Members of an anti-abortion organization, The Center for Medical Progress, played dress-up recently, posing as representatives of a biotech firm in order to approach representatives of Planned Parenthood about obtaining fetal tissue recovered from abortions.
One such encounter, conducted over lunch, was surreptitiously taped – isn’t playing spymaster fun? – and revealed one Planned Parenthood official explaining – in excruciating and graphic detail – how the abortion procedure is performed and the steps taken to preserve organs and other matter for research.
It was, truth be told, not the most appetizing conversation ever held over a ham sandwich and a Coke. Yet, despite heavy editing, the tape revealed no wrong-doing on Planned Parenthood’s behalf. The organization insisted then and insists now that it religiously follows ethical practices laid out in federal regulations. The matter should have ended there, although continued comments about the “ick’’ factor would certainly be understandable.
So of course, as often happens with issues surrounding a woman’s right to an abortion, it has become a cause celebre, with congressional Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Louisville, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, leading a charge to withdraw federal funding for the nationwide, non-profit women’s health organization.
A quick explainer:
Planned Parenthood, as part of its duty to provide reproductive health care primarily to women, offers elective abortion services to those in need at many of its 700 health centers across the country. Under law, the federal government is prohibited from funding any of these procedures.
Generally speaking, those performing abortions in Planned Parenthood’s behalf take care not to damage certain fetal tissues that can be used in medical research. That research currently is involved in finding cures for maladies like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and even the dreaded Ebola whose very mention sent the nation into a tizzy last year.
Planned Parenthood makes no money from recovering the tissue and sending it to researchers, although it does charge for expenses like storage and shipping.
That’s basically it and it’s all being properly performed under federal law. The process was developed in 1993 as part of the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act, which allowed research on human fetal tissue regardless of whether the tissue came from a voluntary abortion.
Among those voting for the bill 22 years ago was McConnell, who now says the abortion and tissue saving services provided by Planned Parenthood “are more than just disturbing, they shock the conscience.’’
McConnell, never reluctant to hop on a political horse and ride it to death, is now one of those who wants to defund Planned Parenthood, calling it a “scandal-plagued political lobbying giant’’ despite the fact that it is an incident in search of a scandal.
But the real whopper here is McConnell’s insistence that a vote to defund Planned Parenthood would be a vote in support of women’s health.
Yeah, like a vote to defund the U.S. Army is a vote for national security.
McConnell isn’t alone in regaling against an organization that literally has helped millions and millions of women when they’ve had nowhere else to turn. Paul, the celebrated ersatz Libertarian who dons the hair shirt and assumes the persona of John the Baptist when it suits the purposes of his increasingly futile campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, is offering legislation to prohibit federal funds from being sent to the organization.
“The continued disregard and disrespect for human life at Planned Parenthood is appalling to the American people and they should no longer be forced to fund this organization with their tax dollars,’’ Paul said.
Now, at this point you may have noticed that neither McConnell nor Paul can be characterized as a young, low-income, unmarried woman who regularly turns to Planned Parenthood for help. While the non-profit – repeat, non-profit – regularly assists needy women with their reproductive health issues, McConnell and Paul are hoping to sell them out to reach their own, cheap, political goals, thus leaving these women with few alternatives.
McConnell, facing some push-back from the party’s right wing (hello Ted Cruz) is only too eager to undermine Planned Parenthood as a sop to conservatives at no personal cost, even though he blithely supported the process in the past.
Paul, whose White House ambitions are fading like the morning mist, is simply trying to suck up to social conservatives who, thus far, have ignored his entreaties. What’s a Libertarian philosophy matter when there are votes to be had?
Meanwhile, thousands, perhaps millions, who suffer from diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Ebola will lose out if the Bluegrass pair have their way because researchers won’t have the fetal tissues made available that could provide an answer to their prayers.
Planned Parenthood has been around for 99 years helping women whose reproductive health needs have otherwise been ignored by the medical establishment. Despite the rants and roars by the likes of McConnell and Paul, a relatively small portion – about three percent — of the organization’s services involve abortion.
And it bears repeating – the federal government already specifically prohibits any funding for the procedure.
One out of every five women in the United States has sought out Planned Parenthood for assistance with their health care, totaling more than two and a half million individuals every year. Half of the organization’s health centers are located in medically underserved communities.
The centers focus substantially more on prevention than abortion. About 80 percent of the organization’s clients visit for services to prevent unintended pregnancies – helping to prevent about 516,000 unintended pregnancies per year.
The organization provides almost 400,000 Pap tests and nearly 500,000 breast exams each year, two critical services in detecting the presence of cancer. It also provides nearly 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including 700,000 HIV tests.
And it doesn’t end there. Planned Parenthood affiliates provide educational programs and outreach to 1.5 million young people and adults each year, addressing concerns too often neglected in the home.
These services, to a large degree, are irreplaceable. McConnell and Paul are willing to dump them over the side for a conversation conducted over lunch. It makes it easy to conclude, in tandem with the GOP’s ongoing effort to literally destroy the Affordable Care Act, that Republicans in Washington really care very little about the health needs of the people they are elected to represent.
As Jed Clampett used to say, “Pitiful. Just pitiful.’’
Look, like it or not, and admittedly a lot of people don’t, a woman’s right to have an abortion has been the law of the land since 1972 and there’s no reason to believe that’s going to end any time soon. Publicly discussing the abortion procedure itself is not pretty. But then talking about the details of any operation – ranging from those involving cancer to hemorrhoids – isn’t the most delectable of subjects either. And there’s no discussion to end federal funding for those areas.
Planned Parenthood offers abortion services. It also offers services to assure that an abortion isn’t necessary. It’s time for McConnell, Paul and others to stop playing politics with women’s health.
Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.