The First State That Tried To Defund Planned Parenthood Is Officially Giving Up

BY TARA CULP-RESSLER/Think Progress

After a legal battle that has stretched over the course of two years, the state of Indiana has agreed to put an end to its efforts to strip Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood clinics. Indiana was the first statethat attempted to target the national women’s health organization by blocking it from receiving state-level Medicaid dollars for the services it provides to low-income women.

In 2011, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) signed a law to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving any Medicaid funding simply because it is an abortion provider — even though that money actually funds general health screenings for thousands of low-income women, not abortions. That sparked a national trend. Anti-abortion lawmakers in states like Arizona, North Carolina, Kansas, Tennessee, and Texas followed suit, enacting similar laws intended to defund the women’s health organization by excluding it from their states’ pools of public insurance providers.

But those efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Multiple courts have determined that states aren’t allowed to discriminate against qualified Medicaid providers simply because of their stance on abortion rights, saying that low-income women deserve the freedom to choose their own doctors.

Indiana’s own law was temporarily blocked by a U.S. District Judge last year, and a federal appeals court decided to uphold that injunction. Indiana officials kept fighting, asking the highest court in the country to hear their appeal of the case — but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to do so in May. Now, the state of Indiana is agreeing to permanently end its failed legal crusade against Planned Parenthood.

Cecile Richards, the president of the women’s health organization, hailed the news as a victory for women across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood clinics for their preventative care. “This is not only a victory for Planned Parenthood’s patients in Indiana, it is a victory for the nearly three million people who turn to Planned Parenthood health centers each year across the country,” Richards said in a statement. “Politicians in all 50 states should take note: blocking Planned Parenthood from funding to provide preventive health care is both unlawful, and deeply unpopular.”

In addition to permanently blocking Indiana from stripping Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding, the proposed final judgment will also dismiss the women’s health organization’s claim that this type of state law is unconstitutional.

How The Right Wing Manufactured A Fake Controversy Over Planned Parenthood’s ‘Infanticide’

By Tara Culp-Ressler/Think Progress

On Wednesday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus published an editorial lambasting the mainstream media for “covering up” Planned Parenthood’s “support for infanticide.” According to Priebus, the national women’s health organization — in addition to providing contraceptive services, STD testing, cancer screenings, and reproductive care for millions of women across the country — is also in the business of murdering live babies. He claims that a recent committee hearing in Florida proves that Planned Parenthood officials support “the right to post-birth abortion.”

What’s “post-birth abortion”? What exactly happened in Florida? And how did this controversy explode in the right-wing media?

To understand the root of the current smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, it’s important to understand the context of the committee hearing that Priebus is referencing. That hearing was a debate over HB 1129, a politically-motivated piece of legislation seeking to ensure that any infant born alive “during or immediately after an attempted abortion” is entitled to all of the same rights “as any other child born alive in course of natural birth.” The “Infant Born Alive” measure rests upon the fundamentally flawed assumption that this type of situation is a real risk for women seeking to terminate a pregnancy. In fact, Florida does not perform abortions after the fetus has reached viability, so the situation that HB 1129 intends to address is incredibly unlikely.

And the original version of the legislation went even further. In this hypothetical medical situation, where an infant is “born alive” after an incredibly late-term induced abortion, the woman would have also been stripped of all parental rights. The Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates opposed HB 1129 because of this particular provision, which they believe is simply intended to intimidate and shame women. Planned Parenthood officials pointed out that the implicit assumption is that women who choose abortion can’t possibly be fit to care for a child — and that’s not something that should be codified into state law.

Last week, a lobbyist representing Planned Parenthood, Alisa LaPolt Snow, testified about the organization’s opposition to that aspect of HB 1129. During the hearing, she was questioned by a panel of anti-abortion state lawmakers who demanded that she respond to questions about this highly unlikely hypothetical situation. According to sources from the organization, the Republican lawmaker who sponsored HB 1129 repeatedly insinuated that women who choose abortions cannot be trusted, defending the provision revoking parental rights because “there is at least suspicion that that biological mother may not have the best interest of that born infant in mind.” When posed with a hypothetical scenario in which “a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion,” Snow attempted to make the point that legislators don’t need to get in the middle of medical situations. “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” Snow said.

That was enough for the right-wing media to proclaim that Planned Parenthood endorses “infanticide.” After the Weekly Standard posted a video of that portion of the exchange, it spread throughout conservative outlets — eventually inspiring Priebus’ breathless editorial suggesting that any politician who supports Planned Parenthood may also support infanticide.

Aside from the fact that Planned Parenthood was essentially backed into a corner by Florida Republicans — forced to testify against an unnecessary provision within a misleading piece of legislation, and then forced to respond to an imaginary “botched abortion” procedure that’s already against the law in the state — the organization’s position on caring for infants is already quite clear. Planned Parenthood has a long history of providing professional medical care to women and their children. Abortion opponents often attempt to misconstrue Planned Parenthood as an irresponsible organization that doesn’t adhere to medical standards, but its clinics already provide high-quality primary care and preventative services to millions of people across the country.

The organization responded to the manufactured controversy to clarify this point. “As a trusted health care provider, Planned Parenthood strongly condemns any physician who does not follow the law or endangers a woman’s or child’s health,” a Planned Parenthood representative testified before the Florida House Health & Human Services Committee on Thursday. “And while HB 1129 addresses a situation that is extremely unlikely and highly unusual, if the scenario presented by the legislation should happen, of course a Planned Parenthood doctor would provide appropriate care to both the woman and the infant.”

Perhaps the ultimate irony of the right-wing’s imagined controversy is that — even in states where it’s not against the law to perform late-term induced abortions — Planned Parenthood clinics don’t provide that type of service. Many Planned Parenthood affiliates only perform abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy, when women can either take a pill or have a less-invasive surgical procedure. It’s actually the women who don’t have access to Planned Parenthood clinics, which are under attack across the country as GOP-controlled legislatures do their best to shut them down, who are forced to resort to dangerous, illegal, late-term abortion services like the ones described at the Florida hearing.

Court lets Texas pull Planned Parenthood funds

 By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Texas may proceed to pull funding for more than half of the women’s health clinics across the state due to their affiliation with privately funded clinics that perform abortions.
As a result of Thursday’s decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Gov. Rick Perry (R) said that state officials will “immediately” begin defunding clinics operated by Planned Parenthood, most of which do not actually perform any abortions in the state.
Perry announced earlier this year that he’d made defunding Planned Parenthood a priority for his administration, triggering months of legal wrangling with the clinics and the federal government. Federal law requires that states not discriminate against health providers in distributing federal funds, but a court ultimately ruled that Texas could forgo federal assistance entirely and set up its own health program.

That’s precisely what Perry is doing, passing on more than $40 million in federal assistance and directing the state to exclude Planned Parenthood, which provides health care services to more than 130,000 low-income women in Texas. Planned Parenthood has 49 health centers across Texas, many of which will be forced to close due to Perry’s decision.
As an experiment, pro-choice activist Andrea Grimes said in September that she spent six hours trying to locate a women’s health clinic in Austin that isn’t Planned Parenthood but does accept Medicaid. Despite a list of 181 clinics on the state’s website, Grimes said she found just 13 actual doctors in the whole state who perform the necessary procedures and accept Medicaid, explaining that the other listings were repeats, radiology centers, labs and doctors who didn’t take Medicaid at all.
To make matters worse for many low-income women, the Kaiser Family Foundation says that Texas has one of the most restrictive Medicaid programs in the country, requiring that a family of three earn less than $188 a month to qualify for assistance. Under the president’s Affordable Care Act, however, Medicaid was slated to expand dramatically to cover nearly all low-income Americans, but Perry also said he will turn down more than $164 billion in federal money that would have been used to provide health care to 1.2 million Texans through 2023.
In a prepared statement published to the governor’s website, Perry said the 5th Circuit Court’s ruling on Thursday “affirms yet against that in Texas the Women’s Health Program has no obligation to fund Planned Parenthood and other organizations that perform or promote abortion. In Texas we choose life, and we will immediately begin defunding all abortion affiliated to honor and uphold that choice.”
The clinics have the option of seeking an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, but the 5th Circuit’s ruling effectively denied a rehearing.
“This case has never been about Planned Parenthood — it’s about the Texas women who turn to us every day,” Kenneth Lambrecht, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, told Bloomberg News. “Politics should never come between a woman and her health care, but in this decision, which conflicts with Supreme Court precedent, it appears it has.”

Live Action's New Planned Parenthood Attack Manufactures "Widespread" Sex-Selective Abortion Problem

by Justin Berrier/Media Matters

Discredited anti-choice activist Lila Rose launched her latest video hoax, claiming that a highly edited video proves that Planned Parenthood is facilitating rampant "gendercide" in America. But statistics show that sex-selection simply does not happen with any regularity in the United States, as the vast majority of abortions are performed before gender is detectable, and the gender birth ratio in America is close to even.

Rose on Tuesday released undercover footage purporting to show a clinic worker in Austin, Texas, discussing health care options with a woman who claimed to want to terminate her pregnancy if she was carrying a girl. Live Action's accompanying petition suggests that Planned Parenthood is complicit in "Widespread sex-selection by means of abortion." This video hoax is part of a campaign aimed at "exposing the practice of sex-selective abortion in the United States and how Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry facilitate the selective elimination of baby girls in the womb."

But the first video demonstrates that Rose can show no such effort to facilitate rampant sex-selection abortion. 

In a companion post to the video, Live Action pointed to global statistics showing sex-selection in countries such as China and suggested a similar problem occurs in the United States, warning:

U.S. census data and national vital statistics show that indeed, sex-selection is a growing problem in America. Americans are employing sex-selection techniques in their reproductive decisions. 

But actual evidence shows that sex-selection in America is neither widespread nor growing. According to the CIA's World Factbook, the gender ratio at birth in the United States is 1.05 males to females, a rate that the Guttmacher Institute calls "squarely within biologically normal parameters." The United States simply does not have a gender imbalance that would indicate that sex-selection occurs with any regularity.

Further, most abortions are performed before gender is identifiable. The Centers for Disease Controlreported that in 2008, 91.4% of abortions were performed before the 13^th week of pregnancy. Robert Shmerling of Harvard Health Publications noted that gender identification by means of ultrasound, by far the most popular method, is usually only available by the 16^th to 20^th week. Although there are methods to detect gender earlier on in a pregnancy, "these procedures are usually performed to detect potential health problems such as Down's syndrome, spina bifida, or cystic fibrosis, not to find out a baby's gender."

As Planned Parenthood's Leslie Kantor and Carolyn Westhoff recently noted, Planned Parenthood "finds the concept of sex selection deeply unsettling" and the organization "does not offer sex determination services; our ultrasound services are limited to medical purposes." Kantor and Westhoff further noted:

Planned Parenthood condemns sex selection motivated by gender bias, and urges leaders to challenge the underlying conditions that lead to these beliefs and practices, including addressing the social, legal, economic, and political conditions that promote gender bias and lead some to value one gender over the other.

Planned Parenthood's mission mandates that it provides information to patients on all of their legal options in an environment free of judgment, and one that respects the privacy, rights, and choices of the individual. Explaining legal options to women who ask about them is a fulfillment of the organization's goal "to provide comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual."

Attempting to tie Planned Parenthood to a problem that does not occur with any regularity in the United States is further indication that Live Action, and its founder, Lila Rose, are willing to engage indishonest and misleading campaigns to smear an organization with a history of dedication toimproving women's health.

UPDATE: In a statement to The Huffington Post, Planned Parenthood responded to Live Action's latest attack:

A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman told The Huffington Post on Tuesday the staffer in the video "did not follow our protocol" for dealing with "a highly unusual patient scenario."

"Planned Parenthood insists on the highest quality patient care, and if we ever become aware of a staff member not meeting these high standards we take swift action," she said in a written statement. "Within three days of this patient interaction, the staff member's employment was ended and all staff members at this affiliate were immediately scheduled for retraining in managing unusual patient encounters. Today opponents of Planned Parenthood are promoting an edited video of that hoax patient encounter."

This spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America also told The Huffington Post that the organization condemns seeking abortions on the basis of gender, but its policy is to provide "high quality, confidential, nonjudgmental care to all who come into" its health centers. That means that no Planned Parenthood clinic will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selective abortions (Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois).

Romney: ‘We’re Going To Get Rid Of’ Planned Parenthood

By Amanda Peterson Beadle/Think Progress

Last year, Mitt Romney supported a Republican plan to eliminate federal funding to Planned Parenthood — a battle that almost shut down the government. And his support for this idea has not faded. Yesterday, Mitt Romney told a local TV reporter in Missouri that he would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood, among other programs, to reduce the deficit:

The test is pretty simple. Is the program so critical, it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And on that basis of course you get rid of Obamacare, that’s the easy one. Planned Parenthood, we’re going to get rid of that.

Beyond simply threatening a program that provides necessary health care for millions of women, Romney has also called for cutting funds for Title X — the only federal program devoted to family planning — from the federal budget. The program covers low-income women and men who are uninsured, and without it, about 5 million people would lose their access to health care and contraception.

For Romney, cutting women’s health programs that help millions of women and prevent thousands of unintended pregnancies is a higher deficit-cutting priority than making corporations and high-income Americans pay their fair share in taxes. Romney asserts that thesavings for the the federal government by taking away Planned Parenthood funding would be about $300 million. But those savings are the same as the cost of Romney’s tax cuts for 262 of the top 0.1 percent of earners in the U.S.

UPDATE

Romney campaign strategist Eric Fehrnstrom downplayed the Planned Parenthood comments on Tuesday, emphasizing that the candidate was only talking about cutting federal funding. “It would not be getting rid of the organization,” Fehrnstrom told CNN.

FLASHBACK: Mitt Romney Attended A Planned Parenthood Fundraiser, Now Wants To Defund It

By Adam Peck and Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress

Yesterday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney joined the religious right insupporting the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood, and said the government should do the same.

Of course, Romney’s past support for the right to choose has been well documented, but Romney’s connection to Planned Parenthood has been largely overlooked.

Mitt and Ann Romney attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in Cohasset, Massachusetts in 1994, and Ann wrote a $150 check to the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, various news outlets reported. “They were both there, and I remember very well chatting with both of them, and talking about his support for the pro-choice agenda,” Nicki Nichols Gamble, the president of the League told ABC News in 2007.

That year, the Boston Globe published this photo, which purportedly shows Romney at the fundraiser:

Asked about the fundraiser four years ago, Romney didn’t outright deny attending. “I attend a lot of events when I run for office. I don’t recall the specific event,” he told the AP in South Carolina four years ago.

During his successful race for Governor of Massachusetts 2002, Romney also signed a pro-choicepledge organized by Planned Parenthood.

See Think Progress’ full rundown of Mitt Romney’s evolving attitudes towards abortion.

EXCLUSIVE: Ari Fleischer Secretly Involved In Komen Strategy On Planned Parenthood

By Judd Legum/Think Progress

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, was secretly involved in the Komen Foundation’s strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

Fleischer’s relationship with Komen and the Planned Parenthood controversy was previously undisclosed. He confirmed to ThinkProgress his recent role in filling a key communication position at Komen. Fleischer stressed, however, another communications firm (Ogilvy PR) was retained by Komen to deal with crisis communications over the last few days and he has not been involved.

In November, Komen advertised for a top level communications position in Roll Call. Promising applicants received a call from Fleischer. The advertisement is no longer posted on the Roll Call website, but a portion is accessible via Google:

According to a source, during at least one interview, Planned Parenthood was a major topic of conversation. Fleischer indicated that he had discussed the Planned Parenthood issue with Komen’s CEO, Nancy Brinker, and that she was at her wits end about how to proceed. Fleischer described himself as a longtime friend of Brinker.

Fleischer confirmed to ThinkProgress that he would receive a fee from Komen when the search is complete. Fleischer did not specify the amount of his fee but said it would be “substantially below the normal placement fee charged by executive search companies” because “they’re a charity I believe in.”

Fleischer’s high-level involvement with Komen further complicates its image as an apolitical cancer charity. Fleischer is a prominent partisan commentator and a longtime critic of Planned Parenthood. In his book, Taking Heat, Fleischer criticized Planned Parenthood as a partisan, ideological organization that receives undeserved positive coverage in the press. In 2001, Fleischer said that the Clinton administration verged too far to the left on family planning efforts because “if Planned Parenthood wanted it, the previous administration favored it.”

UPDATE

A copy of the full listing for the position Fleischer was working to fill for Komen is still available here.

Anti-Abortion Komen Vice President Pushed For Split From Planned Parenthood

By Amanda Peterson Beadle/Think Progress




The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation caved to right-wing pressure and cut ties with Planned Parenthood. Their rationale was simple: Komen had new rules preventing it from funding any organization under investigation, so a spurious congressional investigationinto Planned Parenthood led by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) prohibited Komen from continuing to fund breast exams through Planned Parenthood for women who otherwise wouldn’t receive them.

But now, new reporting from the Atlantic reveals that Komen adopted the new guidelines to cut off Planned Parenthood. That effort was led by Komen President Elizabeth Thompson, who knew that Planned Parenthood was the only group that would be affected by the rule, and Karen Handel, Komen’s new senior vice president for public policy.

Handel, who came on board in April, is a former secretary of state in Georgia and a Republican activist who describes herself as a “pro-life Christian.” Handel ran for governor of Georgia on an anti-abortion platform, and was endorsed by Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. She wrote during her failed gubernatorial campaign that “since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”

In December, Komen made the decision to stop supporting Planned Parenthood even though Komen’s professional staff recommended that the foundation continue to fund the organization. The decision caused an “uproar” at Komen, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reports:

[T]he organization’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. [...]

But John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen’s senior communications adviser and who was charged with managing the public relations aspects of Komen’s Planned Parenthood grant, said that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right. “Mollie is one of the most highly-respected and ethical people inside the organization, and she felt she couldn’t continue under these conditions,” Hammarley said. “The Komen board of directors are very politically savvy folks, and I think over time they thought if they gave in to the very aggressive propaganda machine of the anti-abortion groups, that the issue would go away. It seemed very short-sighted to me.”

Hammarley, who was laid off from Komen last year, said that for about a year, a small group within Komen began discussing the ramifications of cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood. “As we looked at the ramifications of ceasing all funding, we felt it would be worse from a practical standpoint, from a public relations standpoint and from a mission standpoint. The mission standpoint is, ‘How could we abandon our commitment to the screening work done by Planned Parenthood?’” he said.

Komen’s grants to Planned Parenthood totaled $680,000 in 2011 and $580,000 in 2010, going to at least 19 affiliates of Planned Parenthood to fund breast-cancer screenings and other breast-health services. Since the two organizations partnered in 2005, Komen’s grants have paid for roughly 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals. But right-wing anti-choice organizations have targeted the partnership since 2005 because Planned Parenthood also provides abortions. In December, the Southern Baptist Convention recalled pink Bibles that it sold to raise money for breast cancer research, citing an “unacceptable link” between Komen and Planned Parenthood.

Conservatives cheered Komen’s decision, while others have found it awfully convenient that the grants to Planned Parenthood were stopped after the hiring of an anti-abortion activist.

UPDATE

Without actually mentioning Planned Parenthood, Komen founder Nancy Brinker says in a new video that Komen’s actions have been “mischaracterized.” “We will never bow to political pressure… We will never turn our backs on the women who need us the most,” she adds.

Rep. Speier Pulls Support From Breast Cancer Foundation Over Decision To Sever Ties With Planned Parenthood

By Tanya Somanader/Think Progress




Yesterday, America’s most well-known breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen succumbed to right-wing pressure and ended its partnership with Planned Parenthood, pulling around $600,000 in grants that allow the women’s health organization to provide breast cancer exams for low-income women. Today on the House floor, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) — a “big booster” for the foundation and a participant in its iconic Race for the Cure event — announced that she would no longer support the organization over it’s decision.

Noting that the foundation based their decision to sever ties on anti-choice advocate Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) “spurious congressional investigation” into Planned Parenthood, Speier blasted Komen for falling into the trap of a “political sandbox.” “A hearing has never been held,” she noted. “I guess it means that Susan G. Komen has become a 501(d)(4), because no longer do they want to be providing nonprofits, they want to become a political advocacy group,” she said.

Watch it:

Speier also pointed out the particular irony of another nearly simultaneous statement from the Komen foundation noting that the rate of breast cancer screening for women without insurance is around 38 percent. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood provided 700,000 screenings for low-income and uninsured women last year alone. By bowing to right-wing fear-mongering, Komen is helping to cripple one of its own key efforts.

Komen issued an updated statement on their decision, “Grant making decisions are not about politics—our priority is and always will be the women we serve. Making this issue political or leveraging it for fundraising purposes would be a disservice to women.” Maybe the organization should take its own advice.

New Hampshire Defunds Planned Parenthood, Tells Women: If You Want To Party, ‘Don’t Ask Me To Pay For It’

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

“Planned Parenthood has stopped providing birth control pills and other contraception in New Hampshire after the state’s executive council rejected up to $1.8 million in funding for the group” because it also provides privately-funded abortions. After losing its contract — which paid for education, distributing contraception, and the testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections — the centers have “turned away 20 to 30 patients a day who have arrived to refill their birth control prescriptions”:

Last year, Planned Parenthood provided contraception for 13,242 patients in New Hampshire, [CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Steve]Trombley said. The organization also provided 6,112 breast exams, 5,548 screenings for cervical cancer and 18,858 tests for sexually transmitted infections. If the contract is not renewed, Planned Parenthood will drastically reduce its services, Trombley said. The organization employs 80 people in New Hampshire. [...]

Stephanie Hiltunen, a 26-year-old who lives in Hanover, said she picked up a monthlong supply of birth control last Thursday, the day before the center stopped dispensing it. But future refills will require an inconvenient trip to Enfield, she said. Hiltunen said she would like to have a child but cannot afford it, and she worries there will be a public cost if contraception is inaccessible to low-income women.

“If they can’t afford to have a baby, then we’ll be paying for them in the long run,” she said.

Some women have told the center that the will likely “stop taking birth control because they cannot afford the higher prices charged by pharmacies” and an estimated 70 percent don’t have insurance to cover the prescriptions.

New Hampshire’s Council rejected the contract in a 3-2 vote, arguing that taxpayers should not fund abortions or so-called irresponsible behavior. “I am opposed to abortion,” said Raymond Wieczorek, a council member who voted against the contract. “I am opposed to providing condoms to someone. If you want to have a party, have a party, but don’t ask me to pay for it.”