Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told CNN’s “New Day” Thursday that Planned Parenthood should be defunded because they are “doing barbaric things.”
Santorum cited recently released, heavily edited videos of Planned Parenthood officials published by an anti-abortion group as evidence the women’s health group was performing “horrific procedures” for the purpose of trying to “market … and sell organs.”
Federal funds, he said, “shouldn’t be use for morally objectionable purposes.”
Planned Parenthood has denied that it sells organs and tissue from aborted fetuses, or participated in any illegal activity.
Asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo if he had any proof that Planned Parenthood is doing anything that is illegal, Santorum said the videos offer proof.
“I’m very familiar with the law, Chris, because I passed it,” Santorum said. “I wrote the partial-birth abortion statute and if you listen to the tapes, and you look at what the procedures are, they are doing just that.”
Santorum said that he “would embrace” the call for a full investigation.
Santorum also echoed a line used by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — that in the early 1900s the founder of Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger, was a white supremacist, who was a part of a “racial cleansing eugenics movement.”
“Planned Parenthood from its very beginning was founded by someone who believed it was a eugenesis,” Santorum said, adding that he believes Planned Parenthood is dehumanizing unborn children “like they were trying to dehumanize blacks many, many years ago.”
The former Pennsylvania senator will be participating in the 5 p.m. GOP presidential debate, for the lowest polling candidates, hosted by Fox News on Thursday night.