Topic: CNSNews.com
If there's one thing CNSNews.com loves to do, it's falsely suggest or outright claim that federal money to Planned Parenthood pays for abortion.
It goes the false-suggestion-by-juxtaposition in a March 12 column by Monica Burke of the anti-abortion Heritage Foundation, who complained that "A recent government report has revealed that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, received over $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds from 2013 to 2015" and huffing that "there is still much more to be done to prevent public funds from being tied up with abortion on demand."
In fact, federal money to Planned Parenthood, by law, does not pay for abortion; Title X funding given to Planned Parenthood pays for other services for women.Thus, the money is not, in fact, "tied up with abortion on demand."
CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman made the false juxtaposition more explicit in a March 22 blog post (needless boldface in original):
The latest annual report of Planned Parenthood, for 2016-17, shows that it performed 321,384 abortions in its fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2016.
The abortion provider also received $543.7 million in government money for the funding year that ended June 30, 2017. The first five months of that year was during the Trump administration.
Planned Parenthood receives in excess of $500 million from the federal government each year. In 2015-16, it received $554.6 million; in 2014-15, it received $553.7 million; in 2013-14, $528.4 million; and in 2012-13, $540.6 million.
During those same years, Planned Parenthood performed the following number of abortions:
2015-16: 328,348
2014-15: 323,999
2013-14: 327, 653
2012-13: 327,166
Chapman added: "If one were cynical, one might conclude that the establishment GOP -- not the conservatives -- has absolutely no intention of ever defunding Planned Parenthood. " One doesn't have to be cynical, however, to see that Chapman places right-wing propaganda before reporting the truth -- an odd position for someone who's supposedly running a "news" operation. As if the graphic photo of a "baby killed by saline abortion," taken from anti-abortion group Priests for Life, in his wasn't already an indicator of Chapman's preference for propaganda.
UPDATE: CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey regurgitated the bogus juxtapostion in his March 21 column:
This month, the Government Accountability Office presented Congress with a report that said Planned Parenthood affiliates spent $288,880,000 in federal funds in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and received $1,212,780,000 in Medicaid reimbursements. Planned Parenthood affiliates also received $2,420,000 in reimbursements from Medicare and $390,000 from the Children's Health Insurance Program.
That is a total of $1,504,470,000.
During that same three-year span, according to its annual reports, Planned Parenthood did 980,000 abortions.
Jeffrey, like the others, failed to tell his readers that none of that money pays for abortion, yet he attacked Republicans as "moral cowards" for not trying to eliminate federal funding to Planned Parenthood. But isn't is also a form of moral cowardice to hide facts from readers in order to push a political argument?
