Presidential contender Sen. Rand Paul and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin headlined a #WomenBetrayed rally on Capitol Hill Thursday that urged Congress to pass a budget with no funding in it for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins served as host of the event, the aim of which was to demonstrate that while Planned Parenthood claims it upholds women’s rights, the abortion business actually serves to betray women by sending the message that they will fail if they have a child at an inconvenient time in their lives.
“Planned Parenthood is the opposite of empowerment for women,” Hawkins said. “They tell women, ‘You can’t go to school and have a child,’ or ‘You can’t have a job and have a child.’”
In the wake of the release of videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s practices of harvesting the body parts of aborted babies for sale on the open market, pro-life activists want taxpayer funds eliminated from the abortion business.
“We’re not asking for a government shutdown,” Hawkins said. “We’re asking for the leaders that we elected to have the courage to stand up and say, ‘No more. No more women who will be betrayed, no more children who will be ripped apart and sold for profit.’”
Palin continued the theme that Planned Parenthood has betrayed women by sending the message that women are only capable of having babies when life is convenient.
She said those who are pregnant with babies they have been told will have special needs are fearful of having those babies because our society has sent these women the message that they are not capable of raising a child with special needs.
“It’s too much of a challenge,” Palin said is the message, reflecting on her own situation of being told her son would have Down Syndrome. Palin said her faith gave her the strength to put her pro-life views into action. She added that recalling years of pro-life ads and rallies helped remind her that she could raise a child with special needs and that she was not alone.
“Planned Parenthood is such a bogus business,” Palin asserted, adding that aside from its many ethical issues, “they get away with false advertising, trying to make people think that they provide women’s healthcare services.”
“Planned Parenthood is not pro-women,” she continued, adding:
They don’t want women to think that they are capable enough and strong enough and smart enough to be able to give their baby life and still go to school, still work, still raise their other children. They want women to feel inadequate. It’s anti-women to tell us that we need to kill our babies in order to have a more convenient life.
“We couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out,” Palin exclaimed about her family and her son, Trig.
Turning to the issue of Congress, Palin thanked Paul for leading the charge in defunding Planned Parenthood and said how “nonsensical” it is that “there is even a fight about this on Capitol Hill,” given the shocking videos of Planned Parenthood’s practices.
“Thank God the polls and surveys show more and more people consider themselves pro-life than ever before, and a lot of that has to do with these videos that have been released showing what Planned Parenthood is really all about,” Palin said, adding that God is using people to get others to wake up to see what the abortion giant is really doing.
In his address, Paul spoke about the gross inconsistencies on the pro-abortion side regarding the right to life of babies.
“As a physician, I’ve examined babies that were less than two pounds…and as I look into the eyes of these small babies, I ask myself how can a baby who is six pounds and still in the womb not have any rights?” he asked. “We say a one-pound baby has rights in the neonatal nursery – and they should – but how can we say a five- and six-pound baby has no rights?”
Paul recalled that when he debated Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, he asked her the same question, and she responded, “That’s a private matter.”
“When you have Planned Parenthood turning the baby around so they can get access to the baby’s organs and sell those, that’s no longer a private matter,” he said. “When you have a group like Planned Parenthood, that we’re giving taxpayer dollars to, that’s no longer a private matter.”
Paul explained that it is up to those in Congress who wish to fund Planned Parenthood to obtain the votes to do that.
“Some are saying we don’t have enough votes to defund Planned Parenthood,” he continued, adding:
That gets it exactly wrong. You have to fund Planned Parenthood. You have to have 60 votes to affirmatively fund Planned Parenthood, so don’t accept the notion that we have to get to 60. The other side has to get to 60. The other side has to find 60 votes to fund Planned Parenthood…They do not have 60 votes to fund Planned Parenthood as long as we separate the bills and tell them, “You go out and find 60 votes to fund Planned Parenthood.”
“If the Democrats want to shut down government over harvesting organs from babies, so be it, but we will take a stand,” Paul asserted.
“There comes a time in the history of nations when we must take a stand,” he said. “We must decide whether we will take a stand for life. I don’t know about the rest of Congress, but I plan on taking a stand for not one penny more for Planned Parenthood.”
Others present at the #WomenBetrayed rally included Rep. Diane Black, who has introduced legislation to freeze all of Planned Parenthood’s funding; Rep. Tim Huelskamp; Live Action president Lila Rose; Evangeline Bartz for Americans United for Life; Carrie Dodge of And Then There Were None; Jeanne Mancini of March for Life; Jessica Anderson of Heritage Action; Alison Howard of Alliance Defending Freedom; Arina Grossu of Family Research Council; and several post-abortive women, including Nancy Givens.