Last week, Cecile Richards made an appearance at Recode, a media and technology conference in California for an interview with Kate Swisher, co-founder of Recode.
During that interview she was asked about the impact that social media has had on Planned Parenthood. Richards was quick to play the victim card and claimed that Planned Parenthood has suffered from “fake news.” When asked to offer an example of “fake news” she declined saying she preferred to stay positive. She then switched the subject and began talking about the supposed strong public support for Planned Parenthood.
Richards is likely referring to the undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress showing Planned Parenthood officials and executives haggling over the price of aborted baby parts, joking about needing to hit the gym in order to perform a dilation and evacuation abortion, and many other atrocities. A dilation and evacuation abortion is literally the ripping apart of a baby in the mother’s womb.
Planned Parenthood has attempted to push back against the videos calling them” heavily edited. But nothing could be further from the truth. Lifenews notes:
Quite the contrary, two separate forensic analyses found the videos were not manipulated or tampered with. One extensive analysis found the only edits in the videos consisted of bathroom breaks and time eating meals. Even the forensic analysis paid for by Planned Parenthood reported “there was no ‘widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.’”
Cecile Richards has also claimed the Center for Medical Progress is a well-funded effort. But according to the New York Times, the Center for Medical Progress had received about $120,000 in donations in three years from less than fifteen “very resourceful, committed individuals” who “believed in the mission and wanted to see it done.” Compare that to Planned Parenthood’s last financial year in which they received $554.6 million through Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants alone, with a combined revenue in excess of one billion.
According to their own annual reports, prenatal services at Planned Parenthood have been cut in half since 2009 and cancer screenings have been slashed since 2006. From 2009 to 2013, Planned Parenthood’s adoption-to-abortion ratio is 209-to-1.
Richards has along history of spreading misinformation and outright lies about the nature of Planned Parenthood. She has claimed in the past that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms, but was forced under oath in 2015 to admit that in fact, that was not the case. She also flat-out lied and said that she had never claimed that Planned Parenthood provided mammograms.
Given her long history of using lies as talking points, its unsurprising that Richard’s latest claims about the nature of Planned Parenthood are untrue.
The truth is that taxpayers are actually paying for more abortions and less healthcare services than ever before.
