Silence from Sanders as Planned Parenthood comes under attack.

[sufrommich]

But with these new videos, progressive members of Congress and Planned Parenthood's biggest corporate backer are nervously recalling another liberal institution brought down by a conservative sting operation: ACORN, a grassroots political group that fell apart in 2010 after conservative activist James O'Keefe pulled a similar sting. "We saw what happened with ACORN, and it happened so fast and it happened without enough pushback from Democrats," Heidi Hess, the campaign director for Credo, a liberal group that is Planned Parenthood's largest corporate sponsor, told the Hill. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) agreed: "It does have that feeling."

They are referring to the successful GOP campaign to destroy ACORN, a string of community organizations that advocated for various issues touching low-income families. But the group was best known for its massive voter registration drives. ACORN registered 450,000 first-time voters in 2008 alone. Over its nearly 40 years of operation, the group had received about $53 million in federal funds for its community organizing activities.

Planned Parenthood's allies have sensed that these videos have more resonance than past attacks. Compared with past attacks on the group, its supporters have been more muted. During the Komen debacle, presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) was part of a chorus of lawmakers who demanded that Komen restore funding. This time around, he has not gone out of his way to defend the group, and he said the "tone" of the staffer in the first video "was terribly wrong." Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is responding to reporters' questions exclusively by reading from a tepid, prepared statement: "These politically motivated videos raise questions, but nothing I've seen indicates that Planned Parenthood violated federal law." On Tuesday, Credo called on Democrats to defend Planned Parenthood more vocally.

A congressional push to defund Planned Parenthood would likely not result in the organization's complete collapse, and would probably only focus on the group's Title X funding, a federal family planning grant program that makes up 10 percent of the group's federal support. The rest of its federal funding comes from Medicaid; in the past, as Vox reports, conservatives have left that alone. But Planned Parenthood allies are already fearful that this is the start of a full-on ACORNing. Earlier this week, Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) said that the videos "give us a window into the soul of the big abortion industry." If the public comes to believe her, it could spell disaster for the largest women's health care network in the country.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/planned-parenthood-sting-videos-explained