The abortion debate is heating up to record temperatures. The left made the first move by legalizing “abortion” after birth. Conservatives responded by drafting legislation in certain stats that limits abortion to fetuses that don’t yet have a heartbeat.
In the wake of these big moves, the country has fully embraced this debate. On one side, you have people arguing that women should be free of the inconvenience of child bearing. On the other side, you have the premise that unborn babies are alive and should be protected. It’s a real nail biter.
In the center of this argument you have Planned Parenthood. This is the organization that has devoted itself to the proliferation of abortion for decades. Now, it’s right in the middle of controversy, and things aren’t looking good.
According to Planned Parenthood . . .
Planned Parenthood has taken a beating in recent years. They had to endure a series of sting videos that showed them secretly negotiating over the proper price to sell the remains of aborted babies. They’ve been all but defunded by Congress. Twice. They’ve been effectively kicked out of a number of states that have decided to stand against the immorality of infanticide.
And, even outside of politics, Planned Parenthood has seen voluntary participation in their services and programs drop consistently over the last 20 years. Even if policy never changed, the rate of abortion looks to be going down in this country.
In the face of loss after loss, it’s not surprising that Planned Parenthood feels the need to improve their PR and optics. That’s exactly what the current president, Leana Wen, has been trying to do. It’s her goal to convince our country of the necessity of Planned Parenthood.
The cornerstone of this pitch is a lie she tells on repeat. According to Wen, thousands of women died from botched abortions every year before Roe v Wade.
The Washington Post fact checks a lot claims. They probably see it as part of their journalistic duty. While fact checking, they’re never shy in their bias. They published an entire article condemning President Trump for claiming he had hamburgers stacked a mile high. They’re that proud of their partisan positions. So, when they come out and grill a leftist group for false claims, you know you’re dealing with a whopper among whoppers.
They didn’t just give Wen their harshest rating (four Pinocchio’s). They skewered her. The Post’s words say it best, “Wen is a doctor, and the ACOG is made up of doctors. They should know better than to peddle statistics based on data that predates the advent of antibiotics. Even given the fuzzy nature of the data and estimates, there is no evidence that in the years immediately preceding the Supreme Court’s decision, thousands of women died every year in the United States from illegal abortions . . . These numbers were debunked in 1969 — 50 years ago — by a statistician celebrated by Planned Parenthood. There’s no reason to use them today.”
That’s pretty brutal.
The Truth
As the Post pointed out, botched abortions never killed thousands. Wen’s falsehood stems from an attempt to misrepresent actual medical data.
You’ll notice that the Post made a specific mention of antibiotics. Here’s why. Before antibiotics were properly understood and widely available, fatal deliveries were far more common. These fatalities threatened both mother and baby. Many types of deliveries can be dangerous for a mother, but in modern times, we typically avoid them via cesarean section.
Before antibiotics, C-sections were a lot more dangerous because of the risk of infection. Once that risk was mitigated, the rate of fatal deliveries dropped off a cliff.
Wen’s statistics try to claim that before Roe v Wade, mothers would be safer if they had an abortion rather than face the risk of a dangerous delivery. The reason that’s completely untrue is that abortion procedures were just as dangerous as deliveries in a world without antibiotics. The risk of infection was just as high for an abortion as it was for delivering a child. Wen’s distortion of these truths is nothing short of disgusting.
Let’s summarize. The president of Planned Parenthood tried to claim that legalizing abortion saved the lives of tons of women. This claim is completely untrue. The invention of antibiotics is what actually saved countless lies. It has nothing to do with abortion whatsoever.
This lie of Wen’s is so extreme that a notoriously pro-abortion publication completely eviscerated her for telling such a dangerous and stupid lie. It’s just another Monday on the left.
