Hillary Clinton paid Planned Parenthood thousands of dollars using campaign funds.
The Democratic frontrunner’s federal financial disclosures reveal that America’s top abortionist received four separate payments from the Clinton campaign. The payments were filed as reimbursements for "staff time" for volunteering and get out the vote efforts, as Clinton attempted to beat back the insurgent campaign of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in Iowa.
Clinton and Planned Parenthood did not return requests for comment about the specific nature of the payments.
Planned Parenthood performs more than 300,000 abortions annually and generates 40 percent of its annual revenues through the government. The billion-dollar organization receives about $500 million from taxpayers each year through Medicaid funds and other grants. It received a large funding bonus from foreign policy agencies overseen by Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state, collecting more than $100 million for overseas services to the USAID.
Planned Parenthood has been especially active during this campaign season. In January it made the unprecedented decision to endorse Clinton in the Democratic primary. The campaign began paying the group’s political arm shortly after the donation.It paid nearly $1,000 to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund on Jan. 10 followed by payments of more than $500 on January 16, $1,000 on Jan. 22 and nearly $2,300 on Jan. 23. All told the campaign paid Planned Parenthood more than $4,800 in January.
Even before the official endorsement, Clinton received financial support from the organization, collecting more than $20,000 from executives and employees of the national organization and its regional affiliates—20 times more money than the rest of the presidential field combined.
Clinton supports abortion up to the point of birth and holds a perfect 100 percent rating from NARAL, a leading pro-abortion special interest group. She has come under fire from Republican presidential candidates for holding "extreme" views at odds with voters. Numerous polls have found that more than 60 percent of Americans support legislation that would ban abortion after 20 weeks, while 80 percent oppose third trimester abortions.
"I've chosen to err on the side of life," Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said in a February debate. "On abortion the Democrats are extremists. Why doesn’t the media ask Hillary Clinton why she believes that all abortion should be legal even on the due date of an unborn child? Why don't they ask Hillary Clinton why she believes that partial-birth abortion which is a gruesome procedure that's been outlawed in this country? She thinks that's a fundamental right. They are the extremists when it comes to the issue of abortion and I can’t wait to expose them in a general election."
Clinton enjoys close personal relationships with Planned Parenthood executives. She was the recipient of the 2009 Margaret Sanger Award, the group’s highest honor. Prominent officials within the group worked for her failed presidential bid in 2008. Her current campaign hired Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards’ daughter, Lily Adams, to help with its ground game in Iowa and also employs a Planned Parenthood organizer to direct her Asian voter outreach.
Like Clinton, Planned Parenthood is the subject of a federal investigation after undercover videos emerged showing top officials negotiating the sale of aborted baby body parts and line iteming payments to boost profit—a potential violation of federal law. After days of failing to respond to the videos Clinton called them "disturbing" in July. Ultimately, she came to defend the organization, calling the exposure of baby body sales a "full-on assault on women’s health."
Planned Parenthood denies that it profited from those sales, saying that it only recouped costs of transporting and storing the body parts. Nevertheless the group announced in October that it would no longer take any money for the transfer of organs, limbs, and other parts recovered from aborted babies. Several states, congressional committees, and federal agencies are investigating those practices.