By Dave Andrusko
When I watched pro-abortion President Barack Obama’s “special message to Planned Parenthood Action Fund supporters,” I immediately thought of an observation that is both 100% true and might also qualify as the understatement of 2011: “President Obama has demonstrated his deep commitment to protecting federal funding for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the nation’s largest abortion provider.” (The Action Fund is Planned Parenthood’s political arm.)
Pick any metaphor you want: joined at the hip; working cheek by jowl; as close as two coats of paint. They only begin to tell you how closely Obama has worked with this $1 billion corporation to expand on the 329,000+ abortions PPFA performs each year.
You can watch Obama’s message online. This is how its contents are described:
“President Obama knows how important women’s health is, and he respects the right of every woman to make her own medical decisions. Watch the video to see his special message to Planned Parenthood Action Fund supporters — and then sign our letter thanking him for standing strong for women’s health.”
With his administration in full re-election mode, what would you expect the President to say?
Of course, that Republicans are intent on “denying women the care they depend on” as contrasted with the selfless PPFA whose “mission is protecting women’s health.”
And that women (he tells us indignantly) “are not an interest group,” as if the Obama re-election team is not placing enormous effort into carrying a sizable majority of women come this fall. (In 2008 Obama enjoyed a 12 point advantage among women over Republican John McCain.)
And that thanks to PPFA, there is “the woman with a new lease on life because a mammogram caught her cancer.” But as became clear during the offensive against the Komen Race for the Cure, PPFA does not perform mammograms.
There is an unspoken understanding that abortion will go unspoken. Never does that word escape his lips, only a couple of references to “politicians” (read those rascally Republicans) who would “inject themselves into decisions that are best made between a woman and her doctor.”
At the risk of stating the obvious (and answering it at the same time), why is PPFA so afraid to even whisper (even in a message intended for the faithful) the word a-b-o-r-t-i-o-n?
Maybe because it might get people to thinking about what PPFA’s own factsheet tell us–– that nearly one out of every eight women was an abortion patient in 2009. And that at going rates for first-trimester abortions, the 329,445 abortions done at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2009 would have represented at least $148.6 million in income. (The figure is actually higher because PPFA also performs more expensive abortions.)
Barack Obama and PPFA–surely they deserve one another.
( A tip of the hat to Jill Stanek.)
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