The Sun Reports on Planned Parenthood
Today the Sun reported on a Planned Parenthood speaking here in Ithaca. The article is available online here. The speaker, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood (yes, it IS a company), was Joe Sammons. I quote the Sun here:
Because Planned Parenthood does not use government funding for abortions, the organization’s stance on abortion should not apply to the recent government funding debate, Sammons said.
“I do not have the time to list every service that we use federal funds for, but I can tell you one that we do not: abortion,” Sammons said.
I guess Joe Sammon and the Sun must think Cornellians are stupid. But we’re not, and we at the Review, along with our fellow Cornellians and Americans, know that money is fungible. So whatever Joe says about abortion not receiving federal funding is a completely moot point.
The National Review has posted before about Planned Parenthood, and I feel it’s worthwhile, in light of Joe Sammons claim that “this [the funding debate] is about women’s health and giving women the freedom to make decisions about their lives.” The National Review reported that Planned Parenthood “fought a bill to make reporting of sex abuse mandatory, because Planned Parenthood allegedly feared that the legislation might overload the responsible agency with too many cases of suspected abuse.” Additionally, PP “challenged a Missouri law that required abortion clinics to meet the same standards as the ambulatory-surgery centers in the state. Its reason? Bringing its clinics into compliance with these medically accepted standards would be prohibitively costly.”
So the next time the Sun reports about a “fight for reproductive justice and access to affordable, nonjudgemental [sic] health care”, they should look a little more closely.
