Arizona drops Planned Parenthood from charitable campaign for donations from

After many citizens across Arizona learned that Planned Parenthood Arizona was purposefully excluded from the State Employees Charitable Campaign, they channeled their fury into swift and proactive responses.

“[Ducey] has made it clear that the state of Arizona should not be involved in facilitating contributions to a controversial organization of this kind”, he said.

Earlier this year, Ducey signed pro-life legislation that requires physicians in Arizona to inform women they can reverse the effects of abortion-inducing drugs.

Planned Parenthood received $7,410 from 48 state employees, the Governor’s Office said. But as Rispoli points out in her online petition, even just a cursory glance at the Planned Parenthood websites reveals that it does “meet the health services criteria”. “We’re more upset on principle”, Liggett said.

The committee’s action occurred during nationwide debate over Planned Parenthood-related undercover videos shot by abortion proponents, but a campaign official said she didn’t recall abortion being specifically mentioned by committee members. When the group questioned the decision, SECC Executive Director Linda Stiles would only say that it “is not the best fit with the mission or standards of the campaign”. The foundation’s activities have been scrutinized throughout Hillary Clinton’s run for president, including whether donors gave to the foundation to curry favor with Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, as well as questions over its bookkeeping practices.

The 485 organizations eligible in 2015 for employee pledges to be fulfilled in 2016 include organizations with a wide range of concerns. As the nation’s largest abortion chain, Planned Parenthood commits over 320,000 abortions annually, and is the leading abortion advocacy group with tremendous political clout. “Now to have it become partisan, that doesn’t sit right”, Schmidt said.

The Guttmacher Institute reports that Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia, use public funding to pay for abortion procedures.

“This is a concerning revelation considering the University’s recent troubling connections to Planned Parenthood”, Schaefer wrote.