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NRL News
Page 14
Fall 2012
Volume 39
Issue 4
Planned Parenthood and Obama:
Exchanging Political Favors
By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.
Although Planned Parenthood’s formal endorsement of President Barack
Obama did not come until May 31, the two have long had a symbiotic,
mutually beneficial relationship. How far PPFA is willing to go to
re-elect him became increasingly apparent to those who watch
politics carefully but is a complete mystery to the ordinary
citizen. What they “know” is the PPFA line that is routinely
repeated by the media: abortion constitutes only “3 percent” of its
“services” and PPFA is the very embodiment of “good medicine.”
Politics? Never heard of the word.
In fact PPFA’s political arm–Planned Parenthood Action
Center–endorsed Obama in 2008 and then worked to corral votes for
him and other pro-abortion candidates. They said they sent out
nearly three million pieces of mail supporting Obama and opposing
Sen. John McCain, knocking on over 100,000 doors and making 500,000
phone calls in nine key battleground states, contacting over a
million voters altogether.
It was an effort that paid real dividends to Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards was invited to the
health care summit at the White House. Over the next few years,
Richards was a frequent visitor to the White House and was a leading
advocate for ObamaCare (which, it should be noted, opened the door
to more government funds for the organization).
When Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a “final
rule” mandating that groups, including religious schools and
hospitals, provide health insurance plans that cover certain birth
control drugs and procedures, even if that violate the groups
religious and moral beliefs, it ignited a firestorm of opposition.
When Obama came up with a bogus “accommodation,” he made sure to
check with Planned Parenthood
Writing a puff piece on Richards for The Nation (3/26/12), reporter
Karen Mitchell tells what happened.
“Planned Parenthood endorsed Obama (only the second presidential
endorsement in its history); he returned the favor in conference
calls, White House meeting invitations and a promise to veto the
budget bill if it defunded Planned Parenthood. When hammering out a
compromise for the Catholic bishops on contraceptive coverage this
year, Obama placed three phone calls–one of them to Cecile
Richards.”
Obama’s Justice Department returned the favor. It was there to
intervene in 2011 when Indiana passed a law to route family planning
monies away from organizations such as PPFA that perform abortions
to alternatives such as local hospitals and health centers. Planned
Parenthood of Indiana stood to lose about $3 million.
This election cycle Planned Parenthood is politically busier than
ever on behalf of Obama. Months before its latest endorsement, the
Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) launched its “Women Are
Watching” campaign and website (11/8/12).
The website says that “Women are Watching is Planned Parenthood
Action Fund’s 2012 campaign to educate women across the country
about the unprecedented attacks on women’s health and where
candidates stand on pivotal health care issues, empower women to
hold anti-women’s health candidates of either party accountable, and
work to elect pro-women’s health candidates up and down the ballot.”
If there is any doubt as to what Planned Parenthood means by
“women’s health,” the website notes that candidates are assessed on
their positions on birth control, sex education, and “access to safe
and legal abortion.” Barack Obama receives a “100%” score to go with
PPAF’s endorsement, while Romney gets “0%.”
Planned Parenthood aborts over 330,000 unborn babies every year. Yet
Planned Parenthood tries to downplay its commitment to abortion by
saying that it represents only 3% of its services. How can that be
when a 2009 Planned Parenthood factsheet confirmed that 12% of
Planned Parenthood’s clients–nearly one out of every eight women–was
an abortion patient?
PPFA comes up with the highly misleading 3% figure by counting every
pregnancy test, every box of condoms, every packet of birth control
pills, as well as every abortion, as a separate service, even when
these may be sold with the abortion, and even when abortion may cost
20 or 30 times what these other services cost.
Count the pregnancy test, the test for STDs, and the packet of birth
control pills with the abortion visit and all of a sudden, 3%
becomes 12%. And, to repeat, nearly one out of every eight PPFA
clients was an abortion patient. And that doesn’t even count those
who were considering abortion but only ended up not getting one
because their pregnancy test came back negative. How many “services”
did Planned Parenthood sell those young women?
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards was a featured speaker
at the Democratic National Convention, supporting Obama as a man who
“understands,” “trusts,” and “stands with women” (except those
unborn women, obviously), while complaining that Romney wants to get
rid of Planned Parenthood (he wants merely to cut off federal
funding) and overturn Roe v. Wade.
That was hardly the last of it. After spending $1.4 million on ads
in Iowa, Florida, and Virginia, Planned Parenthood began a new $3.2
million ad campaign in the critical swing states of Ohio and
Virginia. The first set of ads tells women that Romney wants to
“turn back the clock for women.”
Planned Parenthood is flooding mailboxes with the same message.
Women are Watching has also launched a bus tour, traveling to
Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and eight other so-called
“battleground states.” To coincide with the beginning of the
presidential debates, PPAF announced the launch of a new online
campaign called “ASK MITT”–“to generate enough online buzz so that
Romney ... is forced to answer for his record and agenda during the
debate.”
Back in 2004, shortly after Richards took the helm of the
organization, she bragged in a speech that Planned Parenthood had
more members, employees, and staff than the 50 state Democratic
parties combined. “[T]hat’s a lot of power,” Richards noted, and she
said, “We’re going to use it.”
Mitchell, the reporter from The Nation, notes how that Planned
Parenthood, because of its clientele of young, unmarried voters,
people of color, stands poised to fill the political vacuum left by
the demise of the community activist group ACORN. Planned
Parenthood’s three million patients are “potential pro-choice voters
and canvassers,” Mitchell points out. And of course, there is the
even larger group of Planned Parenthood’s activists, donors, and
supporters.
In 2008, Planned Parenthood developed Catalist, a national voter
file. Richards has been no less aggressive in the 2012 campaign.
Mitchell quotes Richards as saying,
“Because we have so many supporters … we use every new technology
for folks to take action from their homes, to contact their
representatives, to do block walking. We have seen an explosion in
social media for Planned Parenthood. Women are too busy to focus on
politics. They are too busy particularly in this economy. They don’t
have time to watch TV or follow politics. But they are on social
media. Women listen to other women. And they listen to Planned
Parenthood. And this will be the silent majority, but it will be a
majority of voters in 2012, all of whom communicate with each other
with less traditional means, but through a very powerful network.”
It is clear that Planned Parenthood’s campaign for women voters is
well funded and well organized.
Challenging the distortions will not be easy. Because of the years
of spin and diversion, many women falsely associate Planned
Parenthood with women’s health care and not realize how wedded to
abortion the organization is.
But National Right to Life has labored to get the truth out—and NRLC
has! Once people understand how brazen and deep is the commitment of
PPFA and Barack Obama to the destruction of human life, to the
exploitation of women for political purposes, the spin will falter
and the support will wilt.
They will know the truth and the truth will set them free.
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