With well over $550 million in federal taxpayer dollars on the line, Planned Parenthood knows it’s in the battle of a lifetime. The nation’s most prolific abortion business is turning to the all-too-familiar state of Texas to fight what could potentially be its last stand.
This time, the abortion giant has a Republican state lawmaker on their side. State representative Sarah Davis, who received $15,791.49 in gifts-in-kind from Planned Parenthood during the 2016 campaign cycle, is now on a crusade against a pro-life alternative funded through the state. During last year's reelection bid, Planned Parenthood invested $10,740 worth of phone calls, plus another $4,000 in digital advertising to Davis' campaign.
Davis, as—ironically enough—the chair of Texas’ House General Investigations and Ethics Commission, is using the post bought by Planned Parenthood to try and torpedo a state grant awarded to the Heidi Group, a network of 22 life-affirming physicians and mid-level providers serving 63 Texas counties.
Administered by former abortion clinic owner Carol Everett, the Heidi Group is midway through a one-year grant cycle with a goal to serve 50,000 Texans—primarily women in rural areas—with medical services reimbursed through the Healthy Texas Women grant.
Davis’ Planned Parenthood Debt Going Unmentioned
Davis, however, is leading the charge to undermine the Heidi Group, and she’s bringing along her friends at Planned Parenthood and the mainstream media.
A March 14 report from the Associated Press’ Paul J. Weber, for example, carried the headline, “Get by without Planned Parenthood? One Texas effort stumbles,” in which he conflated the two grants the Heidi Group is utilizing to make an already-complicated story seem far more convoluted than it already was.
After casting a pall of doubt over the Heidi Group and their medical providers—which serve predominately in rural areas of great need and include only one pregnancy help medical clinic, which itself is staffed by a qualifying mid-level provider—Weber then quotes a Texas-based Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, Sarah Wheat.
“Every time they try to relaunch one of these women's health programs, without some of the most trusted providers in women's health, every single time they come up short," Wheat said. “And they show their lack of understanding and respect for what women need."
Piggy-backing on the doom and gloom, the pro-abortion Huffington Post screamed in its headline, “Faith-Based ‘Clinics’ Want To Replace Planned Parenthood And That’s Dangerous As Hell,” a piece which again omitted the fact that the Heidi Group is made up of qualifying physicians and mid-level practitioners—rather than what could be described as “faith-based ‘clinics.’”
No mention was made in either article that Davis is nearly $16,000 in the hole to the nation’s leading abortion provider, which has $550-plus million on the line at the federal level if it can’t make the case that it’s an irreplaceable provider of women’s health care.
Where Have We Heard This Before?
Planned Parenthood recently turned down an opportunity to keep its funding when President Donald Trump forced it to choose between providing abortions and staying on the government dole.
The abortion business has been thoroughly and regularly exposed as failing to provide the services it promises—including prenatal care and mammograms—while being forced to own its role in the illegal sale of body parts it takes from the babies it aborts.
Davis, who represents Houston and Harris County, bears striking similarities to Devon Anderson, the former Harris County District Attorney whose failed 2016 election campaign followed her decision to indict undercover investigator David Daleiden for his role in exposing Planned Parenthood’s criminal complicity in trafficking aborted baby body parts.
Now, it’s Davis’ turn to carry the torch for Planned Parenthood, which aborts over 320,000 babies every year.
Tweet This: Texas ethics chair attacking #prolife group is $16K in debt to @PPAct
Everett, who has been on both sides of the equation when it comes to abortion, said she’s never quite seen the level of opposition she and her providers are facing. Though her providers have been heavily audited and routinely visited by officials from the state’s Health and Human Services throughout the grant, no red flags have come up.
Needy Women Lost in the Shuffle
Still, that hasn’t prevented lawmakers like Davis and state rep Jessica Farrar—who recently gained headlines for proposing a “satirical” law that would fine men for masturbating—from undermining and slandering the Heidi Group, which serves rural and undocumented populations such as those in the desperately needy Rio Grande Valley, where patients who don’t have access to running water or electricity.
Planneed Parenthood has two locations in the Rio Grande Valley, while the Heidi Group is serving in five locations throughout the area.
“They keep raising questions with no validity,” Everett said. “They’re not only harassing us, they’re harassing everybody.”
Often a battleground state over abortion, two major abortion cases decided at the Supreme Court level originated in Texas. The 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion on-demand and 2016’s Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, struck down regulations on abortion facilities that included hospital admitting within 30 miles and ensuring hallways were wide enough to fit a gurney through.
In the midst of the current struggle, Everett said she’s been keenly aware of her need for prayer from the pro-life and Christian community—particularly because of what could be on the line in terms of Planned Parenthood’s funding stream.
“It’s Bigger Than Us.”
With four months to go, Everett is confident the Heidi Group will hit its goal of serving 50,000 women by the end of grant cycle this August.
“At the end of this contract, I believe we will have served the women with life-affirming healthcare,” Everett said. “They will have heard the truth about things they’ve never heard the truth about before. The overriding claim is that conservatives can’t provide healthcare. That’s why we must succeed. We must.
"It’s bigger than me; it’s bigger than all of us. It’s about serving and saving women overall.”
Tweet This: "It's bigger than me. It's about serving, saving women." @TheHeidiGroup @CarolEverett44 #prolife
