Today, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards testified before Congress in a hearing that lasted over five hours. (View the recording here.)
At three specific moments, Richards revealed the real truth about Planned Parenthood to Congress, and the American public – whether she meant to or not.
1) Planned Parenthood will wholeheartedly deny its abortion focus.
While Richards did admit that Planned Parenthood considers abortion to be “health care” (what other procedure that rips arms and legs off a human being do we consider as ‘health care’?), she also rejected a graph that quoted Planned Parenthood’s own numbers.
This article explains how Planned Parenthood has decreased life-saving women’s services while increasing abortions at the same time:
[T]he graph showed that in 2006, Planned Parenthood had performed 2,007,371 cancer screening and prevention services, but that in 2013, that number had dropped significantly to 935,573. Additionally, the graph showed that in 2006, 289,750 abortions were performed by Planned Parenthood, in contrast to an increased 327,000 performed in 2013. Richards refused to recognize the truth of the graph – which used Planned Parenthood’s own numbers.
Richards assured the committee that this slide was from Americans United for Life and “absolutely does not reflect what happens at Planned Parenthood.”
However, the numbers used in the graph just so happen to be taken from Planned Parenthood’s own annual reports. Oops. Thanks, Ms. Richards, for once again telling the truth that Planned Parenthood will deny its abortion focus over and over.
2) Planned Parenthood will walk to the gallows claiming that women are lost without the abortion giant.
Number of women served by Planned Parenthood annually, compared to total women of reproductive age in the United States.
Representative Diane Black, sponsor of the bill to redirect Planned Parenthood’s funding to the over 13,000 comprehensive health care centers in the nation, had a chance to question Richards.
The over 13,000 community and federally qualified health care centers already have much better statistics when it comes to adequately serving women. Here are just a few of those stats:
These CHCs, along with other federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) have over 13,500 locations nationwide (compared to Planned Parenthood’s 665). They serve eight times the number of people Planned Parenthood sees, at over 21 million a year, compared to PP’s 2.7 million.
The CHCs have stellar records on how many low-income women receive cancer screenings and breast exams (85.2 and 74.5 percent) – rivaling the national average for women of any income bracket (73.1 and 81.2 percent). Planned Parenthood, not so much. Their record is dismal, and the numbers show it: somewhere between 17 and 32 percent of their patients receive similar screenings. Add this to the fact that 62 percent of “uninsured women received recommended mammography screening” at CHCs, and 0 percent received them at Planned Parenthood because – as a nationwide Live Action investigation demonstrated – PP doesn’t even offer this service.
Rep. Black brought up Richards’ earlier claim that Black’s bill would “block” women’s health care. She informed Richards that, in addition to keeping all the money designated for women’s health care at health care centers that serve low-income women, the bill also added $235 million more to women’s health care.
Despite this enlightening information, Richards still insisted that the bill would be “blocking” women’s health care if passed. Classifying a grant of an additional $235 million for women’s health care as “blocking” access to health care is beyond all reasonable logic. We are, though, speaking of Planned Parenthood.
3) Planned Parenthood absolutely insists it never, ever, ever breaks the law.
Cecile Richards said – twice – that “We follow all the laws at the state and federal level.” In fact, she said Planned Parenthood does this “every day.”
While she did admit at one point that Planned Parenthood will correct things when necessary, she never agreed that the abortion giant has conclusively broken the law on multiple occasions.
Interesting, especially considering the $4.3 million settlement Planned Parenthood made in Texas for Medicaid fraud. (Pretty sure that’s illegal.) Also interesting, considering this legal report that highlights even more explicit Medicaid fraud and this legal report that reveals Planned Parenthood repeatedly breaks reporting laws in regards to minor girls and child sexual abuse.
In at least seven states, minor girls were returned to their rapists and abusers, after being given an abortion or other ‘services’ by Planned Parenthood. The states were not notified of the child abuse, as required under law.
But Planned Parenthood follows all federal and state laws every day, right?
We haven’t even touched on how Planned Parenthood breaks the law and violates federal and state regulations on baby body part sales and killing babies born alive after attempted abortions.
