By Kathy Ostrowski, State Legislative Director of Kansans for Life
Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.
The “only-3%-of-our-business-is-abortion” lie is recycled by Michelle Trupiano, a “public affairs” spinmeister for Planned Parenthood of Kansas Mid-Missouri (PPKMM) with abortion operations in Overland Park Kansas, and Columbia & St. Louis Missouri.
Her comments in an interview that appeared in the July 1, 2011, edition of the Columbia Missourian were carefully critiqued by Dr. Randall k. O’Bannon, director of education for the National Right to Life Committee, our parent group.
O’Bannon writes [www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2011/07/local-planned-parenthood-rhetoric-reflects-national-spin-on-abortion]:
“Trupiano repeats the well-worn claim that “Over 97% of our services are about prevention,” while abortion “makes up about 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services.” The issue, of course, is not how many items are on the menu, but what it is that individual customers order and which item brings in the most money. The 97% and 3% mantra is repeated everywhere. But in some of the harder to find fact sheets, PPFA, the national organization, admits that 12% of its clients receive abortions, not 3%. At PPKMM, the percentage is apparently much higher. According to this website, 6,006 of its 26,553 patients received abortions in 2008, a whopping 22.6%.“
O’Bannon continues:
“Trupiano claims that “Planned Parenthood works very hard to provide the full range of reproductive health services, including abortion…” However it does not appear from the affiliate’s website that it records providing any service options for pregnant women other than abortion, such as adoption referrals or prenatal care.”
DONATIONS SOUGHT
Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri was in court today to schedule a hearing for Aug. 1 on its request for a temporary injunction blocking a portion of the 2011-2012 Kansas state budget that directs that family planning services financed in any way under “Title X” federal rules must be contracted primarily with public health clinics and secondarily with qualified non-public hospitals or health centers that provide comprehensive health care–primary and preventative.
PPKMM’s website has a plea for donations: “[W]e are asking private donors to step up and help us continue providing low-cost services while the lawsuit moves forward.”
But the truth is that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has already begun sending Title X contracts to full service health clinics and hospitals. KDHE amended grants will be finalized with HHS in late August for over 50 qualified health facilities that can certainly perform pap smears and the manual (non-mammogram) breast exams that PPKMM does. They just don’t perform abortions!