Live Action News finds few facilities willing to provide pre-natal care or ultrasounds
New videos have surfaced after another organization went undercover to reveal what Planned Parenthood (PP) really does.
Live Action News (LAN) is behind the latest series of videos alleging the organization is deceiving the public about offering prenatal care and other services.
“We do birth control, you know, things like that. Terminations. We check for STIs, but we don’t do pre-natal,” said a staffer who answered the phone in Elizabeth, NJ.
“No, we don’t do prenatal services,” said another PP employee in Merrillville, IN. “I mean, it’s called Planned Parenthood. I know it’s kind of deceiving.”
LAN phoned 97 facilities linked with PP across the U.S., and only five of them offered to provide pre-natal care.
The investigators also phoned or travelled to 63 different facilities to ask if they could get an ultrasound to check on the health of their baby.
“We specialize in abortions. You know, that’s what our ultrasounds are for, to see how far along the, um, patient is,” said a worker in Farmington, NM.
Only three facilities (less than five per cent) could do an ultrasound for a pregnant woman who wanted to keep her child; the rest did used ultrasounds for abortions or not at all.
LAN founder Lila Rose said this shows “prenatal care for pregnant women is virtually nonexistent at the abortion giant.”
That’s contrary to what PP president Cecile Richards and other advocates have said about the organization. Richards has been on record listing “prenatal care” as “the kinds of services that folks depend on Planned Parenthood for.”
The organization’s annual report for 2014-2015 lists “prenatal services” as one of its offerings and says it happened 17,419 times in that period, without explaining what those services actually entailed.
The number comes low on the list of PP offerings. The only services that were offered less were sterilizations, vasectomies, LEEP and cryotherapy procedures, and adoption referrals.
These videos come at an inconvenient time for PP. In recent years, the organization has been targeted with countless petitions to remove government funding (43 per cent of its revenue), and just last month a self-proclaimed pro-life president stepped into the White House.
This is only the latest development in a string of undercover videos aiming to undermine the organization. The Centre for Medical Progress released a series of tapes in 2015 alleging PP sells the body parts of aborted children.
LAN also released a video in 2011 debunking Richard’s claims women rely on PP for mammograms, a type of screening for breast cancer.
That effort, nicknamed “mammosham,” involved phone calls to 30 facilities in 27 states asking for the service. Not one could offer it.
LAN has also released videos alleging some Planned Parenthood employees cover up sexual abuse and child trafficking by telling potential clients to lie on forms.
Rose held a press conference with members of U.S. Congress Feb. 2.
“Live Action has been releasing new investigative videos on lack of health care services and the misrepresentation and misleading of taxpayers and the American people by the biggest abortion provider in this country, Planned Parenthood, showing their abortion-first mentality,” she said.
Rose advocates for “redirecting funds to more worthy healthcare providers.”
The videos can be seen at liveactionnews.org.
Photo: Lila Rose.
