Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Did you ever wonder why women continue to fall for Planned Parenthood’s disingenuous drivel? An interview that aired this week with Planned Parenthood president Dr. Leana Wen about the impending closure of Missouri’s only abortion clinic is the prefect example of how artfully women are being deceived by both the abortion industry and their lackeys in the mainstream media.
In the interview with the hosts of CBS This Morning, Wen was asked about a decision by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services not to renew the license of a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, which is the only remaining abortion clinic in the state. Wen’s response is light on details and heavy on the company’s trademark hysterical hyperbole designed not to inform women, but to manipulate them.
“People need to understand that this is not a drill. It’s not hypothetical. Missouri may become the first state in nearly 50 years to have no abortion care in the entire state,” she says with great seriousness.
She then pivots to the Planned-Parenthood-is-fighting-for-you rhetoric that is so good at rallying their customer base, but once again fails to provide any meaningful details about why this clinic is closing. Surely Wen, who claims to be fighting for women’s health care, believes women deserve to know that this particular clinic is considered to be one of the most dangerous abortion clinics in America. There have been 72 ambulance calls to the clinic since 2009. In a 22-day time span ending on May 15 of this year, three women were transported by ambulance to local hospitals. Most women I know would consider these facts to be significant enough to at least mention on the air.
If Wen really cares about women, why wasn’t she more forthcoming about all of the reasons why the state is refusing to renew the clinic’s license. She only talks about one or two, but leaves the most significant reasons unmentioned, such as how the clinic is under investigation for “deficient practices.” These deficient practices include: using expired meds, IV fluids and supplies, some as old as six years (repeated offense); not performing background checks on employees; failure to properly sterilize instruments used from woman to woman; using single dose medication on more than one patient to save money (repeated offense); failure to log abortions over 18 weeks; no infection control training of staff; improper storage of medications in a refrigerator that left the drugs “compromise”; dust covering equipment and supplies all over the clinic.
Again, most women I know would consider these violations to be significant enough to mention.
In addition, the health department says they can’t complete their investigation until they interview the seven physicians who provide care at the clinic. Planned Parenthood claims they can only offer interviews with two of the seven because the other five are medical interns who are not employees and have not agreed to be interviewed.
Therefore, the reason why the clinic is closing is not because the state wants to violate women’s rights or take away their health care, but because the Department of Health is unable to complete a valid investigation of substandard conditions before the clinic’s license expires on May 31.
It is inexcusable for Dr. Wen, who is a physician, and the reporters who should have done their homework and confronted her about these facts, to face a national audience and fail to disclose such vital information to the women whose healthcare they claim to be championing.
Instead, Wen is permitted to incite fear and panic with reckless comments such as, “Today it’s Missouri, tomorrow it could be all of America” which is precisely why so many women are being manipulated into believing access to abortion is the bellwether of good reproductive health care. It’s not, and certainly not when its provided by Planned Parenthood and the US abortion industry whose clinics are not exactly setting gold standards for hygiene and safety. This list, compiled by Americans United for Life, entitled, “Abortion Industry Negligence Nationwide: Highlighting the Most Egregious Offenses” should give any woman cause to pause before falling for Planned Parenthood’s outrageously dishonest rhetoric.
We can only thank God that the state just passed a law banning abortion after eight weeks, allowing it to join a growing number of states to pass increased abortion restrictions. These laws have nothing to do with “endangering women’s health” and “infringing on women’s rights” but are all about protecting the lives of both mother and child from an increasingly extreme and predatory abortion industry.
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