Eight Facts Republicans Don’t Want You to Know About Planned Parenthood

September 16, 2015
Blog Post

  1. 1 in 5 women has relied on a Planned Parenthood health center for care in her lifetime.  Planned Parenthood provides a wide array of preventive health care services, serving 2.7 million patients each year.  More than 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does nationally is preventive care – including cervical cancer screenings, breast cancer screenings, and family planning.

  2. Planned Parenthood clinics are often one of the few affordable health care options for many women.  Nearly 80 percent of women using Planned Parenthood clinics have incomes at or below 150 percent of poverty.

  3. The majority of Americans don't think federal funding should be eliminated.  In recent polling, 63 percent of voters, including 72 percent of independents, do not agree with Congressional Republicans that federal funding for Planned Parenthood should be eliminated.

  4. These videos are a pretext for Congressional Republicans.  As soon as they became a House Majority in 2011, Republicans almost successfully shut down the government by insisting on the defunding of Planned Parenthood [2011 House Vote 271].  This fight is really about access to preventive women's health care services, including family planning, and Republicans will try to shut down the government again over it.

  5. The false claims about Planned Parenthood of the anti-choice extremists who produced the videos have been soundly discredited. Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats have produced an in-depth memo that concludes that in the committee's ongoing investigation, "the committee has received no evidence to substantiate the allegations that Planned Parenthood has engaged in the sale of fetal tissue for profit."

  6. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who have condemned Planned Parenthood, all voted to legalize the use of fetal tissue for scientific research in 1993. (1993 House Vote #178; 1993 Senate Vote voice)  Fetal tissue research has been critical in seeking treatments and cures for Parkinson's disease, Down syndrome, Alzheimer's, and other debilitating diseases.  NIH spent $76 million on fetal tissue research last year.

  7. House Republicans saw the Planned Parenthood videos weeks in advance, were silent and then outraged on cue.  Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus and chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee going after Planned Parenthood, told reporters he had seen the first video weeks in advance.  When asked in the hallway by a reporter why he didn't take immediate action, Rep. Murphy told the reporter: "This interview didn't happen."  Trent Franks (R-AZ), a well-known anti-choice crusader, also said he saw the video a month in advance and did nothing.

  8. Federal funds are prohibited from covering abortion – except in the dire circumstances of rape, incest, or when the life of the woman is in jeopardy.  Planned Parenthood fully complies with this and all government restrictions.