Monday, March 7, 2011

Myth busted: Planned Parenthood and federal funding

Kirsten Powers at The Daily Beast has a devastating op-ed concerning Planned Parenthood's federal funding. (It's worth noting this web site isn't exactly right-wing journalism.) She points to studies showing that Planned Parenthood's strategy of providing cheaper birth control doesn't actually lead to fewer abortions.
Over this time period [2000-2011], the U.S. government has funneled billions of dollars to Planned Parenthood, in large part because the organization claims to provide services to avoid unplanned pregnancies – a laudable goal. Yet despite a robust budget—Planned Parenthood reported a total annual revenue of $1.1 billion in its last financial filing—the organization has done absolutely nothing to change the fundamental dynamics of the United States’ abortion rate.

Asked about the “Contraception” study, the Guttmacher numbers and why no women were saying they got abortions due to lack of access to contraception, a Planned Parenthood spokesman emailed this Orwellian response: “I think the biggest barrier is access to affordable contraception.” Huh?
Powers goes on to say:
It’s unclear whether Planned Parenthood officials simply don’t understand statistics or are so accustomed to having their claims unquestioned that they think if they repeat them often enough, the facts will disappear.
I suspect the latter.

This quote pretty much sums it up:
To preserve its federal subsidy, Planned Parenthood continues to claim that without its contraception services the abortion rate will go up. This deception smacks of a fleecing of taxpayers in an effort to promote an ideological agenda, rather than a sincere effort to help women plan families.
That's what some of us have been saying for years, but it turns out Orwellian propaganda really does work.

4 comments:

  1. Is there a word for the conflicting feelings of satisfaction at having one's suspicions confirmed and shuddering dread because of what those suspicions were?

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  2. @Ben: schadenfreude seems close enough

    @Jameson: spot on

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  3. Well, Schadenfreude would imply happiness at the actual misfortune; the only satisfaction here is in being right.

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  4. Nah, you should be happy that their tactics are coming to light, which is a misfortune for them, because they've been trying to conceal them for so long

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