Offering prenatal care is a benefit that Planned Parenthood has long promoted as one of the many services they offer women beyond pregnancy termination.
Yet an undercover video investigation released this week from the pro-life activist group Live Action appears to show employees at multiple Planned Parenthood clinics actually turning away clients who ask for prenatal care.
A report from the Standard states, “According to the Live Action video, only five of the 97 Planned Parenthood clinics contacted in the nationwide investigation were able to offer any level of prenatal care.”
The investigation goes on to share an example of what they were told by some of the clinics:
"Planned Parenthood offers abortions, so they don't offer prenatal care," a receptionist at the Planned Parenthood in Tempe, Arizona told a Live Action investigator.
Another receptionist at the Albany, New York facility told them, "No Planned Parenthood does prenatal care, hon."
A third in Merrillville, Indiana said: "No, we don't do prenatal services. I mean, it's called Planned Parenthood, I know it's kind of deceiving."
A voice identified as a clinic employee from Farmington, N.M. is heard telling Live Action, "We specialize in abortions. You know, that's what our ultrasounds are for, to see how far along the patient is."
Planned Parenthood has been under fire for some time after a series of undercover videos were released by the Center for Medical Progress in 2015, allegedly showing the organization negotiating fetal tissue sales.
Just yesterday on January 24th, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of permanently banning taxpayer funding of abortion. The bill would also ensure that taxpayers do not have to fund abortion via their healthcare. This is certainly a huge victory for those who have fought hard for the rights of the unborn. But their efforts continue.
“According to a 2017 Marist poll, the majority of Americans (61 percent) do not support tax dollars going to fund abortion.”
A recent article by Fox News states that, “The longstanding fight over the approximately half-billion federal tax dollars provided to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions, has reasserted itself with a vengeance in Washington.”
According to the numbers from Planned Parenthood, “323,999 abortions were performed in 2014,” and only, “3% of the services it provides are abortions.”
Opponents have speculated that percentage to be much higher based on recorded data from the clinics. A report by Politifact looked at this more closely noting, “Planned Parenthood does not fully track this number (of clients who are already pregnant), making the claim a leap of logic based on insufficient information. What's most noticeably missing among the number of Planned Parenthood services used by pregnant women are the number of pregnancy referrals. Planned Parenthood says it doesn't keep records of how many pregnant women are referred to outside healthcare providers. Without that information, we don't know an accurate percentage of ‘pregnancy services’ that were abortions.”
One thing is clear: things are changing with a new administration in place.
"We don't want to commit taxpayer funding for abortion, and Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider," House Speaker Paul Ryan said during a CNN town hall this month.
He said Republicans want to redirect funding for Planned Parenthood to federal community health centers.
"You don't have these controversies by funding health centers," he said.
“[This] is a victory for women’s healthcare,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List. “Community health centers provide far more services than Planned Parenthood and outnumber them 20-to-1 nationwide. We commend Speaker Paul Ryan on his continued resolve to fund women’s health care, not abortion.”
Read more by Debbie McDaniel at www.debbiemcdaniel.com, https://www.facebook.com/Debbi