It’s no surprise that Rick Santorum is demanding the defunding of Planned Parenthood.  The Republican presidential candidate has publicly expressed his opinion on Planned Parenthood, and it’s not pretty.

In an interview with CNN, Santorum stated that the reason the institution should be shut down is because it is “doing barbaric things.”

“We’re talking about providing money, federal taxpayer dollars for an organization that’s doing barbaric things, performing these horrific procedures, all for the purpose of trying to market these organs and sell organs… That’s wrong, and we should not be providing federal funds to an organization that’s doing these types of barbaric things.”

Santorum doesn’t believe that any positive aspects of Planned Parenthood matter in this debate. 

There are plenty of health organizations out there that don’t do this type of barbaric thing, don’t co-mingle...look, you’re giving money to an organization. The idea that you can separate them is ridiculous. The bottom line is Planned Parenthood is being given half a billion dollars a year for things that can be done elsewhere … We should not be using government funds for such morally objectionable things.

However, some people are raising the objection that morality has nothing to do with it.  Planned Parenthood has denied any allegations of illegal activity revolving around aborted fetuses, and there is currently no proof that their use of fetal tissue is in any way illegal according to the abortion law.  CNN’s Chris Cuomo voiced the same point, to which Santorum responded:

I'm very familiar with the law, Chris, because I passed it.  I wrote the partial-birth abortion statute, and if you listen to the tapes, and you look at what the procedures are, they are doing just that.

Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the world, so it has long been a hot topic of interest for supporters of the Republican Party to try to defund the organization.  If the United States votes to defund Planned Parenthood, it will also be significantly cutting down the number of abortions carried out each year.  Santorum briefly addressed this in his interview:

This is part of the dehumanization that we see that abortion is all about. Planned Parenthood from its very beginning was founded by someone who believed it was a eugenesis, who believe that the black race should be called out, and this organization is doing the same thing. It’s dehumanizing the child in the womb, just like they were trying to dehumanize blacks many, many years ago.

Santorum is calling for a full investigation into the procedures of Planned Parenthood.  However, there may not currently be enough support for an investigation.

Public opinion holds that Planned Parenthood is doing more good than bad.  It doesn’t help that President Obama is one of the organization’s biggest supporters.  Though he has often been heard to speak out about how the practice of killing humans and harvesting organs in other countries must end, he seems to ignore what’s happening on the home front.

There has been much political pressure on the issue in several states.  At least 12, including Texas, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, have initiated full investigations into the chapters of Planned Parenthood within state lines.

Though there is no federal backing for these investigations, many states, including Wisconsin, are working to ban fetal tissue donation in general, and others have already found several cases of second-trimester abortions without a proper license.