Yesterday’s vote to overturn an Obama-era rule forcing states to fund Planned Parenthood may have been close, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a tie in the Senate, but it shows the nation’s largest abortion business is still on borrowed time.
Desperation has been at an all-time high at Planned Parenthood since the devastating loss of their 30 million dollar investment in the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. More bad news arrived this week with the release of a new video from the Center for Medical Progress, the bold little group of guerilla journalists whose exposés of the abortion industry’s sordid underbelly have had Cecile Richards and company bracing for the next P.R. crisis for over a year and a half.
The previously unreleased footage shows Dr. DeShawn Taylor, former Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Arizona and longtime abortion provider at Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, graphically describing the techniques used to harvest babies’ organs in late-term abortions. If a baby happens to be born alive? Well, state law says that child must receive medical care like any other, but on Taylor’s watch, “the key is, you need to pay attention to who’s in the room.”
Taylor – a protégé of Dr. Deborah Nucatola, who infamously discussed the finer points of harvesting and pricing hearts, lungs, livers, and brains over wine and salad in CMP’s first video – describes the force needed to dismember a five-month-old unborn baby that hasn’t first been killed with the drug digoxin: “My biceps appreciate when the dig[oxin] works…[when] I was training, I was like, oh, I have to hit the gym for this.”
The new video is another blow to the narrative Planned Parenthood’s spin machine, eagerly abetted by a compliant press, has been furiously churning out.
First came a television ad in which they attempted to rebrand themselves as – of all things – a crisis pregnancy center. Airing during Morning Joe and Fox & Friends, the ad featured a lovely young woman recounting what can only be called an act of grace she experienced at a Planned Parenthood facility. The woman had gone there to obtain an abortion. According to the ad, the nurse, sensing her client was still uncertain, suggested that she go home and come back when she was ready. The woman took the advice and is now the mother of an adorable toddler.
Savor the irony for a moment. Planned Parenthood, which has vigorously opposed waiting periods, characterizing them as “attacks” they must defeat, now endorses waiting periods!
Their latest ad aims straight for the heartstrings by featuring a breast cancer survivor who credits Planned Parenthood with saving her life, even though the context suggests she discovered the tumor through her own self-examination, and Planned Parenthood is not equipped to do mammograms.
The truth is that such beautiful and life-affirming outcomes are unusually rare at Planned Parenthood. Based on their own annual reports, we know that 94 percent of pregnant women who approach their clinics nationwide leave having been sold an abortion.
We can also see that from 2005 to 2015 – the most recent year for which figures are available – total cancer screening and prevention services are down 66 percent; breast exams are down 57 percent. No wonder the release of their annual report for 2016 is several months overdue. What inconvenient numbers are hidden there?
Live Action has brilliantly exposed just how lopsided the odds against life are at Planned Parenthood through their own series of investigative videos. They measured the difference between spin and reality by directly contacting over 160 Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide. Their findings are striking: the vast majority of facilities they contacted could do nothing to help a caller seeking prenatal care or an ultrasound to determine the baby’s health, while employees commented, “We specialize in abortions” and “It’s called Planned Parenthood, I know it’s kind of deceiving.”
If there is one thing Planned Parenthood knows how to do, it’s damage control. We’ve all heard their mantra that such videos are “heavily edited” and have somehow been discredited, a claim that has so mesmerized their mainstream media allies that there is no need to bother with proof. Each new release comes with a predictable set of rationalizations: it wasn’t our fault if people got the impression prenatal care was a core service here. Everyone is just out to get us – who are you going to believe, us, or your own lying eyes? Meanwhile, in a transparent admission of guilt, Planned Parenthood was busily scrubbing affiliates’ websites of references to prenatal care.
Caught up by employees’ own words, the 100-year-old behemoth may finally have more damage than control. As long as Planned Parenthood had a friend in the White House, they could rest easy. That has all changed now. They weren’t counting on President Trump playing hardball, making them what should have been an offer they couldn’t refuse, if in fact their foremost concern was women’s health: stop doing abortions and keep your funding.
When push came to shove, they chose abortion.
Planned Parenthood is an abortion business. Not a kindly pregnancy resource center. Not a health care provider. The failure of the AHCA bill last week was a missed opportunity to reroute 442 million dollars in federal funding to a nationwide network of community health centers that outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities more than 20 to 1 – and that deserve taxpayers’ trust infinitely more. Disappointing as that was, it is not the last chance. Congress can use budget reconciliation, but it must be done urgently, before legislators leave town for their spring break. More than ever, Congress needs to know the truth that American taxpayers have their back when it comes to funding health care and not abortion. Approximately 900 unborn children die each day Planned Parenthood operates. It’s imperative not to miss the opportunity again.
