Seems like the title of “abortionist” is no longer something to be proud of.

IRS yanks tax-exempt status of six Planned Parenthood associates

  • June 10, 2011
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The IRS recently published the first Automatic Revocation of Exemption List. It lists approximately 275,000 nonprofits whose tax-exempt status has been revoked because they failed to file a Form 990, 990-N, 990-EZ, or 990-PF for three consecutive years.

We went through the list for each state and discovered six organizations with a Planned Parenthood name had their tax-exempt status revoked (each name is linked to the respective state list of revoked organizations; use the search function to find PP’s name on the list):
- Advocates for Planned Parenthood of Kentucky (PP of Kentucky’s lobbying arm);
- Planned Parenthood of South Dakota;
- Oklahoma Action Fund of Planned Parenthood;
-  Planned Parenthood Association of Benton County [Oregon];
- Planned Parenthood of Kershaw [South Carolina];
- Planned Parenthood Service Organization [Milwaukee, Wisconsin].

Of the above list, the only ones I couldn’t associate with an actual Planned Parenthood location are the last two. We know for a fact there is no Milwaukee, Wis. PP at the location listed on the IRS forms (744 N. 4th St.). The PP name on the IRS list matched with a PP address for the first four.

Here’s what piqued our interest –

PP of South Dakota has been in pro-life news a lot recently… having filed a lawsuit against the state of South Dakota, in opposition to a newly-passed SD law that requires women to wait three days before having an abortion and to receive medical information about the procedure along with information about alternatives. There’s more, obviously.

Are these PP locations receiving federal/state taxpayer dollars, and assuring donors of their tax-deductible contributions, while their tax exempt status has been revoked? The tax exempt statuses of all these organizations have been pulled since May 2010. The IRS published the list in June 2011.

If an organization appears on the list, it must now must file a federal income tax return and pay federal income taxes. If an organization previously accepted tax-deductible contributions, it can no longer do so.

We’ll be in your community this summer!

Photo, above: The pro-life marchers in the 2010 Ozaukee County Fourth of July parade.

As in years past, our affiliates (and staff) will be participating in  staffing pro-life booths at county fairs across the state and spreading the pro-life message through community events, such as parades. Volunteers are needed for this summer!

County Fairs: Waukesha (July 20-24), Ozaukee (August 3-7), Wausau (also known as the Wisconsin Valley Fair, August 2-7), Fond du Lac (also known as the Fondy Fair, July 20-24), Juneau (August 17-21) & St. Croix (July 20-24).

LiFest: The Brown, Outagamie, Calumet and Winnebago Co. affiliates will be doing an info table at LiFest in Oshkosh (July 7-10).

Parades: Ashland County 4th of July; Cedarburg 4th of July; Sheboygan Brat Days (Saturday August 6); and Eastman (Crawford County) 4th of July Parade.

All of these efforts are coordinated and staffed solely by volunteers! We need your help! Contact Pro-Life Wisconsin toll-free at (877) 463-7945 or email info@prolifewisconsin.org to find out how you can spread the pro-life message in Wisconsin this summer. All volunteers are provided with fair passes, parking passes, water, etc.

Planned Parenthood mocks St. Philomena with “Pillamena, Birth Control Girl”

St. Philomena is a Catholic martyr, murdered on account of her faith, for refusing to marry a  Roman emperor. Read about her here.

So it is only fitting that Planned Parenthood should mock this Catholic saint — martyred for protecting her virginity — with “Pillamena,” Birth Control Girl. Photo of Pillamena, left (or view it on Planned Parenthood’s Facebook page here.]

And regarding the possibility that Planned Parenthood just happened to give their walking birth control advertisement a similar name…  that’s naive. PP has never shied away from digs at the Catholic Church and Her unchanging rejection of contraception.

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