GOP candidates slam Obama, Planned Parenthood at abortion forum

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that he would begin restricting access to abortion during his first day in the White House.

Gingrich said he would immediately sign an executive order saying U.S. foreign aid cannot fund abortion services, as well as a second order reinstating a Bush-era policy under which healthcare providers could refuse to provide services they believed were immoral.

And within the first week, Gingrich said, he would send legislation to Congress that would cut off all federal funding for Planned Parenthood and redirect the money to adoption services.

Gingrich said Congress could also pass a law declaring that life begins at conception and block the courts from reviewing that statute.

Although the GOP primary has turned increasingly testy, the primary targets at Wednesday’s abortion forum were Planned Parenthood and President Obama.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry bragged that his state de-funded Planned Parenthood and led to the closure of 12 Planned Parenthood clinics. But the federal Medicaid agency this week rejected Texas’s effort to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood’s family-planning services.

“If Washington, D.C. is looking for a fight, they found one,” Perry said at the abortion forum, hosted by Fox News host and former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

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