Washington Planned Parenthood Fights to Hide Abortion Info From Health Department

State   |   Joseph Backholm   |   Jul 24, 2013   |   6:25PM   |   Olympia, WA

It seems that the only thing Planned Parenthood wants you to know about these days is how to confidently have lots of sex with lots of people and how to deal with the pregnancies and diseases that result from having lots of sex with lots of people. Not that those are connected in any way of course.

Otherwise, it seems they spend a great deal of time and effort trying to keep information away from people.

Take parents, for example. For decades now, Planned Parenthood has been fighting a parent’s right to know if their minor daughter is going to have an abortion.

During the last legislative session, they appeared at a Senate hearing and argued for two hours about how harmful it would be if parents were aware of their daughter’s situation.

Washington State still has fewer restrictions on abortion than tattoos, sun beds, and ear piercings.

Now, their campaign of secrecy has picked a fight with laws regarding public record requests.

Like health care providers do with operations they perform and diseases they treat, abortion clinics are required to report information about abortions they perform to Washington State’s Department of Health (DOH). This information helps the DOH understand trends in health care and medicine for the purpose of education, prevention, and controlling public health risks.

Because this information is held by a public agency for public purposes, it is subject to public information requests provided patient privacy is protected. This supports the public’s right to be informed about what their government is doing.

A public records request was filed in March of this year with DOH seeking information about the number, types, and locations of abortions as well as other information, including whether the mother has had previous abortions.

In response, Planned Parenthood went to court to request a court order that would prevent DOH from providing the public information about the abortions their facilities perform. The hearing will take place this Friday morning in King County Superior Court, 516 3rd Ave, Seattle, in Judge Lum’s court room – E713.

The most obvious question is, why?

Planned Parenthood goes out of its way to insist that abortion is just one of many valid options in the women’s health care suite of services.

In fact, they sponsored recent legislation they called the “Reproductive Parity Act”, which suggests through its name that there is complete parity between the decision to give a child life and the decision…not to.

Had it passed, it would have required every insurance policy to pay for an abortion simply because it would pay for a live birth.

In their argument that these public records should not be disclosed, Planned Parenthood claimed that they, “…could be used to stigmatize patients.” Never mind the fact that patient information is being redacted.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

 

Perhaps Planned Parenthood is concerned about what will be revealed once the public knows who they are targeting with their “services”.

Regardless, their argument seems to be a tacit acknowledgement of the fact that they know that taking a child’s life will never be a morally equivalent choice to giving life a chance no matter how hard you rationalize it.

So can’t we just talk about mammograms (that we don’t actually do) and all the sexually transmitted diseases we’ve caused…er…prevented through our education. Which is it anyway?

When you’re proud of something, you put it on Facebook. When you’re not proud of something, you request a court order keeping the information from those who have a right to it.

After Friday, we may have a better idea of what they are trying to hide.

LifeNews.com Note: Joseph Backholm is the Executive Director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, a pro-family, pro-life organization that opposes a bill in the Washington legislature that attacks pregnancy centers helping women.