It’s no secret that the media has a pro-abortion bias, completely dropping all pretense of neutrality, especially when it comes to Planned Parenthood.
Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood’s president and CEO, depends on this bias to keep people convinced that women need abortion, and that Planned Parenthood provides health care. It doesn’t matter whether or not these things are true; the media is all too happy to parrot whatever script Richards and Planned Parenthood are peddling at the moment. They don’t even try to hide it anymore; they’ve become completely brazen about it.
Richards was recently interviewed by Katie McDonough for Fusion magazine, and as is usual for the abortion-loving media, it was a total puff piece that served as nothing more than a platform to prop up Richards’ pro-Planned Parenthood talking points. Richards said:
In many states, we are the only abortion provider for many communities. So it’s not an unimportant part of the care that we provide at all. And in fact the 3% conversation really happened as Congress was voting to defund Planned Parenthood and saying that it was about reducing access to abortion, which it actually has the direct opposite effect.
Here, Richards is referring to Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortion only makes up 3% of their services. It’s hard to believe she is still peddling that one, even though she testified before Congress last year that 86% of Planned Parenthood’s non-governmental revenue comes from abortion. (Clearly, abortion is “not an unimportant part of the care” Planned Parenthood provides, as Richards said, if the organization is getting that much income from it. In fact, it may be their most important.) She continued:
What they were ending was access to birth control. So it was really more about making that point. But I’m very pleased at how a whole new generation of young activists, the reproductive justice community in particular, has really lifted up unapologetic storytelling about what women’s lives are really like. I do think we’ve really seen a change in the last five years. It’s been wonderful to see mainstream magazines now covering abortion stories of women and of men, of families, and beginning to get this conversation into the public sphere.
Look, one in three women in this country have had an abortion. This is not a rare occurrence, it’s something that women deal with every, you know, every woman at some point probably deals with some question around pregnancy and it’s important to have that conversation more open. And I think it’s also exciting, frankly, to see mainstream culture— including Hollywood—start talking about abortion in more realistic terms.
Cecile’s claim that one in three women has had an abortion has also been debunked. The website not1in3.com, authored by Secular Pro-Life, states:
The Jones & Kavanaugh study, which was published in 2011, contained an analysis of data only as recent as 2008. It wasn’t until three years after the study was published that reliable numbers were available through 2011. In 2014, Dr. Jones revealed the stunning news: between 2008 and 2011, abortion rates plummeted to the lowest level recorded since Roe v. Wade.
The 2011 study’s prediction that 3 in 10 American women would have an abortion came with an important caveat; it only applied if American women were “exposed to prevailing abortion rates throughout their reproductive lives.” Instead, there were almost 165,000 fewer abortions in 2011 than there were in 2008.
The positive trend shows no signs of stopping….
But mainstream magazines and media outlets are all too happy to let Richards say whatever she wants, and they won’t call her out on it. Fusion’s McDonough is the same writer who gushed over how pretty an abortion facility was, but stayed silent on the owner’s appalling history of racking up 76 pages of health violations and patient injuries, and didn’t mention how her facilities were forcibly closed. Nope, all that people needed to know was that the abortion facility was really, really pretty.
The media is all too happy to help Richards disseminate her propaganda, like the false claim that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms, like spreading debunked Planned Parenthood studies, or like minimizing the pro-life movement; they’re always there to do Planned Parenthood’s dirty work. They don’t even report on the dangers of abortion to women. No, they get their marching orders straight from Planned Parenthood and merrily do as they’re told.
The really insane thing is that media outlets don’t even try to hide it anymore. Richards and her friends in the media are completely open about their pro-abortion bias. They will lie right to our faces, which is exactly why pro-lifers are so important. We must speak up where the media will not, to educate people and change hearts and minds.
