WASHINGTON, D.C., March 30, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new Live Action sting operation on Planned Parenthood clinics across the country belies statements by Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and Planned Parenthood allies that cutting funding to the abortion giant would limit women’s access to health care services including mammograms.
“If this bill ever becomes law, millions of women in this country are gonna lose their health care access – not to abortion services – to basic family planning, you know, mammograms,” Richards said on The Joy Behar Show in February, referring to the House bill that includes the cuts to Planned Parenthood’s funding.
To verify this claim, undercover journalists with Live Action made calls to 30 Planned Parenthood clinics in 27 different states, inquiring about the availability of mammograms. In every case, the actress was turned down and told to go elsewhere for the procedure, which helps detect breast cancer. A Youtube video of the calls is available here.
“For so long PP has touted that they are a provider of mammogram services. This is just one of the lies that PP uses to draw people into their clinics,” said former Planned Parenthood Director Abby Johnson. “[Planned Parenthood] is not able to provide quality services on their own, so they are forced to lie to the public about services they don’t provide — and mammograms are just one of those services.”
One staff member at a Planned Parenthood in Arizona told Live Action when asked about the availability of mammograms: “We don’t provide those services whatsoever.”
Another individual at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas explained, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”
The calls recorded by Live Action follow their recent undercover video stings showing Planned Parenthood staff, including management, apparently willing to turn a blind eye to sex-trafficking of young girls at seven clinics in four different states. Previous video stings have caught staffers on video showing an indifference to statutory child rape and failing to report to authorities that a minor teenage girl seeking abortion is being sexually abused by a much older man.
“Planned Parenthood is first and foremost an abortion business, but Planned Parenthood and its allies will say almost anything to try and cover up that fact and preserve its taxpayer funding,” said Live Action president Lila Rose. “It’s not surprising that an organization found concealing statutory rape and helping child sex traffickers would misrepresent its own services so brazenly, playing on women’s fears in order to protect their tax dollars.”
Last year, Planned Parenthood received $363 million in federal dollars.
View Live Action’s latest video here.