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We Need a Plan B For Planned Parenthood
The more I learn about the Planned Parenthood videos, the more convinced I am that outrage surrounding them was entirely morally justified. All of us — even those who are somewhat pro-choice — should be horrified by doctors callously considering how to adjust abortion techniques, weighing all the variables except those pertaining to the fetus’ suffering. We should be further outraged that Planned Parenthood seems, quite plainly, to be violating federal laws by doing their damnedest to get the best price they can for fetal organs rather than simply asking for compensation for the costs of storage and transfer. Imagine, if you will, the public outcry that would follow the release of video of veterinarians speaking about euthanizing dogs or cats in such a way and for such a purpose.
That same reflection, however, has also led me to the conclusion that the GOP’s failed attempt to defund Planned Parenthood was tactically unsound from the start. The first and most obvious objection was that we never had the votes to overcome a presidential veto. At most this would have been a Pyrrhic victory that would have evaporated as soon as the bill reached the Oval Office.
Even if the votes had been there, however, I fear that the measure would have backfired — because we failed to understand how the public would perceive the effort. To begin with, the “funding” matter is a little complicated, as Planned Parenthood receives only a negligible amount of direct funding. According to the Wall Street Journal, the overwhelming majority of the $528 million Planned Parenthood receives comes in the form of Medicaid reimbursements for services provided. Moreover, federal law bars reimbursement for abortions. As much as we might (rightfully) argue that money is fungible and that it’s wrong for public funding to be used for non-essential programs that a large percentage of the population believes to be murder, these matters take too much explanation and lack the simplicity and emotional punch of “Your money isn’t being used to fund abortion. Quit complaining.”
The second, related problem is that Planned Parenthood has — evil geniuses that they are — made their name synonymous with the cause of “women’s health” and presented abortion as a small-but-no-less-sacred article of faith for that cause. As such, you can’t attack Planned Parenthood’s abortion practices without attacking the cause of women’s health itself. Rightly or wrongly — the latter, if you ask me — this plays directly into the War on Women narrative (as Jeb Bush discovered just yesterday) and quickly morphs into cries that those nasty, mean, white, puritanical Republican dudes are going to take away your access to contraceptives. And that’s just close enough to the truth to work.
So what can we do, apart from rolling over and giving up? The first and most obvious answer, I think, is to call for congressional hearings. Congress has a nearly unlimited power to subpoena testimony: why not haul Drs. Nucatola, Gatter, and Farrell, et al in front of Senators Rand Paul, Bill Cassidy, John Barrasso, all of whom are pro-life MDs as well some of the body’s best pro-life advocates (make sure to include Joni Enrst so the inevitable War on Women cries at least take some work). Make them answer questions under oath about possible crimes they may have committed, without the benefit of editing.
We lost the first fight on this. Let’s win the next.
Published in Culture, General
Reason #456721 not to be a Democrat.
Honestly, I didn’t realize this until just this week.
The Republican party of 42 years ago doesn’t even resemble the Republican party of today. The median Republican of each congress has been more conservative than the previous one since 1980. The party has been consistently moving to the right.
Are Alito and Roberts not substantial upgrades from the Justices they replaced? Remember that Kennedy was the third most conservative justice before they came along.
All of the serious contenders for the Republican nomination are substantially more conservative than George W Bush. Their nominations will be better still.
We have to get over this mentality of “The republican party of 20 years ago sucked, therefore it will always suck when in power.”
My fellow “products of conception…”
I think Tom is onto something. I think having the PP people (and representatives of the recipient research institutes) testify before congress would be a good thing. Everyone can hear what they have to say (whether they pay attention or not) and the representatives can Represent.
The question was asked in an earlier comment, what Center for Medical Progress videos are still coming?
Well, we know that Stem Express and the National Abortion Federation and have both asked for and received temporary injunctions against the publication of video footage from a luncheon with executives from the former and video from inside a convention meeting of the latter. So those are both possibilities. Also, there have been rumblings, and I heard Molly Hemingway mention it on the Federalist Radio Hour, that there may be a racial component to an upcoming video. That is, a visual and verbal illustration of what many have already been saying for years – that Planned Parenthood deliberately places its abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods. Not surprisingly, American Birth Control League (now Planned Parenthood) founder Margaret Sanger would be wholeheartedly on board with this strategy. Investigation of this “racial hygiene” (as the Nazis called it) or eugenic ideology doesn’t have to wait for the video(s), however, and I’ve found these resources helpful:
This website plots the location of every Planned Parenthood clinic throughout the nation and notes the percentages of Black and Hispanic populations within a two mile radius of these clinics, comparing that with the overall percentages of minorities in the surrounding larger metropolitan areas as a whole.
When used in conjunction with this website in the NYC metropolitan area, which chronicles the extremely high abortion rates zip code by zip code, the correlation is startling and disturbing.
Considering the number of out of wedlock pregnancies in minority communities they may just be going where the work is located.
Yes—they may be locating in poorer communities.
Depressing, but yes, possibly true. I was careful to say correlation instead of causation as there has yet to be a smoking gun (unless someone else has some info, other sources) on current PP ideological and strategic devotion to a racial/racist component. The people who made the MAAFA 21 documentary are certainly convinced.
Considering the horrible things they’ve caught PP officials saying, a future Center for Medical Progress video could be very explosive on this aspect of the story.
I would have to agree with that statement. It is appearing that $500 million ‘going’ to Planned Parenthood is for specific services from PP, but not abortion. Not a ‘line item’ in the budget for PP.
That is a grave error in our crusade that must be clarified.
However, if indeed PP is operating illegally by adjusting abortion procedures to garner more and better ‘products of conception,’ to sell (for profit or otherwise) it doesn’t matter what the federal funds were for initially, but just that the federal funds are supporting an illegal operation.
Seven videos remain, plus days, weeks, and months of praying for an open alley to stop this butchery.
I don’t see the lack of 60 votes in the Senate this week as a loss, it identified where everyone stands on this issue.
The Democrats don’t give up when things don’t go their way, they (1) continue to shape the battlefield for success, and (2) strike when the opportunity for success is highest. The CMP videos clearly are helping us with #1, as would congressional hearings, which would also convince the Republican base that this important issue hasn’t been forgotten.
There’s one other action I want to see, a congressional investigation into PPs funding, to verify that no public funds are being used for abortions.
Hearings will be great if–a big if–the Repubs actually ask probative questions rather than give speeches.
Another thing worth mentioning: It’s time to develop terminology which will help our side in this argument. As many commenters in this post have pointed out, the terms “pro” and “anti”-abortion are very black and white and don’t accurately reflect their positions. I think this inaccuracy ends up helping the Democrats, since they can logically lump anyone who supports some sort of abortion into their “pro-abortion” camp.
Based on recent polling I’ve seen, a majority of Americans support abortion during the first trimester. It would be inaccurate to call this majority “anti”-abortion, but how do we show that they don’t support unrestricted abortion? What if we refer to them as “pro 13”, since a trimester is about 13 weeks? Halfway through pregnancy would be “pro 19”, while second trimester would be “pro 26”. For those who want stricter limits, but still support immediate actions like the day after pill, they could be called “pro 1”. At the extremes, anyone who supports abortion at anytime would be “pro 39”, while anyone against abortion after conception would be the only ones to be called “anti-abortion”. Of course, just because someone doesn’t support abortion doesn’t tie them to the position, so they could be “anti, but support pro 13”.
I believe we need this sort of clarity to start to win this public policy debate. Thoughts?
I’m unclear on what congressional hearings are worth here> What questions do we need answered? Not every non profit gets funding. Let this one join the ranks. If we can’t get that done on the basis of these videos, 2016 is meaningless. The videos should have us talking about Roe v Wade, not funding.
That’s why I think having congressmen who are doctors on the panel hold them would be preferable.
I think the purpose of the hearing would be to focus on the (likely illegal) actions described in the videos: i.e., adjusting abortion techniques for the sole purpose of getting a better “sample,” and then haggling over the price. Force Cecile Richards to answer whether she thinks these actions were legal and whether they were standard practice, and why they should be trusted in the future. Force them to get into the specifics of the abortions under oath and with all the cameras on. That sort of thing.
Again, it’s not that Planned Parenthood “gets funding.” With a few negligible exceptions, the money they get from the feds overwhelmingly takes the form of Medicaid reimbursements and subsidies for services like gynecological exams, STD tests, etc (abortion is not covered by Medicaid). I’m sure there’s some way to freeze reimbursements to a specific provider suspected of violating the law, but I imagine those have to be follow.
That’s the problem.
So far, nothing shown on the videos convinces me that PP is engaging in widespread illegal activity. Yes, they could be extracting more money from the other players in the game than they should, but the reimbursement structure does not appear to be as tightly regulated as it might be, for reasons any of us might understand and, in other circumstances, actually approve of. (That is, since the costs involved undoubtedly vary from state to state, and city to city, more government oversight would be cumbersome and inefficient.)
At least as far as I could tell, the PP personnel didn’t demand higher compensation, merely agreed enthusiastically to what sounded like a better deal. Also, the fact that there is a “going rate” means facilities other than those owned by PP are involved in this activity.
If, as the CMP alleges, PP is finagling more money than can be considered reimbursement for costs, the obvious solution is not to shut down PP, or to outlaw abortion-on-demand, but to better regulate remuneration. Problem solved. No?
The abortion shown in the most recent video was not illegal. Reimbursement of the costs of separating, packaging, preserving and transferring the fetal tissue is not illegal nor, once you accept the logic of legal abortion, immoral.
PP will go on providing abortions (along with other clinics) the vast majority of which are done in the first trimester. PP will go on offering some percentage of the little fetal corpses either whole or in bits to research facilities. If, for whatever reason (public indignation or a change in research needs) fetal tissue is no longer used, then PP and the other clinics will simply dispose of those corpses along with the rest, that is, as medical waste.
Incidentally, miscarried fetuses are also disposed of as medical waste before 20 weeks gestation, unless parents specifically request other arrangements. (After 20 weeks, disposal of the remains becomes the responsibility of the parents.)
All of which means, for me, that these remarkable videos represent an opportunity, not a done deal.
Congressional hearings would allow everyone involved to make their best case, and to have that case questioned and explored openly. This would seem (and be) fairer and would therefore be more persuasive to Tedley’s P13s (who are, after all, in the majority).
Planned Parenthood is discussing and negotiating contract terms for organs based on the quality of the organs, not the shipping and handling of “medical waste.”
When does Planned Parenthood’s desire to manipulate abortion procedures and clients for gains in their revenue stream become illegal?
My desire is to abort the ‘products of conception’ between human organ trade and profit before they are born.
Human organs and tissue are the ovum, and medical researchers are the sperm, and they re having unprotected sex, which will eventually result in organ trade for profit within the safety of a Planned Parenthood womb. This will happen either publicly, or on a black market.
Right—that’s the question being posed, thus far, in the videos. That’s a different question from “should we be doing abortions at all.”
Well, if it’s illegal shouldn’t they be clamoring for an FBI investigation? Though, there’s no guarantee that the DOJ won’t shutdown or bury the whole thing which will vindicate them to the public. I’m not sure how the whole process would work.
I’m also unclear as to what congressional hearings are worth. They could either lie, stonewall or prevaricate and what would that get anyone? What ever happened to the IRS scandal? I saw on drudge that tea party groups are still waiting for IRS approval.
But any funding that PP receives helps it keep its abortion clinics open, regardless of whether it’s earmarked for that purpose or some other purpose.
I’m not aware that any of the states were directly funding abortions, but in those that have recently cut it of PP has had to close clinics (five out of eight in Wisconsin, if I remember correctly). Cutting off federal funding would presumably have a similar effect.
The states also apparently have the ability to redirect at least some of that federal funding. There’s a move to do so in Wisconsin, and I think Texas and Indiana already did.
Oh, totally agreed. That’s just a (sadly) tedious argument to someone who isn’t pro-life and who sees Planned Parenthood as a place for non-abortion services.
We need to make the case you described; my point is that it’s not quite as obvious as it sounds.
This is the primary problem. Its hard to make the case that withdrawing medicare funding of PP is legitimate seeing as how they have positioned themselves as the primary health care provider for america’s poor women. This was undoubtedly part of a long view strategy from PP to fund and expand their abortion practices.
How can one plausibly argue that medicare payments should not go to PP but should go to any other OBGYN practice that performs abortions?
Well, one could say that they shouldn’t go to Planned Parenthood in light of the crimes that they likely committed on camera. That’s basically what Bobby Jindal did a few days ago — and as Leigh said, other governors are doing — and seems perfectly justified to me.
Yes, but if the overall argument is one where abortion providers should not be supported with government funds (as Jonah Goldberg argued this week) – then you have a much harder road.
As I said earlier on this thread or another one, we need to promote other choices.
Actually, they probably shouldn’t even be talking about “defunding Planned Parenthood.” It should be “redirecting funds to organizations that truly support women’s health without seeking profits from aborted children”, or some such phraseology.
Yes. That’s both more accurate harder to demagogue.
Well done, Leigh!
I need to double-check the numbers on this, but an expansion of this point might be:
Precisely.