Congressional Republicans have put forward a new health care bill that would ostensibly replace Obamacare — and could potentially defund Planned Parenthood. The American Healthcare Act would remove employer and individual mandates, as well as replace Obamacare’s subsidies with tax credits. It also prohibits taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.
Planned Parenthood immediately began lobbying against the bill, and their allies in Congress have been fighting for them to retain their taxpayer funding. This includes Senator Chuck Schumer, who tweeted that the new health care bill would hurt women’s health care, depriving them of valuable service that Planned Parenthood provides:
#Trumpcare cuts @PPFA funds, hurting millions of women who turn there for mammograms, maternity care, cancer screenings & more. pic.twitter.com/8ZmgEPZikv
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 7, 2017
This is, of course, a blatant lie.
Currently, Planned Parenthood receives half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding each year. From 2012-2015, they took in a staggering $1.5 billion. Prenatal care, which Planned Parenthood has repeatedly claimed to provide, is something that few of their clinics provide, as evidenced by a Live Action investigation:
It’s not just prenatal care that Planned Parenthood skimps on; they also provide very few adoption referrals. For every one child that is referred out for adoption, Planned Parenthood aborts 160 preborn babies.
Planned Parenthood, along with their allies, also frequently claim that millions of women utterly rely on them for health care. But this is another lie; the reality is that Planned Parenthood serves only a small percentage of women. They perform less than 2% of all cancer screenings, less than 1% of all pap exams, and less than 2% of all breast exams… in the entire country.
Mammograms? Planned Parenthood likes to claim that they provide those, too. But this is another lie; Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms and never has.
Women do not need Planned Parenthood for health care. They are outnumbered 20 to 1 by comprehensive heath care clinics across the country, often in rural communities that Planned Parenthood does not serve. There are 1100 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) operating at 6000 sites around the country, and another 9000 community health care clinics. These care centers give comprehensive care to low-income Americans, including women of color, women living in rural communities, LGBTQ Americans, and young people. (Sorry, Chuck Schumer.)
Live Action founder and president, Lila Rose, also responded to Schumer’s tweet, pointing out the dishonesty in his argument.
“To try to justify $500 million a year in taxpayer funding for the nation’s biggest abortion chain, Sen. Schumer continues to parrot Planned Parenthood’s false talking points that it provides mammograms and ‘maternity care’,” Rose said.
“The reality is, Planned Parenthood does zero mammograms, performs less than two percent of women’s cancer screenings in the U.S., offers virtually no prenatal care, yet does over a third of the nation’s abortions — 887 abortions every day,” she continued. “Live Action’s recent investigation has shown that women wanting to keep their children who were seeking prenatal care at Planned Parenthoods across the country were consistently turned away, despite Planned Parenthood’s claims that its federal funding goes toward prenatal care. When subsequently asked, the abortion chain has refused to tell the media how many of its centers actually provide prenatal care.”
“In a previous investigation, Live Action found that despite Planned Parenthood’s frequent claims to the contrary, it never did mammograms, which CEO Cecile Richards was forced to finally admit in a congressional hearing in 2015,” she concluded. “Live Action’s investigations have dismantled Planned Parenthood’s talking points that attempt to justify its continued taxpayer funding. Clearly, Sen. Schumer, it’s time to redirect those federal funds to local health care providers that actually do mammograms, offer prenatal care, and provide more comprehensive health services to women.”
Women deserve better than Planned Parenthood. And they don’t deserve to be lied to, either. Planned Parenthood is an abortion corporation, plain and simple, and if Sen. Schumer was honestly concerned about women’s health care, then he would be fighting for the billions in taxpayer funding that Planned Parenthood receives to be redirected to comprehensive health care clinics instead — all without continuing to lie to his constituents in the process.
Editor’s Note 10/13/18: A figure stating that 94% of Planned Parenthood’s services to pregnant women are abortion was removed due to possible percentage inaccuracies.
