At last week’s presidential debate (boxing match?), President Barack Obama’s obsession with Planned Parenthood came through loud and clear. At one point, among the six times he mentioned the abortion organization, he defended the nation’s largest and richest private abortion provider by saying that it deserves your support through taxpayer dollars because it offers preventative women’s health care with things like mammograms. To be precise, the president said:
. . . there are millions of women all across the country, who rely on Planned Parenthood for, not just contraceptive care, they rely on it for mammograms . . .
That statement is one in a long line of attacks on pro-life, conservative Americans who have for years fought to end forced taxpayer subsidization of the $1 billion abortion conglomerate. As with most of the other attacks, it is completely false.
Simply put, Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer mammograms. In fact, if the president is accurate, then Planned Parenthood is actually violating federal law and is subject to tens of thousands of dollars in fines!
According to Casey Mattox, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom:
Planned Parenthood is breaking the law because it has no license to perform mammograms. As this letter from the Obama Administration’s own Department of Health and Human Services confirms, no Planned Parenthood clinic anywhere in the country is certified to perform mammograms. The Mammogram Quality Standards Act, administered by the Obama HHS, says that “[n]o facility may conduct an examination or procedure . . . involving mammography” without a certification from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As the FDA explains, there is a good reason Congress wanted to make sure that women were receiving mammograms only from licensed providers: “Congress passed this law in 1992 to assure high-quality mammography for early breast cancer detection, which can lead to early treatment, a range of treatment options, and increased chances of survival.” The MQSA is a women’s health and safety law, and its licensing requirement is designed to ensure that the mammogram a woman receives is accurate and dependable. Planned Parenthood does not have that required license.
There you have it: If the president is correct, Planned Parenthood routinely violates federal law. If he is not, he simply is lying (or is so misinformed it’s frightening) about what Planned Parenthood actually does as part of its defenders’ perpetual effort by to paint the abortion conglomerate as focused on “women’s health care” when it is actually all about abortion (about 97 percent of its business comes from abortions).
Once again, the secular left is attempting to paint those who oppose forcing taxpayers to subsidize the nation’s largest abortion organization as being opposed to “women’s health care” — thus the contrived and phony “war on women.” It is, in fact, Planned Parenthood that has consistently lied about its services and opposed every effort to make its abortion centers safer for women. So, are we really against women’s health care? Or, is the Left just redefining “women’s health care” as it redefines everything else?
Here you go again.
Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms and has never said it does. Women rely on Planned Parenthood for access mammograms because they almost always require a physician referral. Women who don’t have a regular doctor, or whose regular doctor is a Planned Parenthood doctor, get that physician referral, mammogram access and follow up from Planned Parenthood.
Why don’t you take 30 seconds to do research before you post? This has become the Steve Rossie/Victoria Cobb temper tantrum page.
Mr. Jackson: Perhaps you need to reread the post. Nowhere in it does it say PP claims it does mammograms. It says the President said so during the second debate. We then quoted Casey Mattox as to the ramifications if PP did provide them in violation of FDA regulations. – Steve, The Admin
Nope. The President didn’t say it either, Steve. What he said is that people rely on Planned Parenthood for mammograms. What I said stands. They rely on it for access to mammograms. Which makes this editorial about how they don’t provide them in their own offices a pointless exercise.
Nice try. He said they “rely on PP for mammograms.” Not that they rely on it for referrals. Maybe he was misinformed or maybe he was trying to mislead or have it both ways. The larger point is that abortion is about 97 percent of PP’s business. Our tax dollars should not go to it, especially as it is a private concern that makes millions of dollars. Or maybe this is part of his jobs program. – Steve, The Admin
Now you’re just being silly. I rely on my doctor for x-rays but he doesn’t perform them and he sends me somewhere else to get them. I don’t just appear at a radiologist’s office.
There are plenty of negative things to say about the President and Planned Parenthood. You don’t need to make stuff up.
You can’t pretend to expose a lie by telling one. Being pro-life and anti- Planned Parenthood doesn’t mean anyone has to be pro-BS. This blog entry is BS.
David, say what you will, but the context of the president’s remarks were what they were. You can go anywhere from a free clinic to a primary care physician to get that referral. PP is not necessary and there’s nothing “silly” about 97 percent of its business being abortions. Very few women rely on PP for mammograms. But I am heartened to know that you think there is plenty on which to criticize the president and PP. – Steve, The Admin
I am critical of the President and of Planned Parenthood, but you are at least equally deserving of the same kind of criticism for misleading people. You accused the President of lying, then pointed out penalties that could accrue to Planned Parenthood lying, about mammograms. Neither of them is lying. That is what I addressed. You cannot take the high ground if you engage in the same behavior you attempt to criticize. The RTD, of all places, indirectly criticized your organization for “tissue thin” rationales only last week.
Whether or not Planned Parenthood is “necessary” is up to its patients, not lobbyists. I believe that some of the services it provides are worthy of the same federal funding that other providers (like the free clinics you mentioned) get to do the same things. This is apples to apples. Your position seems to be that if this funding helps the organization exist at all, in any way shape or form, it is unacceptable because the organization performs abortions. The logical extension of your argument is that all taxpayer funding for hospitals that perform abortions should be denied also. But I don’t see you clamoring for that. Someday perhaps we will have a discussion about it. Right now this comment thread is getting too long, and you have more time to respond since it’s your job to do so. But I encourage you to make your criticisms based on facts, not the kind of questionable interpolations that are found in this entry.
David, the president has made the statement flat out (“PP provides mammograms”) on several occasions, including on The Tonight Show. He parsed his words slightly at the debate, but conveyed the same meaning as it was interpreted by almost all analysts afterward and any clear listening viewer. Look it up. I’m sure you will offer a retraction once you see the Tonight Show video. Meanwhile, please point out where you have been critical of Planned Parenthood or the president. Certainly not on this blog, that I can recall, where you are a one way critic (which is your right). Go ahead. Please tell me what your objections to PP and the president are. Would love to know.
I post regularly all over the place, but here are a few:
Planned Parenthood prescribes RU-486 off label in violation of Federal requirements, which is extremely dangerous. Planned Parenthood seems to think telemedicine and patient visits are the same thing. President Obama spends too much time in attack mode and is feeding the division of the country (so are you, by the way). President Obama has not closed Guantanamo. I have lots of them, but those are some since you asked.
My criticism about this entry is that it tries to make a single point and fails to make it. The exploration of what penalties Planned Parenthood would suffer for providing mammograms illegally is ludicrous, since they don’t provide them. You said in your reply that “the larger point is….”, which is all well and good except you haven’t made the larger point in this entry — although you’ve made it elsewhere. This one just seems petty to me.
I am a critic of Family Foundation in numerous entries here, but you will notice that it’s often for being misleading, not necessarily for your underlying positions — just how you go about explaining and promoting them. Using construction regulations as a values referendum on abortion was an egregious misuse of the regulatory process, for instance. The pretense that Family Foundation was suddenly a women’s health and safety organization was absurd. I asked Victoria Cobb, in my comments on her entries, where Family Foundation was when women were suffering and dying from leaky breast implants and dangerous liposuctions and plastic surgery. The answer, of course, is nowhere.. Deception is never honorable even in the pursuit of an honorable goal. “The ends justify the means” is not one of the ten commandments.
On the subject of abortions, convincing research (including “Real Choices” by pro-life Christian writer Frederica Mathewes-Green, a good place to start) shows that women who have had abortions stated that they would not have done so if they’d had someone to stand by them — just one person. None of them said they wouldn’t have had them if they had felt more trapped (they felt trapped already), been made to wait longer or make more trips, or been legally restricted. Crisis pregnancy centers could fill this void more effectively if they didn’t present clients with a religious imperative upon entry. Food for thought about how to proceed.
David: I do appreciate your reply and your time for this dialogue, though I don’t agree with your claims that we mislead. The President has made the mammogram claim many times, even on The Tonight Show. I believe he meant the same thing, though phrased differently, in the debate.
It is interesting that you brought up PRCs. PP and NARAL attempted to shut them down through legislation a couple of years ago in the GA and used a bogus report they wrote as the basis for their accusations about the “evils” PRCs were doing. If they were truly for choice, they wouldn’t care about PRCs. It was us and maybe one or two other organizations fighting for them. Where were those who say they believe in “choice” and freedom?
Finally, it is interesting that during the Board of Health meeting that the PP advocates, who for years opposed ONLY an inspections bill, publicly claimed that inspections are a good idea (because the truth came out after our FOIA request). Also of interest, after years of saying that building regulations would put them out of business, every abortion center told the Health Dept. that they intend to comply. Talk about misleading. – Steve, The Admin
Sorry, meant to provide a link to Fredrica Mathewes-Green’s essay, “from Pro-Choice to Pro-Life.” You will notice that it is not shrill.
http://www.frederica.com/writings/from-pro-choice-to-pro-life.html
Thanks for the link. But shrill isn’t us. It’s the mob protestors at the capitol last last session.
I think each side thinks the other side is shrill. That’s a big part of the problem. Perception is reality.
Our people didn’t try to storm a General Assembly committee meeting, nor yell and scream at the Board of Health meeting. Just saying. You’re right, though. I can’t argue perception (perpetuated by certain institutions). But I can present facts. David, thanks for your comments. It’s nice to engage. I hope we can find areas to agree upon in the near future.