Elizabeth Warren Defends Planned Parenthood As Senate Votes On Bill To Defund The Women's Health Organization 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Defended Planned Parenthood As Senate Voted To Defund The Organization. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) defended Planned Parenthood August 3 as the Senate convened to vote on a bill seeking to defund the women's health organization. According to Mother Jones, Warren said:

“Do you have any idea what year it is?” Warren asked. “Did you fall down, hit your head, and think you woke up in the 1950's or the 1890's? Should we call for a doctor? Because I simply cannot believe that in the year 2015, the United States Senate would be spending its time trying to defund women's health care centers. You know, on second thought, maybe I shouldn't be that surprised. The Republicans have had a plan for years to strip away women's rights to make choices over our own bodies. Just look at the recent facts.” [Mother Jones, 8/3/15]

Joe Scarborough Attacks Sen. Warren For Defending Planned Parenthood

Scarborough Chides Sen. Warren For Defending Planned Parenthood, “Nice Try Elizabeth.” During the August 4 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough attacked Sen. Warren for defending Planned Parenthood, accusing her of “conflating the right to choose with Planned Parenthood,” and claiming she used a red herring to defend the organization:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: More videos are coming out and they will be worse. And for Elizabeth Warren to try to conflate the right of a woman to choose with the horrors and the callousness and the grotesqueness of what was discussed over lunch is really unfortunate. You know, Elizabeth Warren talking about the 1950s and the 1890s, she can talk about it all she wants. There is a great quote. I don't know the source but it goes something like 'just because we are not shocked by what shocked our grandmothers does not mean we are more advanced than our grandmothers.' 

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Okay. But with, you know, just to be clear here, she's talking about the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood and its services. She's not talking about what's going on in these videos. 

[...]

SCARBOROUGH: Nice try Elizabeth, nice try Elizabeth Warren. Nice try. It's only going to get worse for Planned Parenthood. I agree with Hillary Clinton. There are troubling things on those tapes. And everybody needs to open their eyes and see that instead of reflexively talking about right wing attacks on a woman's right to choose. Please stop insulting our intelligence, Elizabeth Warren. Stop. [MSNBC, Morning Joe, 8/4/15]

Scarborough Minimizes The Role Planned Parenthood Plays In Providing Women's Health Services. Scarborough attacked Planned Parenthood arguing that the organization “is not synonymous with women's health,” and that “you can be against the funding of Planned Parenthood without being against the support of women's health care”:  

SCARBOROUGH: It's going to be very interesting to see how many Americans really believe that their tax dollars should go to fund this organization. Planned Parenthood is not synonymous with women's health. You can have women's health or you can have an organization that takes care of women's health without having the number one abortion provider who speaks so callously over lunch about the harvesting of unborn children. 

MIKA: The story is going to get a lot bigger. 

SCARBOROUGH:  I'm just saying, conflating the right to choose with Planned Parenthood, conflating taxpayer dollars going to Planned Parenthood with protecting women's health, that's just a red herring. It has been set up that way so you can't have this discussion without being against women's health. But you can be against the funding of planned parenthood without being against the support of women's health care. [MSNBC, Morning Joe, 8/4/15]

The Videos Scarborough Cites Are Deceptively Edited And Misleading 

The Videos Are Full Of Deceptive Edits Aimed At Smearing Planned Parenthood. The videos released by Center for Medical Progress have been highly edited in an effort to smear Planned Parenthood. The full, unedited versions of the videos show that Planned Parenthood has done nothing illegal and participates in consensual, legal tissue donation for medical research. [Media Matters, 7/14/15, 7/21/15, 7/28/15, 7/30/15]

FactCheck.org Debunked The First Deceptively Edited Video. In a July 21 post, Factcheck.org demolished the credibility of the first video released by Center for Medical Progress noting that the video's claim that Planned Parenthood was “selling aborted baby parts” was inaccurate and unfounded. [Factcheck.org, 7/21/15] 

Investigations In Two States Have Cleared Planned Parenthood Of Any Wrongdoing. An investigation by the Indiana State Department of Health found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood clinics in the state and “no evidence of any laws being broken.” Similarly, the Massachusetts Attorney General announced that they had also “found no evidence” of wrongdoing and noted that the health centers “are fully compliant with state and federal laws.” [Media Matters, 7/31/15] 

Planned Parenthood Provides Essential Health Care Services For Women 

One In Five Women Has Relied On Planned Parenthood For Health Care. In July 29 Washington Post op-ed, Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, noted that “one in five women has relied on Planned Parenthood for health care in her lifetime”:   

One in five women has relied on Planned Parenthood for health care in her lifetime. Those women are the victims here. Planned Parenthood patients turn to us not just because they know we uphold the highest medical standards of care but also because we are part of their local community. More than half of Planned Parenthood's health centers are in rural or medically underserved areas. And for many low-income women, Planned Parenthood health centers are their sole source of medical care. Our health centers are lifelines that our country cannot afford to cut. [The Washington Post, 7/29/15] 

Every Dollar Invested In Publicly Funded Family Planning Services Saved Over Seven Dollars In Other Public Expenditures. The Guttmacher Institute noted that "Of the 38 million women in need of contraceptive care in 2013, 20 million were in need of publicly funded services and supplies because they either had an income below 250% of the federal poverty level or were younger than 20. The report went on:

• More than six in 10 women who obtained care at a publicly funded center that provides contraceptive services in 2006-2010 considered the center their usual source of medical care. For four in 10 women obtaining care at family planning centers that specialize in the provision of contraceptive care, that center is their only source of health care. 

[...]

• In 2010, STI testing services provided as part of a publicly funded family planning visit prevented 99,000 chlamydia infections and 16,000 gonorrhea infections. Services provided at Title X-supported centers accounted for 53,000 averted chlamydia infections and 8,800 gonorrhea infections.

• In 2010, services provided as part of a publicly funded family planning visit related to cervical cancer prevention, including Pap and HPV testing and the HPV vaccine, prevented 3,700 cases of cervical cancer and 2,100 cervical cancer deaths. Services provided at Title X-supported centers accounted for 1,900 cases of cervical cancer and 1,100 cervical cancer deaths averted.

• All together, the services provided at publicly funded family planning visits in 2010 resulted in a net savings to the federal and state governments of $13.6 billion. The services provided at Title X-supported centers alone accounted for $7.0 billion of that total.

• In other words, in 2010, every $1.00 invested in publicly funded family planning services saved $7.09 in Medicaid and other public expenditures that otherwise would have been needed. [Guttmacher Institute, July 2015]

Planned Parenthood Affiliates Performed Nearly 900,000 Pap Tests And Breast Exams In Fiscal Year 2013. The 2013-2014 Planned Parenthood annual report shows that Planned Parenthood affiliates performed nearly 900,000 pap tests and breast exams from October 2012 - September 2013, enabling over 87,000 women to identify abnormalities or detect cancer early. [Planned Parenthood, 12/16/14] 

Female Republican Senator:  Planned Parenthood “Is The Primary Provider of Women's Health Services” In Many Places. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) recently stated she would most likely oppose a bill from her colleagues that would defund Planned Parenthood, citing the fact that the organization is “the primary provider of women's health services” in many parts of her state.

“The problem is, in my state and many others, Planned Parenthood is the primary provider of women's health services in certain parts of my state, and as I understand the amendment, and again I'm still reviewing it, it immediately defunds Planned Parenthood,” Collins said. “So I don't know how you would ensure that all of the patients of Planned Parenthood could be absorbed by alternative care providers.” [The Hill, 7/29/15]