The Planned Parenthood Media Machine

We found out yesterday that the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation had plans to cease funding Planned Parenthood grants. We also found out that Planned Parenthood has the media wrapped around its little finger. We heard how "thousands of women... [may] pay the biggest price" for Komen's decision. We heard about all those poor women who will no longer have access to breast cancer screenings. We heard how Komen was giving into right-wing propaganda.

On facebook, faithful (read: brainless) supporters of Planned Parenthood posted pictures like this to express their disdain for pro-lifers:

And Planned Parenthood made the controversy into a fundraiser.

Here are some facts:

1. Planned Parenthood doesn't do mammograms. This fact doesn't prevent people in the media from mindlessly repeating that "37 million poor women may not be able to get mammography."
2. Planned Parenthood does sell abortions. Why, they even sell gift cards!
3. Planned Parenthood is under federal investigation for offenses ranging from misallocation of funds to covering up statutory rape and sex trafficking.

Now let's process these facts. Does a person who supports health care for women have to support Planned Parenthood? No. Should a responsible person be concerned about the ethical implications of Planned Parenthood's business practices? Yes.

Today, however, SGK announced that they are reversing their decision. Jill Stanek thinks this isn't quite what it seems. She says, "This is Komen’s attempt to get the abortion mafia off their backs."

And there you have it. "The abortion mafia." That is exactly what PP is running, and has been for years.

A lot of us (including myself) spend a lot of time worrying about all the special interest groups that run our country, including the big businesses that get a lot of money funneled into their bank accounts. Why is Planned Parenthood considered angelic by so many people on the left? As if they are any more than an ideological organization bent on promoting their agenda of greater tolerance for irresponsible sexual behavior and, of course, abortion.

Poor women can get health care through numerous channels. If PP is their only recourse for sexual health, then friends, we call that a monopoly. And no one likes government funded monopolies, do they? Especially when such a monopoly is explicitly ideologically driven.

So when do we get to call PP exactly what it is? It's a big, evil, scary corporation. And it wants your undying loyalty, so that you can never imagine how we would ever live without them.

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.

Did we really expect anything different?

Planned Parenthood is an organization whose moral compass is so totally backward that its employees can look directly at the bloody corpse of an aborted fetus and not repent. Is it really any wonder that its employees would see nothing wrong with an underage sex ring?