The beast that is Planned Parenthood continues to bite the hands that feed it.
When Congress reconvenes in September, representatives have until the end of the month to hash out a federal funding bill. Planned Parenthood alleges that Republicans will try to force a government shutdown because they intend to stop taxpayer funding of the organization in the bill. In retaliation to this perceived threat, Planned Parenthood is running ads that target Republican senators in several states where those senators are vulnerable in next year’s elections. Planned Parenthood also says that it has collected over 900,000 signatures from people who want taxpayers to keep footing the bill for the gargantuan non-profit.
Via Politico:
Planned Parenthood, under assault from conservatives and at risk of losing its government funding, is firing back at critics with a new ad campaign and alleging their real aim is to outlaw abortion.
After weeks of bad PR over videos of its executives discussing fetal tissue and organs, the group is unveiling a six-figure broadcast and cable ad buy Tuesday that will run in the states of four vulnerable Republican senators, according to details obtained by POLITICO. The lawmakers could be key to deciding whether a fight over the group’s funding triggers a federal government shutdown this fall.
“First, Pat Toomey voted to defund Planned Parenthood — risking health care for millions of women. Now, Republicans want to shut down the government — to block funding for Planned Parenthood. What would a shutdown mean for Pennsylvania?” a narrator asks in the 30-second spot. It’s followed by a veteran, a senior citizen, a mother with a toddler and small-business owner asking what a shutdown would mean for various government programs, such as Social Security and Head Start.
Similar spots will target Republican Sens. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire and Rob Portman in Ohio.
Although the Politico article states that 18 Republican House members will not support a spending bill that allows public funding of Planned Parenthood, people within the GOP say that rumors of shutting down the government to defund Planned Parenthood are a pack of lies.
Andrea Bozek, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said it is Democrats who are “cheerleading a government shutdown.”
“Voters didn’t fall for their manufactured crises in 2014, and they won’t in 2016,” she said in an e-mail. “None of these senators are remotely considering shutting down the government. It’s sad, but not surprising, that Democrats would exercise such blatant disregard for the truth.”
The same argument played out in 2013. Republicans charged that it was Democrats who shut down the government because they refused to pass a spending bill defunding Obamacare.
However, if Planned Parenthood’s claim turns out to be true and Republicans really do plan to shut down the government in order to defund the organization, will the GOP dodge at the last second in this game of chicken as it did in 2011, or will Republicans take it all the way this time? If they do, how long will they allow the government to remain shut down before they cave to public pressure?
Ted Cruz’s name pops up in some of the stories as someone who could pose a threat to Planned Parenthood’s funding. But he is only one Senator, and a group of 18 House Republicans isn’t much of a united party-wide front. Senator and other Republican presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham is not on board to defund the organization. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insists he doesn’t plan to shut down the government over the issue. At least two of the senators in Planned Parenthood’s sights dismiss talk of a shutdown, as well.
“I don’t think anybody is talking about shutting down the government, but we want to defund Planned Parenthood, so we’ll see,” Portman told The Hill earlier this month.
Johnson wouldn’t say whether he would vote for a spending bill that contains Planned Parenthood funding in September.
“That would be a hypothetical question. I’m not going to answer it,” he told The Hill earlier this month.
So as it looks at present, Planned Parenthood is spending a lot of money on propaganda that only puts that false grain of doubt into the heads of their targets’ particular electorates when they go to the polls next year.
Also, Donald Trump has now backed away from his original stance to defund.
Yet the fetal “tissue” dealers now rightly fear that the public is turning against them as each new video by the Center for Medical Progress is released, so they are leaning heavy on the exaggerated accusations.
Politico again:
Dawn Laguens, executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the group is taking this latest attempt to cut off its federal funding seriously. She described the current political environment as the most serious threat to Roe v. Wade since the landmark Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion rights was handed down in 1973.
“It is a serious and obviously coordinated attack to get rid of abortion in this country, to recriminalize abortion in this country, to destroy Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood stands up for women’s rights, freedom and ability to access care that women and their doctors decide they need,” Laguens said in an interview.
If getting government funding is such a big deal and abortion services only comprise 3% of the money that Planned Parenthood spends, why not just get rid of the abortion services in order to receive public funding and continue operations? Why can’t other medical providers handle the abortions while Planned Parenthood keeps going with all the other vital services it’s supposed to provide?
They can’t because abortions are much more vital to Planned Parenthood’s existence than it wants the public to believe. It was estimated that patients using Planned Parenthood for abortion services made up 12% of its clients last year, with an estimated 328,000 abortions performed. And really, what’s the big deal about those other services now that women have Obamacare to give them all the services they need, including free birth control, at the multitude of other health care providers?
The states still have some tricks up their sleeves if the effort to defund Planned Parenthood on the federal level doesn’t pan out. Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Utah and New Hampshire are attempting to cut using Planned Parenthood from Medicaid money. Texas and Kansas have been able to redirect federal Title X funding away from Planned Parenthood and put it toward other family planning services, and Republicans in the Wisconsin state legislature are hoping to do the same. Other states have various defunding plans in the works.
It’s pretty telling that Planned Parenthood’s people have the resources to spend six figures on attack ads and get 900,000 signatures in opposition to defunding the abortion provider. Not bad for a non-profit to be able to pull off that level of PR. How much of your tax dollars are going toward those efforts? For an organization claiming to have this high-and-mighty righteous cause of protecting women’s health, you would think they wouldn’t need to put so much effort and money into convincing Americans that it is such an absolutely necessary entity deserving of hundreds of millions in tax money to keep it afloat. It should just be a given that the entire country embraces Planned Parenthood’s “cause,” no?
But that’s the problem. Planned Parenthood and its supporters consider its function a cause, not a medical no-brainer like what every other hospital and medical facility does. As a big organization with big ties to one side of politics yet inexplicably receives big money from those who pay taxes, Planned Parenthood is unique compared to most other medical institutions. Planned Parenthood is not some simple compassionate provider of women’s reproductive health services. It behaves like a vicious beast baring its fangs at those who would dare threaten to take away the meat that it can’t hunt for on its own. No surprise it acts like that, considering the morbid, gruesome, and obscure business in which they’ve dealt all these years. Because they act in such an aggressive way, that should be reason enough to disqualify them from receiving taxpayer funds.
As an organization that owes half of its existence to the taxpayers’ half a billion dollars annually, Planned Parenthood deserves to be heavily scrutinized. It should go without saying that the organization will not go down without a serious fight, but neither will the opposition–with or without the help of Beltway Republicans.
