Lawmakers Seek to Stop Future Funding of Planned Parenthood

Currently, lawmakers are seeking to end further funding of Planned Parenthood. Although the decision has largely been dubbed “symbolic,” GOP senators’ intentions are to send a message.

Bundled with a motion to defund Obamacare, the dismantling of Planned Parenthood may be a reality after the coming election. President Barack Obama’s veto is the only thing standing in its way.

In an article from CNN,  Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama  said,  “It demonstrates that if you have a president prepared to support health care reform, it could pass next time.”

Calls to defund have risen due in part to accusations of the organization selling “baby parts” on the open market.

Anti-abortion activist David Robert Daleiden is at the epicenter of these legislative quakes. Dalieden acquired footage of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the methods for selling fetal body parts.

Included in the video are images of a fetus, though Lexi Oliver Fretz, a pro-life supporter and mother of three, later confirmed that the fetal images were of her stillborn son, not from an abortion made for profit. Daleiden has gone on record confirming these facts, although denies any deceptiveness.

The aim of defunders is to hinder abortion practice in the states. The assertion is that Planned Parenthood performs a disproportionate amount of these procedures.

This is not the case.

In Planned Parenthood’s  2013-14 annual report, it was assessed that only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s services include abortion. Their most common procedures involve STI/STD Testing & Treatment (42%) with Contraception (34%) in second place.

These statistics were calculated from 10.6 million services performed for 2.7 million clients. Even if Planned Parenthood performs more abortion services than several organizations, they account for only a miniscule fraction of the sum procedures.

Recent mass-shootings in a Colorado Planned Parenthood Clinic, based on potentially faulty facts, have stirred up a number of difficult decisions and have Democratic lawmakers to levy their own new reforms: Gun Control.

Robert Lewis Dear, the alleged gunman, was reported as mentioning “baby parts” during the act. This phrase is concurrent with Daleiden’s product.

Dear’s misconceptions are widespread and long-held.

In 2011, former senator Jon Kyl, a Republican from Arizona, once claimed that 90 percent of Planned Parenthood’s procedure involved abortions. Statistics from as far back as 2009 show that this proportion has remained consistently hovering around three percent.

Clare Coleman, former affiliate chief executive for several Planned Parenthood Clinics in New York, paints a picture of who stands to lose the most from defunding. She has gone on record stating that their most common patient, “is a working woman between 20 and 24, maybe in school, often with children.”

Federal funding of Planned Parenthood aims to help those in need receive contraceptives and sexual health care. Funds only partially cover patient’s procedures. The typical visit for someone seeking an exam could be upwards of $200.