On Tuesday morning, Live Action released a stunning new investigative video showing just how deceptive Planned Parenthood is being when it touts its prenatal care services for pregnant women. As of late Wednesday evening, the YouTube video has over 137,000 views and almost 9 million views on Facebook.
Investigators who called 97 Planned Parenthood facilities from 41 affiliates found just five facilities among those which offered prenatal care. As one can see from the video, several locations even told callers that Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer prenatal care at all. (Live Action News compiled a list of things Planned Parenthood has told women with regard to prenatal care.) Others in the video candidly admitted that Planned Parenthood’s name is deceptive, given how scarce this vital healthcare service for pregnant women is at Planned Parenthood. What isn’t scarce there? Abortion. The organization commits a third of the abortions in the entire nation.
Even Planned Parenthood employees have candidly admitted that the organization’s focus is abortion — not prenatal care (quotes from the video, above):
- Tempe, AZ: “…Planned Parenthood offers abortions, so they don’t offer prenatal care.”
- Farmington, NM: “We don’t offer prenatal care at Planned Parenthood… We specialize in abortions. You know, that’s what our ultrasounds are for, to see how far along the, um, patient is.”
- Cornell, NY: “We tell you you’re pregnant, and then we offer at Planned Parenthood to do the abortions.”
- Sante Fe, NM: “We see pregnant women, um, you know, if they are considering other options… medication abortions.”
Planned Parenthood receives $553.7 million in taxpayer dollars annually, according to their own most recent annual report for 2014-2015. Is it because Planned Parenthood is the nation’s only health center for women? Well, no. But that’s what they would certainly like Americans to believe. The truth is that Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) outnumber Planned Parenthood locations 20 to 1. These centers list both prenatal and postnatal care as part of their services.
Does it make sense for the hard-earned taxpayer dollars of Americans to go to support a corporation that focuses heavily on abortion, but publicly misleads about its other services? According to the Heritage Foundation, “Planned Parenthood affiliates perform about 20 abortions for every prenatal care visit and about 200 abortions for every adoption referral based on the approximately 300,000 abortions they perform each year.” If Congress votes to defund Planned Parenthood, and President Donald Trump signs such legislation, as he has stated he would, that money would be routed to FQHCs.
Planned Parenthood will tell you that taxpayer funding cannot go toward abortion except in narrow circumstances, though the organization has lobbied to change that, pushing for an end to the Hyde Amendment. Money is fungible, however. Giving to an organization that commits abortions is still supporting an organization that commits abortions — something most Americans don’t want to do.
Planned Parenthood has the largest market share of abortions in the country, and most of their locations do not offer prenatal care. They have a rather low market share when it comes to Pap smears and physical breast exams, at 0.97 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, and they don’t perform mammograms at all. Several affiliates have also been found engaging in Medicaid fraud, which is hardly the only scandal the organization has been caught up in.
The time is now to defund Planned Parenthood.
