An Arizona media outlet has failed to check a claim made by the state’s Planned Parenthood CEO, Bryan Howard, in response to Live Action’s new explosive video exposing Planned Parenthood’s prenatal care deception. Howard’s response came just hours after Live Action released undercover footage of potential patients seeking prenatal care at 97 Planned Parenthood centers. Out of those 97, either called or visited in person, only five acknowledged offering prenatal care.
In the 12News report by , Arizona CEO Bryan Howard (referred to only as “Howard” by the news station) said Live Action’s video was “fake news” because the organization does not provide prenatal care, and never claimed they did (emphasis added): “They are taking us to task for something we never said we did, and trying to manufacture a controversy out of it,” added Howard. And, “In my 20 years in Arizona, we have referred (patients) for prenatal care but have never provided it directly.”
Sound familiar? National CEO Cecile Richard gave that same answer when caught in a lie about Planned Parenthood’s mammogram claims. “We do not have mammogram machines at our health centers and we’ve never stated that we did,” Richards remarked. Hmm, perhaps all the commentary about mammograms was merely meant to mislead the public about the ‘healthcare’ they claim to provide:
Once again, the media, which is not very honest when it comes to reporting on Planned Parenthood, is failing to check very basic statements by Planned Parenthood operatives responding to the video. This kind of lazy reporting is not new. Here’s how it works: Live Action releases video footage catching Planned Parenthood in deceptive statements or actions, and the media (Planned Parenthood’s PR machine) comes rushing to the rescue.
The typical response from Planned Parenthood to the media is to…
A) Deny the evidence exposed by Live Action, regardless of what it is.
B) Accuse Live Action of being an ‘extremist’ anti-abortion group, while painting their organization — which is the largest provider of abortions in the nation — as mainstream.
C) Claim, without any proof, that the videos are “deceptively edited.”
These three strategic responses are all Planned Parenthood has to say as far as the mainstream media outlets are concerned.
Live Action also recently interviewed a former Planned Parenthood manager stating how Planned Parenthood lied to the media regarding a previous undercover investigation involving the reporting of child sex traffickers to local authorities:
Today, Planned Parenthood’s PR machine is fully operational and responding to Live Action’s prenatal care video, which features comments from multiple Planned Parenthood employees stating they do NOT provide prenatal care, despite the organization’s CEO, Cecile Richards, having led the public to believe that prenatal care is one of their most important services.
Planned Parenthood (national) has been listing prenatal care in its annual reports for years. Shockingly, at one time, prenatal care appeared to be Planned Parenthood’s “fastest growing area.” This was how Planned Parenthood described the service in their 1996-1997 annual report:
Prenatal care PP 1996-97 annual report
But Planned Parenthood’s short-lived initiative to “implement a comprehensive prenatal care model” appears to have failed. The truth is that abortion has always been Planned Parenthood’s focus, which might explain why this once “fastest growing service” dropped nearly 44 percent from 2010 to 2014.
So rather than admit the obvious — that Planned Parenthood deceives the American public about the services they provide — a Planned Parenthood CEO in Arizona claimed they never claimed to provide prenatal care in the state, despite the fact that their own websites claim it is. (And, instead of fact-checking, a local media outlet published it as truth.)
One would think this “claim” by PP’s CEO would be easy to verify, right? That is, if you are prone to verify a story, which it seems this reporter is not. For instance, Resnik could have looked at some of the services Planned Parenthood of Arizona bragged about on its Facebook page:
Hmm.
Oops.
Resnick could have also done a simple search online, at Planned Parenthood’s website, and then could have questioned CEO Howard why Live Action’s callers were told the prenatal service was not offered, while it is clearly advertised online:
The Tempe center is one of the centers called by Live Action for the undercover video. When the caller asked to “make an appointment for prenatal care” the Planned Parenthood staffer responded: “We don’t have prenatal care here. Planned Parenthood offers abortions, so they don’t offer prenatal care.” Since prenatal care is clearly listed on their website, it seems reasonable to assume that… the service would be offered at that center, yes? Seems logical. why on earth would a caller assume Planned Parenthood offered prenatal services? It’s only listed on their website.
Here’s another fact of which Howard and Resnik may be unaware: Tempe isn’t the only Arizona Planned Parenthood falsely advertising prenatal care.
Under “pregnancy testing services,” prenatal care is listed in Central Phoenix, Chandler, Flagstaff, Mesa, Phoenix, NE Phoenix, Tucson, and Glendale:
The prominence of prenatal care on Arizona Planned Parenthood sites might explain why a Yellow Page search for “prenatal care clinics” in the state resulted in Planned Parenthood among many others:
