Giuliani Gave Money to Planned Parenthood

Thanks to Alex Blaze at Bilerico for giving me the scoop on this one.

CNN revealed today that Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani donated money to Planned Parenthood during his tenure as mayor of New York. According to tax returns, Giuliani donated $900 to the organization over the span of six years. While that's not a lot of money in comparison to how much the candidate will spend on his campaign for president, it's enough to get Lou Dobbs' panties in a bunch.

How does Giuliani explain the inconsistency between the donations and his statements during last week's Republican presidential debates that he is opposed to abortion?

Tuesday, in an appearance on conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's radio show, Giuliani said the donations were not inconsistent with his personal opposition to abortion because "Planned Parenthood makes information available" on other options available to pregnant women, including adoption.

"If there is going to be a choice, there are organizations that are going to give people information about that choice," he said. "I just as strongly support the idea that a woman should have information about adoption."

In addition to abortions, Planned Parenthood offers health and gynecological care, birth control, pregnancy testing, adoption information and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases at 860 affiliated health centers operating under its name, according to the group's Web site. In 2005, about 265,000 abortion procedures were performed at Planned Parenthood facilities, about 3 percent of the patient services it provided that year, according to statistics posted on its site.

Wow! Who woulda thunk it? Those feminists over at Planned Parenthood really aren't just a bunch of baby killers. But despite Giuliani being right about this one, he's still gonna have a lotta 'splainin to do. This may well be his early ticket out of the race. We'll see . . .