Topic: CNSNews.com
Earlier this month, we caught CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey perpetuating his website's long, dishonest history of falsely suggesting that federal money to Planned Parenthood pays for abortion -- something that is prohibited by law -- by placing the amount of federal money it receives in close proximity to the number of abortions its clinics perform. It seems Jeffrey is determined to continue his dishonestly.
He writes in a Jan. 10 column:
Planned Parenthood has now released its 2016-2017 annual report. It says its affiliates performed 321,384 abortions in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2016.
It also says Planned Parenthood received $543.7 million in government money in the year that ended on June 30, 2017 — which included the first five months of the Trump administration.
Planned Parenthood takes money from federal taxpayers primarily through Medicaid and the Title X Family Planning Program. In 2012, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis cited by the Congressional Research Service in a May 2017 report, Planned Parenthood affiliates received "$400.56 million in Medicaid reimbursements (including both federal and state dollars)" and "$64.35 million in Title X funding."
This was followed with a complaint that "the Mexico City Policy does not stop federal Medicaid and Title X money from going to domestic Planned Parenthood affiliates — the affiliates that aborted 321,384 babies in the United States in fiscal 2016." Jeffrey refused to explain that Medicaid and Title X money to Planned Parenthood does not pay for abortion.
Jeffrey did it again in his Jan. 19 column:
In its recently released 2016-2017 annual report, Planned Parenthood said that its affiliates did 321,384 abortions in the year that ended on Sept. 30, 2016 and got $543.7 million in government money in the year that ended on June 30, 2017.
The Congressional Research Service reports that in 2012, Planned Parenthood affiliates took in $64.35 million in Title X family planning funding from the federal government and $400.56 million in federal and state Medicaid money.
Again, Jeffrey refused to make clear that none of this federal money pays for abortion.
CNS' mission statement claims it's a "news source" for those "who put a higher premium on balance than spin." But Jeffrey's journalistic dishonesty shows CNS puts right-wing spin first and foremost.
