The elusive Bigfoot
The term “cryptid” refers to an animal whose existence remains unproven. Famous examples include Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster. However, there’s one creature that’s far more elusive than any of these. It’s called the Planned Parenthood mammogram.
Long a feature of myths and legends, some, like President Obama, seem convinced it’s real. During the 2012 presidential debates, he cited Planned Parenthood’s mammogram service as a reason to keep funding the group. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell appears to be a believer as well. She recently justified support for Planned Parenthood by declaring, “What I think is important is that our HHS funding is focused on issues of preventative care for women, things like mammograms.”
Unfortunately, I have some bad news for Obama and company: unlike Bigfoot, sightings of the Planned Parenthood mammogram have been thoroughly disproven. As Live Action has demonstrated, a woman in search of a mammogram needs to go elsewhere. The good news, however, is that there are places where they can go.
Federally qualified community health centers operate across the country, with many offering mammograms as well as a range of other services. In doing so, they provide help to those with limited financial resources and few other healthcare options.
But unlike Planned Parenthood, they don’t perform over three hundred thousand abortions every year. In fact, they don’t perform abortions at all. As a result, their staff haven’t been caught offering to arrange involuntary ones on child prostitutes who “can’t speak English” and “won’t know what’s going on.”
They also don’t have a long history of helping predatory men abort the evidence of their crimes. Neither are they in the business of aborting a little girl just because a couple would rather have a boy. And, they typically don’t put a dead baby on display before asking how much cash his body parts are worth.
In light of this, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), proposed S.1881, a bill to take the half a billion dollars that Planned Parenthood receives every year and redirect it to community health centers. While that would help those depend on them, it didn’t made the abortion industry and their Washington friends happy.
NARAL Pro-Choice America condemned the move as “dangerous,” while Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid accused those behind it of “attacking women’s health care.” Further, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest made clear that any attempt to defund Planned Parenthood would be “certainly something that would draw a presidential veto.”
IL Sen. Mark Kirk (via illinoisreview.typepad.com)
Ultimately, it wasn’t a problem for the abortion lobby. Although a majority of the Senate came out for S.1881, it failed to gain the sixty votes needed. Only two Democrats, senators Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), cast votes in favor, while Mark Kirk (R-IL, pictured) was the lone Republican to side with Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham failed to show up. As a result, the measure lost, along with those who would have benefited from increased health center funding.
If President Obama and his Senate allies really want more access to mammograms, then they should support those who are actually providing them, as well as other important services to people in need. This can be done at no extra cost to taxpayers simply by taking funds from Planned Parenthood, an organization that inflicts widespread harm on women and children. Because unlike the group’s mythical mammograms, the damage they do is very real.
