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Washington Post story offers hints why PPFA is so intensely controversial

Oct 22, 2012

By Dave Andrusko
http://twitter.com/daveha

Cecile Richards, PPFA Presidsent

If you read/watch the way the “mainstream media” covers abortion, you know that collectively it treats Planned Parenthood with kid gloves. There is simply is no compliment too unctuous or too favorable not to make its way into  stories about the largest abortion provider in the world. (And, of course, that truism rarely makes its way into the narrative.)

So that’s why I was stunned, to put it mildly, when in her story about poor old PPFA, the Washington Post’s Sandhya Somashekhar actually included some of the reasons opposition is mounting to this over $1billion “non-profit” that grows more aggressive and more overtly partisan by the day.

The thrust of the story is about the attempt by various state legislatures  to route family planning monies to ethical alternatives such as local hospitals and health centers that are not involved in abortions.

To be sure Jill June, president of the behemoth known as Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, is given free rein to piously say, “The bad news is, the health and rights of women are center stage in the American political debate today. . . . It’s distracting. We are having to defend ourselves when what we want to do is provide services to people.”

Never mind that PP of the Heartland is gobbling up smaller PPFA clinics like the monster that devoured Cleveland. Its aggression is channeled into vastly multiplying the number of abortions, surgical and chemical. (PPH is on the cutting edge of “webcam” abortions, which allows the abortionist to be somewhere other than where the woman in ingesting powerful—and dangerous–abortifacients.)

But Somashekhar’s story also includes the following:

  • “Planned Parenthood has drawn criticism for taking an increasingly prominent role in politics, with its activity almost exclusively on behalf of Democrats.”
  • “On the political side, there is the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, a nonprofit ‘social welfare’ group that is permitted by the Internal Revenue Service to participate in politics. And there is Planned Parenthood Votes, a super PAC. Together, they are spending a record amount of money for Planned Parenthood on this year’s election — nearly $12 million, most of it attacking Republicans.”
  • “In addition, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, spoke at the Democratic National Convention and is on leave from the group to publicly campaign for President Obama.” Richards wears two hats: she is also president of Planned Parenthood!

Somashekhar unfortunately recycles PPFA’s hoariest talking point—“Abortion represents about 3 percent of what the group does.” That could not possibly be any more misleading: abortion is essential to Planned Parenthood’s mission and to its bottom line. 

As Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL-ETF Director of Education & Research, wrote just last week, “PPFA’s own documents reveal that not 3%, but 11% of the clients [nearly one in eight] coming through the door receive abortions.” He added, “At going rates for basic first trimester surgical abortions, the 329,445 abortions Planned Parenthood performs each year would represent at least $148.6 million in revenues. And note, this doesn’t even calculate the considerably more expensive chemical and later surgical abortions that many Planned Parenthood clinics advertise and perform.”

To come full circle, Somashekhar’s story is hardly flawless. But she at least introduces her audience to some of the of the many legitimate reasons PPFA is in such hot water with so many legislators. And “a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

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Categories: PPFA