Appearing on a morning talk show in Des Moines, Iowa, Marco Rubio called out the abortion industry for pushing women into getting abortions and said this happens at least in part so they can generate more profit. Rubio also called for the Department of Justice and the IRS to investigate Planned Parenthood.
When asked by one of the hosts, who seemed to be auditioning for a jump from Iowa to MSNBC with his defense of the abortion industry, about how to replace the tissue from aborted babies that is used in research, Rubio pointed to something that hasn’t been talked about before — it can be replaced by tissue from babies who die naturally in the womb through miscarriage or some other means. Rubio said this was no different than organ donation, which is considered to be ethical.
Here’s a partial transcript, with the full segment on abortion in the video below:
RUBIO: Now what you’ve done is you’ve created an industry—now what you’ve done is you’ve created an incentive for people to be pushed into abortions so that those tissues can be harvested and sold for a profit…
HOST: Don’t you think that’s a stretch?
RUBIO: No.
HOST: ‘Pushing people into abortions’?
RUBIO: Absolutely. If you go to one of these centers young women are provided very few options. In many places they’re not told anything about, for example, adoption services that might be available to them. In essence, you come in, and it’s already predetermined. This is the direction—this is what this place does. It provides abortions, and we are going to channel you in that direction. And I just think you’ve created an industry now – the situation where very much you’ve created an incentive not just for people to look forward to having more abortions, but being able to sell that fetal tissue for purposes of making profit off of it, as you’ve seen with some of these Planned Parenthood affiliates.
HOST: But Planned Parenthood does not make a profit on this. They only recover their costs.
RUBIO: Well, again, that’s unclear. And that’s one of the things I hope the IRS will look into, as well as the Justice Department. You have these affiliates across the country meeting with who they believe are firms involved in this process, and they’re talking about the idea that this is how we can – these are more profitable transactions for the organization. It raises more money for the organization. It allows it to bring more money in. The videos at least raise the specter of that. And I think it deserves a full investigation by both the Justice Department, because that would be a practice that’s illegal, and the IRS. And none of those things are happening right now.
Thomas Valentine is a researcher for APIA and a junior at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
