Call them what they really are.. baby killers
iamnothere
2011/02/14 01:07:49
Foes seek to de-fund, discredit Planned Parenthood
PLANNED PARENTHOOD AP – Chart shows Planned Parenthood services provided and sources of revenue
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer David Crary
NEW YORK – From its defiant origins in 1916, Planned Parenthood has not shied away from controversy — fighting to legalize birth control, offering candid sex education to adolescents, evolving into America's largest provider of abortion.
Its foes have been relentless, and it now faces some of the most withering attacks of its history. A bill in Congress would strip the organization of federal family-planning grants and a series of covertly taped videos seek to depict some Planned Parenthood staff as willing to assist sex traffickers.
On one side, there are prominent conservatives suggesting that Planned Parenthood may be a criminal enterprise.
On the other, Planned Parenthood leaders and allies are seizing the moment to rally support, saying the ultimate target of the attacks is the ability of American women to get the reproductive health services they desire.
"We've been here for the past 95 years, and we'll be here for the next 95," said Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards.
Through its affiliates, Planned Parenthood operates more than 800 clinics and health centers across the country, serving more than 3 million patients a year.
A half-dozen of those clinics — in New Jersey, New York and Virginia — figure in the undercover videos released over the past two weeks by Live Action, a California-based anti-abortion group. The videos show a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute seeking health services for underage sex workers.
Planned Parenthood fired one clinic manager in New Jersey who offered advice to the visitors, but otherwise says its staff responded professionally and reported the visits to their superiors.
Planned Parenthood's national office notified the FBI before any videos were released and accused Live Action of resorting to deceptive "dirty tricks." It also announced a nationwide retraining program to ensure that clinic staffers were familiar with rules about reporting possible danger to minors.
While much about the videos is in dispute, they provided fresh ammunition for anti-abortion activists promoting a bill introduced by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., that would deny federal family-planning funds to any organization that performs abortions. Pence makes clear that Planned Parenthood is his target; it would lose more than $70 million in annual funding.
"Every American should be shocked that an employee of the largest recipient of federal funds under Title X has been recorded aiding and abetting underage sex trafficking," Pence said. "The time to deny any and all funding to Planned Parenthood is now."
By law, federal funds may not be used directly for abortions. But Pence argues that the grants, by covering overhead and operational costs, free up other money to provide abortions.
Planned Parenthood's staunchest allies in Congress — primarily liberal Democrats — have vowed to fight the proposed funding cut.
"In my community, Planned Parenthood is a very highly regarded mainstream organization," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., who depicted Pence's bill as "driven by an extreme ideological agenda."
Richards said Planned Parenthood, with a $1 billion annual budget, could survive the loss of the federal grants but would be forced to close some clinics and serve fewer people.
"This would roll back decades of progress for women's health care," she said in a telephone interview.
Planned Parenthood dates its beginnings to 1916 when Margaret Sanger, her sister and a friend opened America's first birth control clinic in Brooklyn. At the time, women couldn't vote or divorce abusive husbands, and contraception was illegal.
The clinic was raided, and Sanger was convicted of disseminating birth control information. Undaunted, she founded two organizations that later merged to form the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Sanger's personal legacy is complicated. She opposed abortion — yet the organization she founded now provides a quarter of America's 1.2 million annual abortions. Her views on eugenics and racial issues remain a subject of bitter debate to this day.
Over the decades, Planned Parenthood played pivotal roles in easing laws against contraception, popularizing the birth control pill and setting the stage for the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a woman's right to have an abortion.
Its clinics have been repeated targets of bombings, arson and protests. A receptionist at one of its clinics in Brookline, Mass., was shot dead in 1994 by John Salvi, who described himself as a militant foe of abortion.
Abortions account for only a small fraction of the services provided by Planned Parenthood — mainly providing contraception, screening for cancer and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. Many of the clients are low-income women with few other options for non-emergency health care.
At many clinics, demand is high. On a recent workday, the waiting room at the Brooklyn health center, which occupies an entire floor of an office building, was filled to overflowing, and center director Nellie Santiago-Rivera said her 35-member staff often sees 150 patients a day.
Most of the Brooklyn clients are black and Hispanic women in their 20s, many without a primary-care doctor of their own.
"This is their community health center," said Evelyn Intondi, a Planned Parenthood nurse-midwife.
Intondi said the undercover videos had been the topic of much discussion among clinic staff.
"You're angry, you're upset," she said. "You wonder, what's the perception of our clients coming in?"
However, she said the campaigns against Planned Parenthood reinforced her resolve.
"It reignites the fire in your belly that brought you to this in the beginning," Intondi said. "This is what I do. There are definitely some people who don't like it."
Planned Parenthood's foes are active on the federal, state and local level. On Thursday, Virginia's House of Delegates voted to prohibit not only state government but also local governments from allocating money to Planned Parenthood clinics.
The bill's sponsor, Delegate Robert Marshall, objects to the clinics' role in providing abortion but also holds Planned Parenthood responsible for broader phenomena he links to the sexual revolution — including out-of-wedlock pregnancies, adolescent sex and sexually transmitted diseases.
"Clearly this group has been on the cutting edge of attacking moral standards," Marshall said in an interview. "Now we're reaping their revolution, and people are having second thoughts."
While Planned Parenthood says it retains broad public support, some of its critics believe the tide of opinion is running against it.
Melinda Delahoyde is executive director of Care Net, a nationwide network of centers that counsel women with unintended pregnancies on alternatives to abortion. She said the cumulative effect of the undercover videos, public unease about abortion and parental concerns about sex education are taking a toll on Planned Parenthood.
"There are cracks in the dike that are widening on many different fronts," Delahoyde said.
Planned Parenthood leaders say their attitude toward sexuality is a key reason for the animosity they face.
"We are a safe place where people can go and ask difficult questions about sex," Richards said. "We do this for teens and adults, gays and straights, and that really irritates some people who believe sex is only for procreation."
Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary and an expert on gender issues, said Planned Parenthood deserved credit for directly addressing the complexities of human sexuality.
"It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where we didn't need Planned Parenthood, where women had all the information and resources they needed regarding their own sexual health," she said. "But given we don't have that, it fills a very important role."
PLANNED PARENTHOOD AP – Chart shows Planned Parenthood services provided and sources of revenue
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer David Crary
NEW YORK – From its defiant origins in 1916, Planned Parenthood has not shied away from controversy — fighting to legalize birth control, offering candid sex education to adolescents, evolving into America's largest provider of abortion.
Its foes have been relentless, and it now faces some of the most withering attacks of its history. A bill in Congress would strip the organization of federal family-planning grants and a series of covertly taped videos seek to depict some Planned Parenthood staff as willing to assist sex traffickers.
On one side, there are prominent conservatives suggesting that Planned Parenthood may be a criminal enterprise.
On the other, Planned Parenthood leaders and allies are seizing the moment to rally support, saying the ultimate target of the attacks is the ability of American women to get the reproductive health services they desire.
"We've been here for the past 95 years, and we'll be here for the next 95," said Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards.
Through its affiliates, Planned Parenthood operates more than 800 clinics and health centers across the country, serving more than 3 million patients a year.
A half-dozen of those clinics — in New Jersey, New York and Virginia — figure in the undercover videos released over the past two weeks by Live Action, a California-based anti-abortion group. The videos show a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute seeking health services for underage sex workers.
Planned Parenthood fired one clinic manager in New Jersey who offered advice to the visitors, but otherwise says its staff responded professionally and reported the visits to their superiors.
Planned Parenthood's national office notified the FBI before any videos were released and accused Live Action of resorting to deceptive "dirty tricks." It also announced a nationwide retraining program to ensure that clinic staffers were familiar with rules about reporting possible danger to minors.
While much about the videos is in dispute, they provided fresh ammunition for anti-abortion activists promoting a bill introduced by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., that would deny federal family-planning funds to any organization that performs abortions. Pence makes clear that Planned Parenthood is his target; it would lose more than $70 million in annual funding.
"Every American should be shocked that an employee of the largest recipient of federal funds under Title X has been recorded aiding and abetting underage sex trafficking," Pence said. "The time to deny any and all funding to Planned Parenthood is now."
By law, federal funds may not be used directly for abortions. But Pence argues that the grants, by covering overhead and operational costs, free up other money to provide abortions.
Planned Parenthood's staunchest allies in Congress — primarily liberal Democrats — have vowed to fight the proposed funding cut.
"In my community, Planned Parenthood is a very highly regarded mainstream organization," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., who depicted Pence's bill as "driven by an extreme ideological agenda."
Richards said Planned Parenthood, with a $1 billion annual budget, could survive the loss of the federal grants but would be forced to close some clinics and serve fewer people.
"This would roll back decades of progress for women's health care," she said in a telephone interview.
Planned Parenthood dates its beginnings to 1916 when Margaret Sanger, her sister and a friend opened America's first birth control clinic in Brooklyn. At the time, women couldn't vote or divorce abusive husbands, and contraception was illegal.
The clinic was raided, and Sanger was convicted of disseminating birth control information. Undaunted, she founded two organizations that later merged to form the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Sanger's personal legacy is complicated. She opposed abortion — yet the organization she founded now provides a quarter of America's 1.2 million annual abortions. Her views on eugenics and racial issues remain a subject of bitter debate to this day.
Over the decades, Planned Parenthood played pivotal roles in easing laws against contraception, popularizing the birth control pill and setting the stage for the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a woman's right to have an abortion.
Its clinics have been repeated targets of bombings, arson and protests. A receptionist at one of its clinics in Brookline, Mass., was shot dead in 1994 by John Salvi, who described himself as a militant foe of abortion.
Abortions account for only a small fraction of the services provided by Planned Parenthood — mainly providing contraception, screening for cancer and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. Many of the clients are low-income women with few other options for non-emergency health care.
At many clinics, demand is high. On a recent workday, the waiting room at the Brooklyn health center, which occupies an entire floor of an office building, was filled to overflowing, and center director Nellie Santiago-Rivera said her 35-member staff often sees 150 patients a day.
Most of the Brooklyn clients are black and Hispanic women in their 20s, many without a primary-care doctor of their own.
"This is their community health center," said Evelyn Intondi, a Planned Parenthood nurse-midwife.
Intondi said the undercover videos had been the topic of much discussion among clinic staff.
"You're angry, you're upset," she said. "You wonder, what's the perception of our clients coming in?"
However, she said the campaigns against Planned Parenthood reinforced her resolve.
"It reignites the fire in your belly that brought you to this in the beginning," Intondi said. "This is what I do. There are definitely some people who don't like it."
Planned Parenthood's foes are active on the federal, state and local level. On Thursday, Virginia's House of Delegates voted to prohibit not only state government but also local governments from allocating money to Planned Parenthood clinics.
The bill's sponsor, Delegate Robert Marshall, objects to the clinics' role in providing abortion but also holds Planned Parenthood responsible for broader phenomena he links to the sexual revolution — including out-of-wedlock pregnancies, adolescent sex and sexually transmitted diseases.
"Clearly this group has been on the cutting edge of attacking moral standards," Marshall said in an interview. "Now we're reaping their revolution, and people are having second thoughts."
While Planned Parenthood says it retains broad public support, some of its critics believe the tide of opinion is running against it.
Melinda Delahoyde is executive director of Care Net, a nationwide network of centers that counsel women with unintended pregnancies on alternatives to abortion. She said the cumulative effect of the undercover videos, public unease about abortion and parental concerns about sex education are taking a toll on Planned Parenthood.
"There are cracks in the dike that are widening on many different fronts," Delahoyde said.
Planned Parenthood leaders say their attitude toward sexuality is a key reason for the animosity they face.
"We are a safe place where people can go and ask difficult questions about sex," Richards said. "We do this for teens and adults, gays and straights, and that really irritates some people who believe sex is only for procreation."
Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary and an expert on gender issues, said Planned Parenthood deserved credit for directly addressing the complexities of human sexuality.
"It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where we didn't need Planned Parenthood, where women had all the information and resources they needed regarding their own sexual health," she said. "But given we don't have that, it fills a very important role."
Top Opinion
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Rick 2011/02/14 01:50:49
http://www.sodahead.com/unite...
Gianna Jessen Abortion Survivor in Australia Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Also, government grants rarely cover overhead. They are for project related activities, and their associated overhead, but do not cover overhead expenses on their own.
Planned Parenthood’s Latest Annual Report:
Abortions at America’s Billion-Dollar Abortion Chain
Nearly Double in Past 10 Years
BY Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.
According to its latest annual report, clinics affiliated with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) performed 305,310 abortions in 2007, an all-time record for the nation’s largest abortion provider. While the number of abortions in the U.S. has dropped nearly every year since the 1990 peak of 1.6 million, they have consistently been on the increase at PPFA. In fact, they have nearly doubled in the last 10 years from 165,174 in 1997.
Today, Planned Parenthood is responsible for more than a quarter of all abortions performed annually in the United States. While Planned Parenthood tries to minimize the centrality of abortion to its mission, the 2007–08 report clearly shows that the promotion and performance of abortion remains at the core of Planned Parenthood’s business and mission.
Abortion as Only 3% of PPFA Services?
An increasingly common PPFA response is to say that abortion represents only 3% of all the services they provided in 2007. Technically, one can say this if every packet of pills, every test, every exam a client receives is counted as a separate service....
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Planned Parenthood’s Latest Annual Report:
Abortions at America’s Billion-Dollar Abortion Chain
Nearly Double in Past 10 Years
BY Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.
According to its latest annual report, clinics affiliated with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) performed 305,310 abortions in 2007, an all-time record for the nation’s largest abortion provider. While the number of abortions in the U.S. has dropped nearly every year since the 1990 peak of 1.6 million, they have consistently been on the increase at PPFA. In fact, they have nearly doubled in the last 10 years from 165,174 in 1997.
Today, Planned Parenthood is responsible for more than a quarter of all abortions performed annually in the United States. While Planned Parenthood tries to minimize the centrality of abortion to its mission, the 2007–08 report clearly shows that the promotion and performance of abortion remains at the core of Planned Parenthood’s business and mission.
Abortion as Only 3% of PPFA Services?
An increasingly common PPFA response is to say that abortion represents only 3% of all the services they provided in 2007. Technically, one can say this if every packet of pills, every test, every exam a client receives is counted as a separate service. But looked at in a more normal way, trying to see what percentage of Planned Parenthood’s customers receive abortions, we get a figure closer to 10.1%. Even that doesn’t capture the full impact.
Abortion is quite often bundled with a number of those other services (the abortion patient often receives and pays for a number of connected services, such as Rh testing, ultrasound, STD testing, the HPV vaccine, a take-home pack of contraceptives). Thus, abortion and abortion-related services account for a much, much bigger piece of the pie than 3% or even 10%.
Consider PPFA’s $374.7 million clinic income for the fiscal year ending June 2008.
Though we know from its own web site that there are Planned Parenthood clinics that advertise and perform later, much more expensive abortions, if we were conservative and treated every one of PPFA’s 305,310 abortions as a standard first-trimester suction abortion, at the going rate for such abortions in 2005, Planned Parenthood’s income from abortion in 2007 would have been at least $126 million. This alone would represent more than a third of PPFA’s clinic income for the fiscal year.
Bundled services attached to those abortions add to those revenues. And every later abortion PPFA clinics perform means hundreds of dollars more in its coffers. That explains why Planned Parenthood fights so hard for this “insignificant” part of their business.
Funding the Abortion Agenda
PPFA took in over $1 billion in revenues from all sources in the fiscal year running July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. Over a third, nearly $350 million, came in the form of “Government Grants and Contracts”—your tax dollars and mine.
Private donors were responsible for nearly a quarter with “Contributions and Bequests” totaling $244.9 million. “Health Center Income” was the biggest source of revenue (see above) with “Other” bringing in an additional $68.9 million.
Planned Parenthood not only takes in a great deal of money from abortion, it also spends a great deal of money, time, and energy perfecting, promoting, and defending it.
Under the heading of “Excellence in Medical Standards and Training,” PPFA touts its research project on “medication abortion service delivery.” Nothing beyond a vague statement that this was part of “an effort to continuously improve health care services” explains why this was needed.
But informed pro-lifers know that at least two Planned Parenthood “medication abortion” patients died after using the drugs in ways that had not been sanctioned by the U.S. government agency that approved the RU486 method. Then again, it could be simply a part of the large-scale expansion of chemical abortion that has taken place at PPFA over the past several years.
Internationally, Planned Parenthood says that it helped nearly 15,000 women obtain “safe abortion or post-abortion care.” Without offering detail about the nature of the services involved, the report tells of an “innovative” program in a remote area of in the Peruvian rainforest linking “environmental conservation and reproductive health” for 6,000 fishermen and farmers.
PPFA notes that, “[t]hanks in large part to Planned Parenthood’s advocacy,” the 110th Congress approved the “largest one-year dollar increase ever to international family planning.” It also celebrated President Obama’s overturning of the “global gag rule,” which had prohibited groups receiving U.S. “family planning” money from performing or promoting abortion overseas.
Planned Parenthood proudly notes that it defeated measures in seven states—Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia—designed to copy the “federal abortion ban” [of partial-birth abortion]. In Michigan and Arizona, Planned Parenthood relates that, though these measures were passed by the state legislatures, PPFA worked with governors to secure vetoes. Planned Parenthood also fought a Right to Know law in South Dakota, limits on RU486 in Ohio and New Mexico, and a law in Missouri that PPFA says would have forced an affiliate of theirs to stop doing abortions.
Planned Parenthood laments that the organization “had to spend vital resources fighting a campaign that targeted us directly,” referring to federal efforts to defund the abortion giant.
The current economic downturn may not end the string of record revenues and record numbers of abortions at Planned Parenthood. Money for “family planning” that was, after public outcry, cut from the stimulus package, was added back into the latest budget. If Planned Parenthood gets its wish and gets abortion covered in President Obama’s national health care plan, even more public money could be flowing to its coffers.
According to a story in U.S. News & World Report, since the economic down- turn, people have been “swarming” into Planned Parenthood’s clinics (2/24/09). Affiliates in Iowa, Illinois, and St. Louis are reporting substantial increases in the number of abortions (Omaha World Herald, 4/10/09; NPR, 3/20/09; Associated Press, 3/24/09).
With Obama in office and many friends up on Capitol Hill, Planned Parenthood is a formidable, well-funded foe. Those of us who defend life may not have the money, but we do have truth, compassion, and justice on our side, and, if we never give up, our cause will prevail.
The number of abortion providers has decreased with demand, whcih has fallen since th e1990s (as education and access to birth control increased). It would be ludicrous to take away the main provider of reproductive health education and services thinking it would reduce the number of abortions. It would likely increase them. There are many counties with no abortion provider at all. It isn't something people do on a whim, and if people who are against letting a woman choose what to do with her body were really for preventing abortions, they would support an organization that provided the services offered through Planned Parenthood.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pre...
But looked at in a more normal way, trying to see what percentage of Planned Parenthood’s customers receive abortions, we get a figure closer to 10.1%
seems that you decided to reply without reading the note.. Shades of the obama administration saying the Arizona immigration law was illegal and no one in the DOJ or administration had taken time to read the 16 page law..
Also, I don't think you looked at it in a more normal way. Prevention of pregnancy after a person had an abortion is not an abortion related service, yet your way lumped them together. It's wrong what you did. So if wrong is normal, I guess you could call it normal. Most people, however, would call it cooking the numbers to support your point.
One tax payer shouldn't have to fun PERSONAL programs they do not support moralling or rationally...