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Republican Congressman Says Planned Parenthood is "Neutering" Men
posted by: Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

Allen West, a freshman Republican Congressman from Florida who was, notably, endorsed by Sarah Palin, addressed a group of conservative women last week with rhetoric that achieved the great feat of being simultaneously disturbing and nonsensical. In a speech to Women Impacting the Nation (WIN), an organization which, according to its mission statement, seeks to support the "Judeo-Christian values upon which our country is founded," West accused Planned Parenthood and other liberal women's groups of "neutering American men."

West got some press a few weeks ago for declaring on Fox News that President Obama's recent budget speech was "Marxist demagogic rhetoric," so clearly he's not afraid of making outrageously inaccurate and offensive comments in public. His speech to WIN is certainly helping to put him on the map as an outrageous firebrand. Because, according to West, women's role is to strengthen men. In his speech, he said:

"We need you to come in and lock shields to strengthen up the men that will go into the fight for you - to let these other women know, on the other side, these Planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women who have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness, to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient. That's what we need you to do. Because if we don't, then the debt will continue to grow."

This was connected, in an extremely fragmented way, to some ramblings about Spartan mothers, who, according to West, were responsible for the strength of the Spartan men they raised. He also threw in some references to "our Judeo-Christian heritage" for good measure (clearly, he knew his audience), and added that this struggle was "a spiritual confrontation about the soul of these United States of America."

I'll leave it to you to piece out just how Planned Parenthood and Code Pink are related to debt growth, or why they're causing a "spiritual confrontation." What's clear is that West, like a growing number of American politicians, needs to think before he speaks - especially when it comes to Planned Parenthood.

Ohio Congresswoman Claims 32 of Every 33 Pregnant Women At Planned Parenthood Get Abortions
posted by: Robin Marty

Republicans like to have fun with numbers when it comes to trying to justify pulling funds from Planned Parenthood, the nation's number one provider of family planning and contraceptive services. First Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl claimed that 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood is abortions -- a statement so ridiculously wrong that he first retracted it, claiming he didn't intend it as a "factual statement," and now has officially had it stricken from the congressional record.

Now, Ohio Republican Jean Schmidt, a Congresswoman with deep ties to Ohio Right to Life, is stating that 32 out of 33 pregnant women who go to Planned Parenthood get abortions.

Polifact calls that statement just false.

All [the anti-choice groups involved in pushing the statistic] stated that roughly 98 percent of Planned Parenthood's services to pregnant women consist of abortion. They derived their information from a March 2011 fact sheet from Planned Parenthood. That fact sheet says the group performed 332,278 abortions in 2009, referred 977 patients to other agencies for adoptions, and provided prenatal care to 7,021 patients.

The anti-abortion groups came up with the 98 percent figure by comparing the number of abortions to the number of procedures in the other two categories. Schmidt’s 32 out of 33 statistic works out to 97 percent - the approximate percentage her sources provided.

But there are problems with that calculation.

First, it assumes that pregnant women only go to Planned Parenthood for one of those three options.

Planned Parenthood representatives say that interpretation overstates the ratio of abortions among its pregnant clients. It ignores other statistics, such as the 1,158,924 pregnancy tests the group provided, and the fact that those 332,278 abortions were just 3 percent of the 11,383,900 total procedures that Planned Parenthood health centers provided that year to its 3 million patients.

Thirty five percent of its services consisted of providing contraception and another 35 percent consisted of testing for sexually transmitted diseases and treatment.

The fact sheet stats also don't reflect the fact that only a tiny proportion of Planned Parenthood centers around the country provide prenatal care - just 63 out of more than 800, said Tait Sye, a spokesman for the organization. Those that don't offer prenatal care refer pregnant women to other health care providers for those services, and Planned Parenthood doesn't keep track of those referrals. And the 7,021 figure for prenatal clients that was used in the calculations doesn't include pregnant women who went to Planned Parenthood for prenatal care and were sent to outside obstetricians.

So the statement itself is out and out false, but even if it wasn't, there's another problem with it.

It doesn't matter what ratio of pregnant women who come into Planned Parenthood obtain abortions, since none of the funding being discussed in congress goes toward paying for abortions, thanks to the Hyde amendment that prohibits federal funding of abortions.

Pat Robertson: The Far Left is "Livid" About Aborting Babies To Level The Playing Field for Lesbians
posted by: Robin Marty

Ever wonder why President Obama fought so hard to ensure that Planned Parenthood didn't lose Title X funding? Well, if you ask former presidential nominee and current conservative legend Pat Robertson, it's because the group is dedicated to "killing babies" so all women will be on a "level playing field" with lesbians.

Um, yeah.

Robertson: If a woman is a lesbian, what advantage does she have over a married woman? Or what deficiency does she have?

Cohost: She can't have children.

Robertson: That's exactly right. And so if these married women don't have children, they abort their babies, that kind of puts them on a level playing field. Nobody's there to express that. Isn't that shocking? Well, think about it a little bit, ladies and gentlemen.

Don't forget, the far left is "livid about killing babies." Livid apparently in this case meaning enthusiastic?

Robertson, a founding father of the evangelical Christian political movement that has been a growing source of power in the United States in recent decades, is still attempting to play his part in shaping the nomination for president, stating that Christians could back candidates like Tim Pawlenty, or a few other candidates who have thus far shown no inclination of running. But as for frontrunner Mitt Romney, Robertson states, "Unfortunately, in Massachusetts, they passed the healthcare bill that's not unlike what we hate — and that's going to come back to haunt him.”