ABC's The View on Thursday neglected one side of the abortion debate by
bringing on two staunch supporters of Planned Parenthood in Congress
without any other guests arguing the pro-life side. As the two
championed giving tax money to the abortion provider, Barbara Walters
herself defended the organization, while Whoopi Goldberg assisted in
spreading a falsehood about "federal dollars" for abortion (audio clips available here [1]).
The show's co-hosts brought on Representatives Gwen Moore and Jackie
Speier, two of the current "pro-choice" heroes in Congress supporting
Planned Parenthood funding, near the end of their 11 am Eastern hour
program to discuss the controversial issue. After playing clips from two
of their recent floor speeches in the House of Representatives (they
omitted Moore's infamous "ramen noodles" remark), co-host Elizabeth
Hasselbeck echoed her colleague Joy Behar's compliment from earlier in the week [2]: "We're
glad you're both here. Courageous, indeed, what you did to bring your
own personal stories....I think it touched many women, including us."
Hasselbeck then asked Rep. Moore, "Congresswoman Moore, your unplanned
pregnancy, did that affect your role in politics now?" Moore answered by
firing off many of the liberal talking points on the issue:
MOORE: ...We had a lot of family support, support from friends, and Marquette University. But as I think back on our lives, you know, I've had inadequate day care, subjected her to sexual predators, we've been food insecure, and she's a great woman now, age 41, but she totally supports Planned Parenthood and their role and goal in helping women manage their lives, and a lot about public policy has- prevents women from self-actualizing. You know, we ended welfare as we knew it so that there is no guarantee of public support for women and children....No safety net whatsoever, and from the moment you crown, you don't have the protection of those who say that they want to see children being born. I mean, in this budget- repair budget bill, they stripped $747 million out of WIC, literally taking- JOY BEHAR (off-camera): Tell them what WIC is. MOORE: Women, Infants and Children's program. It's a program that provides supplements for nursing women and for babies- cut out the child and maternal health services and stripped all kinds of services for women. Many people have called this budget a war on women.
Walters stepped in at this point to provide more pro-Planned Parenthood
talking points. When Rep. Speier claimed in her reply that no federal
funds go to abortion, Goldberg emphatically asked her to repeat her
false claim:
WALTERS: Yeah, I want to make very clear, because if you just saw those clips, because Congressman Speier, you also got up and told the most personal story of your own experience, which you had not intended to do, because you are for Planned Parenthood because it's not just abortions. They give so much money to education, to helping women understand what their problems might be.
BEHAR: HIV testing, cancer screening-
WALTERS: HIV testing, etc.-
SPEIER: You know, in fact-
WALTERS: So you're standing up was to say, hey, you know, it's not just abortions, but if you need one, let me tell you my story, correct?
SPEIER: That's correct. In fact, what we were debating on the floor was defunding $300 million to Planned Parenthood just for the health care, for the breast cancer screening-
WALTERS: Not to do abortions-
SPEIER: Nothing about abortions. In fact, no federal dollars can go to abortions in the budget-
GOLDBERG: Will you repeat that again, please, real loud?
SPEIER: No federal dollars can go to abortions.
HASSELBECK: Congresswoman, I'd like to ask- I just-
BEHAR: Since a long time ago, a long time-
SPEIER: For over 30 years.
Actually, as I noted on Tuesday, when Behar made the same claim on her
HLN program, the National Abortion Federation, which represents
abortionists nationwide, acknowledges on their own website [3] that federal law "requires [Medicaid] coverage of abortion in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment." Also, pro-life blogger Jill Stanek reported on Thursday [4], Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms at their clinics. They only refer for them.
Hasselbeck then tossed a possible compromise on the Planned Parenthood
funding at the two Democratic representatives, but they continued their
staunch support for the organization and the funding status quo:
HASSELBECK: But to be clear, Planned Parenthood is the largest recipient of federal funds- also, the nation's largest provider of abortions. My question is, because I come-
GOLDBERG: But they're two separate issues!
HASSELBECK: I understand that. If so separate, why not separate them?
SPEIER: They are separate-
HASSELBECK: Why not have it under a different name, a different entity, and why put it all under one, so there is no confusion, so the taxpayer doesn't then have to feel as though their money could potentially be going to an abortion, where someone else is deciding the value of a life in their mind? Why not separate it?
SPEIER: Okay. First of all, family planning-
MOORE: It's- the money is not fungible. It's- 90%, literally, 90% of the services that Planned Parenthood provide are diagnosis for cervical cancer, diabetes, and only 10% of their services-
WALTERS: But Elizabeth is saying, why not separate-
HASSELBECK: My point is separate the entities.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN (off-camera): It is separated.
HASSELBECK: Why hard-line it and not under Planned Parenthood?
SPEIER: It's important to know that, first of all, they're audited constantly. They have separate facilities to provide services for abortion from the facilities that provide health care to women. They have separate staff. They have separate equipment. Everything is separated. They don't do the services on the same day.
HASSELBECK: But it falls under the Planned Parenthood umbrella, correct? My point is it could be clear to everybody if it was just called something else.
Representative Speier made another false claim. While many of Planned
Parenthood facilities don't provide abortions, many of them do, in the
very same building where they provide birth control and HIV screenings. A
notorious example of this is their 78,000 square foot facility [5] that the organization opened in 2010 in Houston, Texas [6].
Co-host Sherri Shepard ended the segment by raising the recent
undercover videos released by Live Action. Rep. Speier revealed the
extent of her support of Planned Parenthood by her strong negative
labels of the videos, while Rep. Moore spouted another common talking
point in favor of the organization, that they actually prevent more
abortions than perform:
SHEPHERD: You know Live Action, when they put out the video- they released a video showing some Planned Parenthood employees advising on- people giving false information, so they can get an abortion. Now, they got- the Planned Parenthood- they got fired, the specific employee.
GOLDBERG: In [New] Jersey-
SHEPHERD: In Jersey. Could this happen again?
SPEIER: Well, it happens all the time. It's been going on for four years, where they've come into Planned Parenthood trying to do these entrapments. It was one woman. She was fired, out of 11,000 employees at Planned Parenthood.
HASSELBECK (off-camera): One of them was caught doing it, right?
SPEIER: It was a set-up!
MOORE: Planned Parenthood prevents abortions.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN (off-camera): Right-
BEHAR: That's the point-
WALTERS: Has this gone through? Is this bill (unintelligible) going to pass? What do you think is going to happen to this amendment?
HASSELBECK: It prevents and provides-
MOORE: It prevents more abortions than it provides, because women do-
BEHAR: It happens to be the law of the land also. Let's not forget Roe v. Wade is part of the law of this country. (crowd applauds and cheers) It's not like they're obtaining it illegally-
HASSELBECK: I'm not saying that they are. I guess my point is, I think this argument could be very clear if it were just a different-
WALTERS: Let them-
MOORE: It prevents abortions and it also prevents unhealthy births. You know, when you become pregnant, you do need support of services. You know, Planned Parenthood's clients, 75% of them are at 150% or below poverty level, and 60% of all women use this as their primary health care system.
SPEIER: I agree-
HASSELBECK: You know, I think you're both courageous women for coming here-
MOORE: Thank you so much-
HASSELBECK: And we're glad we can have this kind of discussion- only can we have it here! Our thanks to Congresswomen Gwen Moore and Jacqueline Speier.
Hasselbeck twice emphasized how the two Democrats were "courageous,"
but will she and her View co-hosts be courageous enough to bring on
pro-lifers such as Live Action's Lila Rose or former Planned Parenthood
clinic director turned pro-life advocate Abby Johnson?
- Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here [7].