Washington D.C., Nov 28, 2018 / 16:40 pm
Students for Life has urged U.S. President Donald Trump to defund Planned Parenthood, and encouraged pro-life advocates to ask the administration to do so.
The pro-life organization issued a letter to President Trump Nov. 27 signed by the Kristan Hawkins, president for Students for Life of America.
In the message, Hawkins thanks Trump for pro-life measures he has undertaken, and invites him to pursue five steps to defund Planned Parenthood.
The letter challenged the president to keep his "promises and defund Planned Parenthood across the board, redirecting those resources to places and programs that actually serve the medical needs of women and their families."
The five steps called the administration to refuse to sign any budget that does not defund abortion providers; to formalize the Protect Life rule for Title X regulations; to appoint pro-life judges; to stop funding fetal tissue research that pays for parts of aborted infants; and to sever the abortion providers' connection to sex education.
The letter highlights the last stance, stating that Planned Parenthood uses sex education to fuel its own marketing schemes, "to instruct teens to buy their products and engage in behaviors they endorse, and then selling abortions to those same students when their advice and products fail."
Hawkins emphasized Planned Parenthood's role in providing abortion, noting the organization falsely promotes itself as a major supporter for women's healthcare. She said the group's marketing department has publicized that abortion is not its number one seller. This is not true, she said.
Comparing Planned Parenthood to other community health centers, Hawkins said Planned Parenthood provides fewer services, is inefficient in its spending, and serves millions fewer patients.
She said Planned Parenthood receives more than $500 million a year from federal funding. This money should be distributed to programs and places which better serve women, she said.
Students for Life gave directions for citizens to help promote this cause as well. The organization urged people to tweet to President Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and to call the White House switchboard.
At the end of her letter, Hawkins challenges Trump to focus funding on more pro-life health services, such as Federally Qualified Health Centers and Pregnancy Resource Centers.
"Please support serving the needs of mothers and their children, born and preborn, by ensuring that the places receiving federal dollars treat everyone as a patient deserving of life. Planned Parenthood must be defunded so that we can better service women and their preborn children's lives."
