Once pro-life, Democrat Senator Joe Manchin now says he ‘stands with Planned Parenthood’

One of the few remaining Democrats in Congress who has always claimed to be pro-life stunningly seems to have made the decision to start toeing the party line instead.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was featured recently in a tweet from Planned Parenthood South Atlantic West Virginia:

PP South Atlantic WV

@PPSATWV

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Thank you for standing with Planned Parenthood, @Sen_JoeManchin! #StandWithPP

3:10 PM · Apr 19, 2017

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The pro-life Susan B. Anthony List responded to the apparent switch, with president Marjorie Dannenfelser calling the move an “enormous mistake both morally and politically.” The group’s press release on the matter reads:

In more than nine times out of ten, Planned Parenthood resolves pregnancy with abortion. They are clearly an abortion-centered, profit-driven business – yet taxpayers are forced to fork over nearly $554 million each year to their coffers. Where does Sen. Manchin stand on this injustice? Last month, he voted to force states to fund the abortion giant through Title X grants. That was only a day after new footage was released showing a former Planned Parenthood abortionist describe the force needed to dismember a five-month-old unborn child struggling to survive in the womb.

Sen. Manchin used to call himself pro-life, but this is the last straw. Susan B. Anthony List will work tirelessly in the months ahead to make sure West Virginians know of this profound betrayal of the unborn and their mothers.

Manchin is currently up for re-election and, according to NewsMax, has been raising most of his campaign funds thus far from donors outside of his state of West Virginia. So far he reportedly has $2.1M on hand.

While up to this point, Manchin had a pro-life voting record for several years, some of his votes were controversial among pro-lifers. In 2014, Manchin was among those who voted against protecting Hobby Lobby from having to pay for employees’ abortifacient contraceptives.

Prior to this, in 2011, Manchin voted against a repeal of Obamacare even though the previous year he expressed misgivings about the legislation’s abortion-promoting provisions.

Other politicians known to have changed their positions from pro-life to pro-abortion include Democrats Jesse Jackson and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio).

Supporting the nation’s largest abortion provider can in no way be considered pro-life. Planned Parenthood commits more than a third of all abortions in the United States (that’s more than 320,000 human lives every year) — one every 97 seconds, while its legitimate health services continue to decline. (It does less than 2 percent of all breast exams and less than 1 percent of all Pap smears in the country, and offers exactly zero mammograms.) It has been mired in scandal after scandal after scandal.

Debunking Planned Parenthood's "3%" Abortion Myth

However, one thing Planned Parenthood has gotten awfully good at is buying political support.

Those who “stand with Planned Parenthood” might want to re-examine exactly what it is they’re standing for.