Recently, Kim Bode, a Huffington Post contributor, posted a piece challenging those who support defunding Planned Parenthood to “educate themselves.” As a former director for 8 years of one of Planned Parenthood’s largest affiliates, I’m going to say that I am quite “educated” about Planned Parenthood and their practices. After all, there’s really no better “education” than first-hand experience. I also currently run an organization of over 330 former clinic workers who can also verify my first hand “education.”
Now that I have met the “education” requirement, let me delve into the miseducation presented by Ms. Bode.
People are very concerned about the care women will receive with Planned Parenthood is defunded. They are so concerned that they have begun to tout lies and call them truths.
Planned Parenthood operates about 650 facilities across the country. 650. There are currently over 10,000 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) that provide comprehensive care to low income men, women and children in the United States. That 10,000 does not include Rural Health Centers (RHCs), county health departments and hospital health systems that provide care. It also doesn’t include the tens of thousands of physicians and groups that participate in government subsidy programs like Medicaid. So in the end, you are saying that the tens of thousands of low income providers can’t possibly care for the patients who visit 650 health centers. Really?
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned Parenthood Immediately
Even someone with far less “education” than I have can see that doesn’t make even a bit of sense. If Planned Parenthood is defunded, no one will lose health care. These patients will simply transfer their care to the other providers in their community who can see them for comprehensive care…compared to the extremely limited care they have been receiving at Planned Parenthood. As a woman who values women’s healthcare, I would much rather a women be seen by a provider who can address all of her needs, not just some. I believe women deserve that.
Educate yourself.
You then went on to say, “According to NPR…” That’s like if I asked you to look at something and said, “According to this prolife news site…” Don’t ask people to look at unbiased information from a biased source. Instead, why don’t you actually look at the Congressional report that was actually released that did in fact find Planned Parenthood selling the body parts of aborted babies.
Educate yourself.
Planned Parenthood desperately wants the public to believe that “only 3%” of their services involve abortion. In fact, they have said it so much that the uneducated actually believe it to be true. That number is actually much higher, but strategically skewed by unbundling family planning services so that each patient shows anywhere from five to 20 “visits” per appointment (i.e., 12 packs of birth control equals 12 visits) and doing the opposite with abortion visits, bundling them together so that each appointment equals one visit. The resulting difference between family planning and abortion “visits” is striking. Planned Parenthood refuses to release the number of unduplicated clients they see every year. If they did, the public would actually be able to see the real percentage of abortion visits to their locations.
Planned Parenthood also claims to help reduce the number of abortions. Not only is this not what Planned Parenthood actually accomplishes, but its goal couldn’t be more opposite. As a Planned Parenthood facility director, I was ordered to double the number of abortions our clinic performed in order to drive up revenue. In keeping, Planned Parenthood headquarters issued a directive mandating that all of its affiliates provide abortions by 2013. If they are attempting to reduce the number of abortion, why would they make it a mandatory service? Probably because abortion is their highest revenue generating product.
Please, educate yourself. Listen to the hundreds of former Planned Parenthood workers (doctors, nurses, executives) who have left this corrupt organization and now speak out. I joined Planned Parenthood because I wanted to help poor women with real health care needs. I still do — that’s why I left.
It’s time to defund Planned Parenthood.
Correcting the graphic that accompanied Kim Bode’s post:
1. Casey has Medicaid coverage and comes to her local Planned Parenthood for extremely limited gynecological care.
2. Casey gets birth control, an STD test and a pap smear (at the cost of the taxpayers).
3. Planned Parenthood submits a claim to Medicaid for the services they provided (and probably some other services that they didn’t provide…but hey, the reimbursement is worth committing fraud).
4. Medicaid reimburses the Planned Parenthood facility for the services they provided (and the ones they didn’t provide because no one is actually paying attention to what is paid and what is actually provided).
5. The state Medicaid agency sends a bill to the federal government for all Medicaid reimbursements (even the phony ones) made to providers statewide, and the federal government reimburses the state.
LifeNews.com Note: Abby Johnson worked at Planned Parenthood’s Bryan, Texas, clinic for eight years and was clinic director for more than two years. She is author of “Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line.”
