The Empire Strikes Back
By Dave Andrusko
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Long before the House of
Representatives adopted an amendment offered by Congressman Mike
Pence (R-In.) to cut off federal funds to the Planned Parenthood
Federation of America (PPFA) and 102 named PPFA affiliates, we
can be sure that the “largest abortion provider” in the United
States had a game plan mapped out to be used on a much more
hospitable Senate.
In one sense the outcome in the House came as no shock to PPFA.
There is a strong pro-life majority and strong pro-life
Republican leadership. But in another sense—the margin of
240-185— probably did surprise Planned Parenthood.
But that PPFA would gear up, using a bogus survey, to try to win
a reprieve in the Democratically-controlled Senate was as
inevitable as the weasel-wording it used in its survey.
In today’s POLITICO story written by Ben Smith and Sarah Kliff,
PPFA insists that bad (from their perspective) is actually good.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told them, “the
attempt to cut the group’s funding provided ‘a real opportunity
to do what we’ve been trying to do for the last five years — to
say that these are not political issues but, rather, issues of
women’s health and to get out of this being such an
intellectual, rights-based conversation to where it is such a
fundamental matter of women’s health.’”
Warming to her task Richards added, “Going after the strongest
brand in women’s health in America is one of the stupidest
things the Republican Party could have done.”
But, of course, the real stupidity would be anyone who puts a
grain of salt in the survey, conducted by the Democratic firm
Public Policy Polling. Let’s see why.
First, as Smith and Kliff point out, paraphrasing from a memo by
pollster Tom Jensen, the survey was “worded to begin by
informing respondents of Planned Parenthood’s most popular
services.” So, for example, “64 percent of voters oppose efforts
to bar funding for the organization’s screenings for breast
cancer.” There’s a surprise.
Second, the “A” word—abortion—is never used in the survey. Most
people still don’t know that PPFA annually performs a quarter of
all abortions in the United States--332,278 abortions in 2009,
for example. So when Smith and Kliff write, “The survey
suggests, though, that Americans don’t automatically identify a
fight over the group’s funding with abortions,” all you say
is….duh. That is the connection that PPFA has hidden for
decades.
Speaking of which, third, when PPFA is forced to acknowledge
that it is not an idle bystander, the organization attempts (as
it evidently did in this survey) to make abortion sound like a
trivial part of its “services.” Unsaid but implied is that the
revenue from slaughtering unborn babies barely pays the utility
bills.
NRLC Director of Education Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon has
unpackaged that slippery bookkeeping on many occasions (see
http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/May10/nv051210.html). The
gist is that it’s like selling a six-pack of coke and counting
every bottle as an individual “service.”
And the revenue from abortion is absolutely pivotal to PPFA’s
bottom line, which is why according to press reports, PPFA has
recently mandated that all of its regional affiliates must
provide abortions by the end of 2013.
How important? At going rates, the 332,278 abortions Planned
Parenthood is now reporting for 2009 would represent at least
$149.9 million in revenues, more than a third of Planned
Parenthood's total clinic income for the year. The actual figure
is probably much higher, as Planned Parenthood promotes and
performs more expensive chemical and later surgical abortions.
None of this even touches all the other "services" sold with the
abortion.
There is another “one-third” number. It refers to the one-third
of PPFA’s total $1.1 billion budget that comes from various
levels of government , including at least $88.7 million in 2008
from the federal government.
It’ll be a real fight in the Senate against hard-core
pro-abortion advocates. We only ask that PPFA’s real
up-to-its-elbow-involvement in abortion is laid out on the table
for all to see.
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Part Two
Part Three |
