{"id":168432,"date":"2017-07-13T08:20:24","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T12:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=168432"},"modified":"2017-07-13T09:47:59","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T13:47:59","slug":"media-hypes-four-reasons-congress-shouldnt-defund-planned-parenthood-heres-theyre-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/media-hypes-four-reasons-congress-shouldnt-defund-planned-parenthood-heres-theyre-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Media hypes four reasons Congress shouldn’t defund Planned Parenthood. Here’s why they’re wrong."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Planned Parenthood<\/a> has been working tirelessly to ensure they retain taxpayer dollars. Congress has voted before<\/a> to defund Planned Parenthood; that legislation was vetoed by President Barack Obama<\/a>. Now that the White House, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives contain a record number of\u00a0pro-lifers, the opportunity to defund the abortion<\/a> giant is here and now. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday even delayed the start of the August recess<\/a> to ensure a vote.<\/p>\n

It’s not just Planned Parenthood raising the alarm bells, but its allies in the media. These include Former Rep. Richard Hanna, claiming for the Hill that “Defunding Planned Parenthood would only cause harm to low-income women.”<\/a> Sharmila Makhija wrote about what she called “The deadly cost of defunding Planned Parenthood”<\/a> for The New York Daily News.<\/p>\n

Focusing on contraception, the Washington Post argued<\/a> that data from the Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood’s former “special affiliate” and research arm<\/a>) supports the idea that women cannot turn anywhere but Planned Parenthood. A writer for Romper piggy-backed<\/a> off the reporting to make this claim as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is a sampling of what the writers focused on:<\/p>\n

Cancer screenings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hanna and Makhija both focused on Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services, particularly on cancer screenings.<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood has attempted to draw focus to this before. Last month, the organization\u00a0shared a video<\/a> of a woman who received a referral from Planned Parenthood for her mammogram. Nowhere in the video (or in the above articles) was it acknowledged that Planned Parenthood has only a 1.8 percent market share<\/a> of breast cancer screenings (not mammograms<\/a>, which Planned Parenthood does not provide) and 0.97 percent market share of Pap smears. Such services have been on a long-term decline<\/a> at Planned Parenthood. Clearly, women are getting their cancer screenings elsewhere.<\/p>\n

This information, then, makes Makija’s concluding claim sound even more<\/em> absurd:<\/p>\n

If Planned Parenthood is defunded nationally, far more women will be forced to forgo the timely care they need to detect and prevent cancer. It\u2019s time to rethink the definition of what Planned Parenthood does and fight for its survival on behalf of women everywhere. A woman’s life might literally depend on it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Contraception<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Washington Post claims that<\/a>\u00a0defunding Planned Parenthood would mean Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) would be “needing to more than triple their contraception caseloads.” What isn’t mentioned is that in place of funding Planned Parenthood, these health centers would receive more taxpayer funding, which would be sure to help with handling the increased load. Additionally, this claim of tripling makes no sense when the Washington Post admits Planned Parenthood serves one-third of contraception clients.<\/p>\n

While Planned Parenthood is portrayed as a major provider for contraception, the organization has decreased its contraception services, while abortions continue to increase<\/a>.<\/p>\n