On Tuesday, Planned Parenthood CEO and president Cecile Richards appeared before the House Oversight Committee during a charged five hour testimony. Richards was unable to answer many questions for committee members, but there was one thing Richards didn’t seem to have a problem answering, and that’s the fact that Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms.
This is odd, considering Richards and her staff have publicly made it seem, on many occasions, as if the organization does.
When Richards was asked several times, by different members of the committee, however, she was honest and forthcoming – never once making reference to her previous claims.
Mammosham: Planned Parenthood faced its own mammogram lie.Before Congress, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards admitted that the abortion business has never provided mammograms, despite previous claims. It’s time for the President and abortion advocates to stop misleading the American people.
Posted by Live Action on Thursday, October 1, 2015
Although Richards told the truth about their mammogram services (or lack thereof) she lied when she claimed she never said that they did.
In no less than three instances, Richards told the committee how Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms:
We do not have mammogram machines at our health centers and we’ve never stated that we did.
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To the best of my knowledge not any Planned Parenthood facilities have mammogram machines.
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No Planned Parenthood clinics have mammogram machines.
Richards also mentioned what pro-lifers have been trying to explain for years – that Planned Parenthood does what any medical facility can do: refer patients to an outside agency for mammograms.
Earlier this month, pro-lifers actually called Planned Parenthood facilities to prove they don’t provide mammograms. It’s astounding that pro-lifers still need to do this.
From Cecile Richards’ nonchalant discussion and admittance of Planned Parenthood’s lack of mammogram services, one would never think she had made such claims before. But she did – and she even got President Obama to repeat it.
Obama has mentioned the claim several times during his presidency, most memorably while running for re-election. As a result, Politifact even got involved in fact-checking the claim. His administration also mentioned mammograms while supporting Planned Parenthood even among the fetal body parts trafficking controversy over the summer.
Live Action has also highlighted Cecile Richards’ lies about mammograms through the Mammosham project.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq0kBkUZbvQ&w=560&h=315]
It is worth mentioning that Cecile Richards was under oath during her testimony to Congress. She fortunately knew better than to lie about providing mammograms, but claiming that she has never done so before is a different story.
