There’s been a lot of whining recently from the pro-abortion media and media watch dogs over conservative’s treatment of Planned Parenthood. In a frustrating — but unfortunately not surprising – abdication of journalistic responsibility, these Planned Parenthood sympathizers either cannot or will not understand the position of the pro-life American majority, opting rather to trust blindly in the nation’s largest abortion provider.
After Planned Parenthood quietly released its 2009-2010 annual report at the end of last year, conservative pundit Laura Ingraham told Bill O’Reilly that abortion is Planned Parenthood’s “core business.” Ingraham cited the group’s own report, which shows they performed 329,445 abortions in 2010.
The folks over at Media Matters were first to lash out against this claim, calling Ingraham and O’Reilly’s “attack” false. Their rebuttal? “Planned Parenthood says that’s not true!” Rather than investigate for themselves, Media Matters pointed to Planned Parenthood’s report citing their claim that abortion services account for 3% of all medical services.
The 3% statistic is an often repeated falsehood. If, as Planned Parenthood claims, they served 3 million people in 2009-10 and provided abortions to 329,445 of those clients, simple math tells us that abortion accounts for 11% of its procedures. This number jumps dramatically—to 91%—when only women who are eligible for abortion are considered: 9 out of 10 pregnant women who walk into a Planned Parenthood receive an abortion.
Last year, 31,098 instances of prenatal services were provided (8.6% of services to pregnant women) along with a measly 841 (0.2%) adoption referrals—a number that continues to drop. So much for “choice.”
MSNBC’s Martin Bashir wasn’t far behind Media Matters, but what MSNBC lacked in speed, it made up for sympathy. In a “War on Women” segment, Bashir interviewed Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, asking “How do you react when virtually every single Republican candidate chasing the nomination takes the opportunity to attack your organization and indeed wish that it didn’t exist?”
Richards reply is not essential for our purposes here—but let’s consider Martin’s premise, why are all the Republican presidential hopefuls eager to call for the defunding of Planned Parenthood?
It could be…
– because of Live Action Films’ release of undercover videos from 4 states showing Planned Parenthood employees caught in the act of aiding and abetting alleged child-traffickers.
– because of the launch of a congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood by Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida.
– because of the wave of ex-employees coming forward to testify against them, including 7 former employees who recently wrote to Congress in support of Rep. Cliff Stearns’ investigation.
– because of an unprecedented surge in the efforts of statewide and federal leaders to defund them Planned Parenthood citing fraud, abuse and scandal involving the abortion giant.
Planned Parenthood has been repeatedly exposed as an abortion-centered, profit-driven business which— according to its own report—is thriving, recently topping over a billion in net assets. In a time of economic crisis, it’s an outrage that almost half (46%) of this income comes from taxpayer pockets in the form of government grants, contracts & Medicaid reimbursements. The uniform agreement amongst Republicans that taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood should be the first to go is a sign of the continuing momentum in this fight. It’s time to get America OUT of the abortion business.
