Promises, Promises - Part 2: The Republican Attack On Planned Parenthood

During the campaign the Republicans promised that jobs were going to be top priority, now they are in power we find out that their real number one priority was to do the bidding of the far right Christian conservatives. In an opinion column in the New York Times on February 5, Gail Collins writes,

As if we didn’t have enough wars, the House of Representatives has declared one against Planned Parenthood.

Maybe it’s all part of a grand theme. Last month, they voted to repeal the health care law. This month, they’re going after an organization that provides millions of women with both family-planning services and basic health medical care, like pap smears and screening for diabetes, breast cancer, cervical cancer and sexually transmitted diseases.
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Planned Parenthood doesn’t use government money to provide abortions; Congress already prohibits that, except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. (Another anti-abortion bill that’s coming up for hearing originally proposed changing the wording to “forcible rape,” presumably under the theory that there was a problem with volunteer rape victims. On that matter at least, cooler heads prevailed.)

The use of federal funds was banded a long time ago Hyde Amendment in 1997 banned abortions, except in the case to protect the mother. So the Republican attack on Planned Parenthood is not about abortion, instead it is an attack directed solely at Planned Parenthood.

In Feministe, Jill wrote,

It’s pathetic, but the media is biting, and anti-choice congressmen are pushing bills that would cut federal funds to Planned Parenthood because of PP’s status as an abortion provider. But more than 90 percent of the services offered by Planned Parenthood are preventative; abortion makes up a tiny fraction of what the organization does. PP provides contraception for nearly 2.5 million patients every year; four million tests and treatments for STIs, including HIV; nearly one million life-saving screenings for cervical cancer; and more than 830,000 breast exams. One in four American women has received care from Planned Parenthood. I certainly have — I was able to get an annual exam and contraception for free at a time when I didn’t have insurance. I was very thankful that PP was there when I needed them.

The effort to defund Planned Parenthood got a boost from the same conservative organization that did the hatch job on ACORN. When all the accusations were investigated they found that no laws were broken…

Brown Releases Report Detailing a Litany of Problems with ACORN, But No Criminality
SAN DIEGO - California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today released a report, including newly obtained videotapes, that shows some members of the community organizing group ACORN engaged in "highly inappropriate behavior," but committed no violation of criminal laws.
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Videotapes secretly recorded last summer and severely edited by O'Keefe seemed to show ACORN employees encouraging a "pimp" (O'Keefe) and his "prostitute," actually a Florida college student named Hannah Giles, in conversations involving prostitution by underage girls, human trafficking and cheating on taxes. Those videos created a media sensation.

Evidence obtained by Brown tells a somewhat different story, however, as reflected in three videotapes made at ACORN locations in California. One ACORN worker in San Diego called the cops. Another ACORN worker in San Bernardino caught on to the scheme and played along with it, claiming among other things that she had murdered her abusive husband. Her two former husbands are alive and well, the Attorney General's report noted. At the beginning and end of the Internet videos, O'Keefe was dressed as a 1970s Superfly pimp, but in his actual taped sessions with ACORN workers, he was dressed in a shirt and tie, presented himself as a law student, and said he planned to use the prostitution proceeds to run for Congress. He never claimed he was a pimp.

The same people were involved with the video that was released against Planned Parenthood, using the same tactics.

What disturbs me more than the questionable tactics and editing is the fact that it was filmed in the doctor’s office. I don’t know about you, but when I go to a doctor’s office I want him to tell me all options that are available to me and I do not want the doctor worrying about if there is a hidden camera recording what he is telling me.