Pro-life Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s administration in Arizona has dropped Planned Parenthood from the list of organizations eligible to receive donations from state workers during the state government’s charitable campaign.
As chairman of the State Employee Charitable Campaign (SECC), Ducey was clear that he did not want Arizona involved in enabling Planned Parenthood to receive more funding, says a report by the Associated Press.
Ducey’s spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said the governor “absolutely supports” a decision made in September by a committee of agency directors and other state officials to exclude Planned Parenthood.
Ducey “has made it clear that the state of Arizona should not be involved in facilitating contributions to a controversial organization of this kind,” Scarpinato said. “People are still free to give on their own…”
The committee made its decision to exclude Planned Parenthood following the release of a series of videos exposing the abortion business’ apparent practices of harvesting the body parts of aborted babies for sale and altering the abortion procedure in order to harvest intact organs. Planned Parenthood is currently under investigation by several congressional committees for potentially criminal activity.
“The group did not feel that this particular charity met the mission and standards they were looking for,” Linda Stiles, the campaign’s executive director, said about the committee’s decision.
The committee dropped other organizations from the list of eligible charities. The Clinton Foundation of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was eliminated because it was thought to be political in nature, said Scarpinato.
In 2014, state employees pledged a total of $7,500 to Planned Parenthood’s Arizona affiliate – which helps to pay for abortions.
“[T]he individual donations coming through the SECC do in part pay for abortions,” said Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Jodi Liggett. “In fact, many of our donors specifically want to fund this service knowing that women in dire circumstances may not have the financial means to pay for a needed abortion.”
“It’s not a ton of money in the scheme of our giving,” Liggett added. “We’re more upset on principle.”
Earlier this year, Ducey signed pro-life legislation that requires physicians in Arizona to inform women they can reverse the effects of abortion-inducing drugs.