Shilling for Planned Parenthood
— Posted by John (May 11, 2006 at 11:26 am)
In the comments section under a previous post (”New Development in the ‘Evil CPC’ Story”), Orthodoxy notes the following:
Just received a response from Indiana State Sen. Billie J. Breaux’s (D-34) office. The emails read as follows:
—begin email 1—
I looked into this email and yes it is a true story. Many of the Pregnancy Crisis Centers [sic] here are staffed by volunteers who are not trained. The information was put out to try to get people to stand up and ask for legislation to stop what some of these centers do. It was not a fundraising plot by Planned Parenthood, though.I hope this information is helpful.
Cindy Felsten
Legislative Assistant for
Senator Vi Simpson
Senator Billie Breaux
200 W. Washington - 401B
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-232-9849
—end email 1——begin email 2—
I forgot to include that the reason why you have not found public records - the young lady and her family want to move on so they are being protected and they decided not to file a lawsuit. The Crisis Center [sic] has no staff, just volunteers and their legal structure makes it difficult to bring legal action. PP’s message was a call to action to support legislation which would help to put an end to intimidation and misleading practices at CPCs. Not all CPCs use those actions.If I missed answering any of your questions, please let me know and I will get answers.
Cindy Felsten
Legislative Assistant for
Senator Vi Simpson
Senator Billie Breaux
200 W. Washington - 401B
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-232-9849
—end email 2—Just thought I’d post this response, in the interest of full disclosure (which we are often accused of inhibiting).
I called Cindy Felsten to ask her about the story, and she assured me that it was true. When I asked her how she was able to verify it, she said that she had called an official at Planned Parenthood of Indiana—one Michael McKillip—in response to an e-mail inquiry she had received (possibly from Orthodoxy?) who had assured her Planned Parenthood’s version of events was accurate.
Felsten also told me that McKillip did not give her any more details regarding the incident. Neither did he divulge to her which facility in which city Planned Parenthood contends the incident occurred.
When I asked her if she had contacted the CPC to get their version of events, she said, “No.” (Obviously not, since she doesn’t know where the alleged incident took place.)
How’s that for fact-checking?
It’s troubling—although not surprising—to witness a legislative assistant to a publicly elected state official play the part of a Planned Parenthood shill and, in the process, take an unfounded swipe at the state’s CPCs. Recall Felsten’s words:
Many of the Pregnancy Crisis Centers [sic] here are staffed by volunteers who are not trained.
One wonders if Felsten really believes that a CPC would allow one of its volunteers to counsel women experiencing untimely pregnancies by providing her nary a training session, much less a series of them.
In a May 1 AlterNet article titled “Exposing Anti-Choice Abortion Clinics” [sic], blogger Amanda Marcotte offered similar assurance to Felsten’s that Planned Parenthood’s story is trustworthy [HT: JivinJ]:
I contacted Jennifer Jorczak of Planned Parenthood of Indiana to verify this story, and while she was unable to provide details out of respect for the patient’s privacy, she confirmed that everything in the initial action alert email was true.
We now know that two Planned Parenthood of Indiana officials–Jennifer Jorczak and Michael McKillip–have been questioned as to whether the “evil CPC” story is true, and both of their responses could be paraphrased thusly:
Assuming you ask me absolutely no follow-up questions, yes. Yes, it is.
This entry is filed under Abortion, Culture Wars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Lauren says:
Have you asked the CPC in question?
Comment posted May 11th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Orthodoxy says:
John,
Thank you for getting in touch with Ms. Felsten. (I did not have the time to do so, because my regular job is not in the pro-life realm, nor is it as a political activist.)
Please continue the investigation, and know that our prayers are with you.
Orthodoxy
Comment posted May 11th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
John says:
“Have you asked the CPC in question?”
Yes, I did.
If I recall correctly, the director’s exact words regarding the story were, “It’s not worth the ink it’s printed on.”
Comment posted May 11th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Quinn says:
If Planned Parenthood will conceal child rape for the sake of making money from an abortion, then its no surprise at all that they would fabricate a story for the sake of fundraising and fighting against those of us who promote life.
Comment posted May 11th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Quinn says:
Oh yeah, I was wondering if you or Eric or Joe had watched the Focus On The Strategy DVD that Bob Enyart sent you a while back. If you did not get a copy I will gladly send you one.
Comment posted May 11th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Lauren says:
Last I checked Planned Parenthood is a not-for-profit organization, right?
Comment posted May 11th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Lauren says:
Truthfully, I take little credence into what this CPC would have to say givne the truth of the story at hand
Comment posted May 11th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Sunnyday says:
Tee-hee!!!!
Planned Parenthood, a not-for-profit organization. Tee-hee!!
Well, I got my chuckle for the day. And I know that by not providing any helpful data on the matter, my comment has very little (if any) redeeming value. But I just had to express my light-hearted sentiment, even if it is on a very serious issue.
John, I appreciate your taking the time to investigate. The love for truth, regardless of how we feel about the result, is something that is important to me as well.
Comment posted May 12th, 2006 at 4:09 am
Sunnyday says:
Okay, right after posting the previous comment, I decided that I shouldn’t stop there. Here’s something that may shed some light on the dynamics of abortion providers and money matters:
http://www.straight-talk.net/abortion/business.shtml
Comment posted May 12th, 2006 at 4:24 am
lauren says:
I am right. Planned Parenthood is a not-for-profit.
Comment posted May 12th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Eric says:
Hey, Lauren, do me a favor, will you? When you want to paste in a big huge URL that goes right off the page, please use tags, or if you don’t know how to do that, go to TinyURL to get a shorter one you can paste in.
By the way, the Hoovers link you pasted in (which I moved to be a link from the text “I am right”) goes to a Page Not Found message.
Anyway, I don’t think anybody’s denying that Planned Parenthood is a not-for-profit organization. But that only means they aren’t in business to make a financial profit, not that they don’t have an interest in selling products in order to cover their operating costs, or are prohibited from “marking up” products and services that they offer in order to bring in funds.
PP performs over 200,000 abortions every year; they are they nation’s #1 abortion provider and this consistutes a major source of income for them.
Comment posted May 12th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Orthodoxy says:
The most glaring piece of data contained in the 1998/1999 Annual Report of Planned Parenthood is its profits. Now, we know PPFA is officially a “not-for-profit corporation” and its profits are officially called “income in excess of expenditures,” but when an organization has income in excess of expenditures of $125.8 million, that’s a profit!
Planned Parenthood enjoys being classified by the Internal Revenue Service as a “not-for-profit” corporation. Because of this, it receives special prices from drug companies and is able to escape paying any taxes on its excess income. In many areas, PP also is able to avoid property and sales tax payments.
A “not-for-profit” corporation is labelled as such supposedly to be able to provide reduced-cost services to their (for simplicity) “customers”. If they made $125.8 million in profit in 1999 (by their own annual report) by performing 167,928 abortions (again, by their own annual report), which gave provided them with nearly $60 million of their income, they still have almost $65 million in profit from other income sources! Why aren’t they giving FREE abortions, if that’s the case? After all, they received $130 million in federal grants (not including $60 million that went to AGI and other PP affiliates) in FY ‘99/’00 (see page 2 of the White House General Accounting Office report at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0281r.pdf).
Doesn’t sound like they’re *really* not-for-profit, now does it?
I can register myself as a Republican, but if I vote for the Democrats in every election, would you really consider me to be a Republican?
So, this begs the question - where does all the money go? (Hint: see EMILY’s List).
Comment posted May 12th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Eric says:
Pet Peeve Alert! Orthodoxy writes: “So, this begs the question - where does all the money go?” [Emphasis added.]
Sorry, but this former English 101 teacher has to jump in and point out that the phrase “begs the question” is being used incorrectly here. From begthequestion.info:
The error results from a misunderstanding of how both the words “beg” and “question” are being used in the phrase. Here “beg” does not mean “ask for” but the less common meaning of “evade”; and “question” does not mean here “inquiry” but “issue at dispute”.
Comment posted May 12th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Lauren says:
I dont understand how to use all those internet code things.. too complicated. darrrr…
As an accounting major I fail to see your point Orthodoxy. Not-for-profits generally make over their costs and then roll it back into capital investment (buying buildings, medical equipment, chairs, etc.) Please explain to me where you’re seeing this profit again because I dont see it.. Sorry.
Comment posted May 13th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Phil says:
Lauren, I feel your pain with internet coding (I miserably failed a class on that stuff….partly because I was lost in all the tags, and partly because I skipped the midterm to table for Amnesty International….). What works for me is to copy/paste the tags into a Word document, and save that to my desktop, so whenever I need to use them, they’re right there.
Comment posted May 15th, 2006 at 9:32 am
Eric says:
Lauren says: I dont understand how to use all those internet code things.. too complicated. darrrr…”
Well, then your best bet might be to use TinyURL. You just copy the whole URL from the location window at the top of your browser (the thing that starts with “http://www . . .”) and then paste it into the URL-converter form at TinyURL.
Then copy and paste the URL it gives you into the comment form or e-mail or whatever, and voila—you’ve got a tiny little URL that won’t crawl off the screen.
Comment posted May 15th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Orthodoxy says:
Lauren said:
Not-for-profits generally make over their costs and then roll it back into capital investment (buying buildings, medical equipment, chairs, etc.) Please explain to me where you’re seeing this profit again because I dont see it..
It is true that not-for-profits generally make money and roll that into capital investment. That is also true of publicly-owned corporations - the way to increase exposure, market-share, profits, etc. is to continually invest in new technology and other capital expenditures.
It is also generally true that not-for-profits are charities that are trying to give every penny they bring in (minus administrative costs) to those who are the focus of their organization (either direct payments to those who are suffering, like with homeless shelters; or by funding medical research or other studies with a goal in mind, such as curing cancer).
However, this is (as I stressed with my neat little HTML tags) generally, but not always, the case. A good example would be the Automobile Association of America. They are a non-profit (or not-for-profit) organization.
Is AAA a charity? No - they provide services, but they charge a general membership fee, plus some special service fees.
Is AAA pumping any “excess revenue” (i.e., profits) back into capital investments and such? Some of it, yes, but not all of it. Some of the funds go to upgrading their mainframes to the latest servers, but they are not necessarily opening new offices (in fact, several branches have been closing lately, due to mapquest and auto insurer’s “roadside assistance” programs cutting into their business).
So, if not all of the “leftover” money goes into capital investments, where does it go? It takes a little bit of thought to figure it out, but it’s not a complex path to follow. If the corporation does not necessarily have a profit-motive, then why is it in existence, what keeps it in existence, and what happens to the money that is made? In short, “what is the motive, if not profit?”
The answer is two-fold: lobbying and bonuses. The AAA organization came about originally as a club for automobile enthusiasts over 100 years ago. Over that time, as automobiles became more popular, especially after WWII, AAA gained a lot of clout (and funding) to advance the cause of automobiles all the way to the halls of Congress. AAA does significant lobbying to keep automobiles on the roads, by pushing Congress for more funding for roads (who do you think pushed Eisenhower and Congress for the Interstate Highway Act?), as well as preventing things from happening that would hurt their business (i.e., protecting their interests, e.g., lobbying against mass transit systems - we haven’t had a new interstate railway system built in this country since the automobile and AAA came into existence. Coincidence?).
Okay, so we’ve identified one area the profits go: lobbying. But surely that does not eat up ALL the money. Like I said, AAA is NOT a charity organization - they are a business. But if the corporation itself doesn’t have a profit-motive, then what drives the company’s success? Philosophy?!? Faith in the automobile? No, the answer is: private profit, in the form of increased wages and bonuses. AAA gives bonuses to every long-term (non-contract) employee who works for them, the largest bonuses going to the VPs of the most profitable areas. Just because the corporation is not-for-profit does not mean there is no profit motive involved.
This is the parallel that I have been drawing with Planned Parenthood. They are no charity organization - they are a corporation with the public face of “not-for-profit”, but the profit motive is very much alive and well. They are one of the largest lobbying powers in D.C. and the state governments, but they also dump quite a bit of money into the pockets of their higher-ups. Do you honestly think that Ms. Feldt will walk away from Planned Parenthood needing to find another job? Do you think the regional managers of PPs for given states don’t receive significant bonuses if they manage to increase the number of abortions or the income of the offices under their control?
How many new PP clinics have been opened in recent years? Not many at all. What kind of capital expenditures and new technology investments do you really think PP has to make? They certainly aren’t buying sonogram machines! (After all, some of their studies say that sonograms hurt the baby - as if they have any concern for a fetus in the first place.) Have the prices of abortions come down at all? If they really care about the women they talk about, wouldn’t they try to make abortion as cheap as possible?
No, there is a very real profit motive, and it is not just driven by the executives of PP. Money is power, especially in politics. The politicians they have in their pockets are much like Mafia “insurers” who demand their money, or “screw you, you lose my vote”. Hence, PP is constantly fighting for more money. This is why they made such a big push for D&X abortions (a.k.a. “partial-birth” abortions) - unlike the usual slice & dice abortions, D&X abortions allow places like Planned Parenthood to keep the parts to sell to medical labs for things like embryonic stem cell research. If they really cared about stem cell research, why aren’t they just donating these aborted fetuses the same way that pro-lifers donate cord blood for adult stem cell research? The reason: it’s another revenue stream.
Do you see what I’m getting at yet? Just because you have been helped by them (and I understand where you are coming from - my sister-in-law needs medication to regulate her ovulation, otherwise she would have run out of eggs by 22 years old), it does not mean that PP is this benevolent philanthropic gift-giver to the world. They are a business, and their business is death. They trade lives for power and money, and they con others into believing that fetuses (like slaves and Jews were previously treated) are sub-human, and therefore it doesn’t matter if they die.
Sorry to put it this way (I’m sure you’ve heard the genocide argument before), but it’s a fact - an ugly fact, but a fact none the less.
Comment posted May 16th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Lauren says:
“Do you honestly think that Ms. Feldt will walk away from Planned Parenthood needing to find another job? Do you think the regional managers of PPs for given states don’t receive significant bonuses if they manage to increase the number of abortions or the income of the offices under their control?”
If you look at the accounting, I’m sure there is a way you can find out. So look. You can’t just make statements like this and have no proof. I really doubt that they receive bonuses for the number of abortions they receive. How in the hell would they really control that anyways? And dont give me any crap like they encourage contraception. Contraception isnt pushed down the “throat of anyone and if someone wants to get it they want it for themselves and not because PP says so. Prove your statements.. Or can you?
The politicians they have in their pockets are much like Mafia “insurers” who demand their money, or “screw you, you lose my vote”.
Money in politics is bad, I agree with you. But don’t you do the same with pro-life candidates?
“The reason: it’s another revenue stream”
YOU SIMPLY cannot say these things without some sort of proof.. i mean you can say them, but you lose ALL credibility. You can prove it with accounting and if you aren’t capable your group should hire an accountant to go through PP’s financials and make your case.
No really you should be ashamed of yourself for the genocide comparison. you want to see genocide? I’ll show you genocide.
janjaweed.com
http://growabrain.typepad.com/growabrain/2004/04/chilkdren_of_th.html
http://www.parascope.com/gallery/galleryitems/holocaust/index.htm#genocide
http://www.csupomona.edu/~armenian_students/armenia/genocide.html
Not only do I take extreme offense to your comments that a woman’s right to her body is equated to the gassing, raping, torturing, and murdering of women and children as well as men, but I’m sure the victims would too.
Comment posted May 16th, 2006 at 6:01 pm