Mitt Romney Didn't Just Give Planned Parenthood Money, He Gave Them Extra Power

You should be quite familiar by now with the fact that Mitt Romney gave $150.00 to Planned Parenthood in 1994 when claiming he had always been pro-abortion.

You should also know that in 2004, Mitt Romney says he personally converted to the pro-life position. In fact, according to ABC News on June 14, 2007, “Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has long cited a November 2004 meeting with a Harvard stem-cell researcher as the moment that changed his long-held stance of supporting abortion rights to his current ‘pro-life’ position opposing legal abortion. But several actions Romney took mere months after that meeting call into question how deep-seated his conversion truly was.”

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What was one of those actions?

Two months after his pro-life conversion, Mitt Romney appointed Matthew Nestor to the bench in Massachusetts. Romney seeming bowed to political pressure making Nestor a judge even after Nestor, according to the Boston Globe as far back as 1994, had campaigned for political office championing his pro-abortion views.

One year after his pro-life conversion, in July of 2005, Mitt Romney vetoed legislation that would expand the use of the morning after pill arguing that it would contribute to abortions. But just three months later Mitt Romney slid back and signed a bill that expanded state subsidized access to the morning after pill.

Writing in the Boston Globe on October 15, 2005, Stephanie Ebbert noted

Governor Mitt Romney has signed a bill that could expand the number of people who get family-planning services, including the morning-after pill, confusing some abortion and contraception foes who had been heartened by his earlier veto of an emergency contraception bill. … The services include the distribution of condoms, abortion counseling, and the distribution of emergency contraception, or morning after pills, by prescription …

But that’s nothing. Two whole years after the pro-life view had settled into Mitt Romney’s conscience and a year after Mitt Romney had vetoed legislation expanding access to the morning after pill, he expanded access to abortion and gave Planned Parenthood new rights under state law. Yes, that Planned Parenthood.

Mitt Romney is really proud of Romneycare. He champions it as a great healthcare reform for Massachusetts. At one point he claimed it could be a model for the nation, though he now denies that.

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According to States News Service on October 2, 2006,

“The following information was released by the Massachusetts Office of the Governor: Governor Mitt Romney today officially launched Commonwealth Care, an innovative health insurance product that will allow thousands of uninsured Massachusetts residents to purchase private health insurance products at affordable rates. Commonwealth Care is a key component of the state’s landmark healthcare reform law approved by the Governor in April. ‘We are now on the road to getting everyone health insurance in Massachusetts,’ said Governor Romney. … ‘Today, we celebrate a great beginning.’

Romney loves to take credit for it.

The law, in addition to providing healthcare coverage for the uninsured and forcing everyone to have insurance, expanded abortion services in the State of Massachusetts. It also required that one member of the MassHealth Payment Policy Board be appointed by Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts.

From Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006:

SECTION 3. Chapter 6A of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 16I the following 6 sections: . . . Section 16M. (a) There shall be a MassHealth payment policy advisory board. The board shall consist of the secretary of health and human services or his designee, who shall serve as chair, the commissioner of health care financing and policy, and 12 other members: … 1 member appointed by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts … (Massachusetts General Court Website, www.mass.gov, Accessed 2/5/07)

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In 2007, Mitt Romney was still denying his healthcare plan did this.

QUESTION: “I noticed some of the conservative groups back in Massachusetts, they complain about there’s a Planned Parenthood rep mandate to be on the planning board for the health care plan. Is that something you just had to deal with in negotiating with the legislature?”

ROMNEY: “It’s certainly not something that was in my bill.”

(Eric Krol, “Full Text Of Romney Interview,” [Arlington Heights, IL] Daily Herald, 6/17/07)

Except it was. Apparently, like with Obamacare, you had to pass the bill to find out what was in it, but once passed, Romney never read it.

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