Planned Parenthood Touts Seven-Figure Ad Buy for Hillary Clinton

Darren McCollester/Getty Images
Darren McCollester/Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

Any American who says abortion is not an important issue in the 2016 campaign will get an argument from abortion-business leader Planned Parenthood, which is promising to spend a seven-figure sum to aid Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in Michigan, Virginia, and Texas.

“The abortion part of Planned Parenthood is an important part of what we do,” its president Cecile Richards said this past week, according to the Boston Globe.

Richards was responding to the fact that GOP 2016 candidate Donald Trump said he would eliminate taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood as long as they perform abortions but added the organization does “some good work” for “millions” of women.

To protect its abortion business from Republicans — who generally believe the organization should not receive taxpayer funds — Planned Parenthood will use videos, digital ads, phone banks, and in-home mailers in support of Clinton.

In one ad, a narrator says about Clinton, “When they said our health care wasn’t important. When they tried to deny us cancer screenings. When they talked about our personal health decisions in ways meant to shame us. She spoke up. She was our champion.”

For the first time in its history, Planned Parenthood has endorsed a candidate in a primary, likely the result of the intense political pressure the organization has been under over the past several years.

Many states — as well as the U.S. House of Representatives — have passed abortion limits restricting the procedure past the fifth month of pregnancy and requiring the same safety standards for abortion clinics as other types of medical facilities — such as arrangements for patients to be transported to local hospitals in the event complications develop during an abortion. Planned Parenthood, however, is opposed to these safety laws as well as mandatory ultrasounds that require women to view an ultrasound of their baby as part of the informed consent process prior to having an abortion.

Additionally, a series of undercover videos last summer exposed Planned Parenthood’s apparent practices of trading the body parts of aborted babies and altering the position of babies during the abortion procedure in order to harvest the intact organs. The videos led to both the House and Senate voting to eliminate the organization’s taxpayer funding.

With a field of pro-life Republican candidates to face, Planned Parenthood is putting its money behind Clinton.

“Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in this race who has made women’s health and rights a priority,” said Deirdre Schifeling, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, reports Politico.

“Hillary Clinton has been fighting for women and their families for her entire life,” she continued, adding:

Politicians in Virginia, Texas and Michigan have been stripping women and families of their basic health and rights. Women in these three states know how important it is to elect a champion who will fight for women. That’s why so many women are standing up in support of Hillary. They know what’s at stake, and they know she’ll fight for us.

Schifeling’s statement and the new ad campaign continue the abortion industry’s meme that abortion is “women’s health care.” Richards and other Planned Parenthood supporters have attempted to garner support by emphasizing the organization’s non-abortion services — even though its own recent annual report indicates declines in those services.

An added problem for Planned Parenthood is that it does not perform its own mammograms, yet advertises its “life-saving breast cancer screenings” as an indispensable service to women. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), however, it no longer even recommends manual breast exams. As of October of 2015, the organization recommends only mammograms.

“Breast exams, either from a medical provider or self-exams, are no longer recommended,” ACS states. “Breast exams are no longer a part of the screening recommendations because research does not show they provide a clear benefit. Still, the American Cancer Society says all women should be familiar with how their breasts normally look and feel and report any changes to their health care provider right away.”

As Richards states, abortion is an important part of Planned Parenthood’s business. Increasingly more Americans, however, are in favor of restrictions on abortion.

A recent Marist College Institute for Public Opinion poll found a full 81 percent of Americans favor some restrictions on abortion — including limiting the procedure after the first three months — and a continued ban on public funding of abortion.

In the survey of 1,700 Americans, even 66 percent of respondents who identify themselves as pro-choice say, “Abortion should be allowed, at most, in the first trimester, in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, or never permitted.”

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