A New York Times article published over the holiday weekend proves the adage that if it weren't for double standards, corporate media would have no standards at all.
It opens with a horrifying, but all-too-familiar anecdote:
Nakara Alston was leaving her boyfriend when she learned she was eight weeks pregnant. In desperation, she got an abortion at a Planned Parenthood [facility] in Albany, N.Y., and moved with her two daughters into a homeless shelter.
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But something was clearly wrong. Several weeks after the procedure, she was still bleeding heavily and suffering from painful cramps. She took another home pregnancy test, and when it came back positive, the [facility] staff assured her that they had seen the aborted fetus and there was nothing to worry about. It was only after she went to an emergency room that she discovered the problem: The baby was still in her womb.
Twelve weeks after the failed abortion, Ms. Alston went into labor and delivered a baby who quickly died.
Could this be another one of the many abortion survivors the Democrats claim don't exist?
This is just the tip of a massive iceberg: "The case of the botched abortion in New York is one of scores of allegations reviewed by The Times that accuse Planned Parenthood of poor care."
More alleged horrors included:
But like ProPublica, which tried to spin women's deaths from complications of taking abortion drugs as somehow the fault of pro-life laws, outlets like the Times always have a ready explanation for why the abortion industry is not responsible for its own negligence and incompetence.
Their explanation this time: Planned Parenthood is poor.
Planned Parenthood is a multi-billion-dollar organization, with a significant assist from taxpayers. Its taxpayer funding has increased 43% since 2010, hitting a record of nearly $700 million in its most recent annual report. Their political arm spends more lobbying the federal government than any other group on either side of the abortion issue.
Yet to sympathetic Times reporters, abortion centers are "short of cash" and "understaffed." Salaries are "rock-bottom." "The lack of resources is startling." Jobs are like "emotional roller coasters, with constant attacks from anti-abortion activists." Those dastardly pro-lifers have ostensibly forced their hand, leaving no choice but to engage in costly lawfare across the country. This appears to be the latest installment in a recent media push by Planned Parenthood complaining about the state of its finances.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Planned Parenthood has enjoyed a fundraising boom, with $498 million in donations that year. But little of it goes to the state affiliates to provide health care at [abortion centers]. Instead, under the national bylaws, the majority of the money is spent on the legal and political fight to maintain abortion rights.
(Given the Supreme Court's holding in Dobbs that "the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion," it is unclear what "rights" there are to "maintain.")
It's no surprise President Trump, whose Protect Life Rule resulted in Planned Parenthood dropping out of the federal Title X program during his term, is painted as a villain in this piece. But the Times even found a way to pin blame on Barack Obama and Covid-19:
At the same time, the Affordable Care Act, the signature domestic legislative accomplishment of former President Barack Obama, expanded health insurance options for low-income women and drove many poor women away from Planned Parenthood [facilities] to other health care providers. The coronavirus pandemic further shrank patient counts.
Obamacare massively expanded taxpayer funding for abortion. As of 2018-19, before the novel coronavirus was an inkling in the consciousness of the U.S. public, Planned Parenthood's annual reports revealed a 20% decline in number of unique patients, or about 600,000 fewer patients, over 10 years. Moreover, the abortion giant's affiliates helped themselves - illegally - to some $90 million in Covid-related small business loans they have never paid back, despite numerous demands from members of Congress.
The Times does note Planned Parenthood also has some of the world's wealthiest private benefactors. Yet they write, "Salaries are so low that it is not unusual for staff members to qualify for Medicaid and federal food assistance." Not a worry for President Alexis McGill Johnson and other top Planned Parenthood executives, who collectively receive well over $5 million in compensation - or Mary Gatter, head of the group's Medical Directors' Council, who was exposed on video joking "I want a Lamborghini" as she negotiated the best selling price for livers, lungs and brains harvested from aborted babies.
SBA Pro-Life America has long tracked the abortion industry's trail of women injured under deplorable conditions.
In 2013, for example, two ex-Planned Parenthood nurses in Delaware blew the whistle on the "meat-market style of assembly-line abortions" practiced at their former facility. Conditions were allegedly so unsanitary, they feared women would contract hepatitis and HIV. The local ABC news affiliate noted abortion centers in Delaware "are not subject to routine inspections. The state only steps in when they have a patient complaint. Planned Parenthood is essentially in charge of inspecting itself."
Echoes appear in the Times piece, such as one ex-facility manager comparing operations to a "conveyor belt" with patients getting the wrong medications or even taken to the wrong procedure room.
Among the "bright spots" the Times praises are Planned Parenthood's "state-of-the-art" (words literally borrowed from a Planned Parenthood press release) mega-facility in Carbondale, Illinois, and Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.
As we've covered in this space, Planned Parenthood of Illinois is all for distributing abortion drugs via app, 'completely free of face-to-face interaction with a clinician.' Colleen McNicholas, the Planned Parenthood abortionist who announced that news, previously spearheaded a secretly constructed mega-facility in Fairview Heights on the Illinois-Missouri border. McNicholas operated a facility that was shut down in 2018 after getting caught using moldy equipment.
Among the "bright spots" the Times praises are Planned Parenthood's "state-of-the-art" (words literally borrowed from a Planned Parenthood press release) mega-facility in Carbondale, Illinois, and Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.
As we've covered in this space, Planned Parenthood of Illinois is all for distributing abortion drugs via app, 'completely free of face-to-face interaction with a clinician.' Colleen McNicholas, the Planned Parenthood abortionist who announced that news, previously spearheaded a secretly constructed mega-facility in Fairview Heights on the Illinois-Missouri border. McNicholas operated a facility that was shut down in 2018 after getting caught using moldy equipment.
As for Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, Live Action News reported in 2022 that the affiliate was facing at least three lawsuits for medical negligence, allegedly including giving abortion drugs to a woman who was actually 22 weeks pregnant and permanently injuring another women who "suffered a perforated uterus and a perforated bowel which required an emergency hysterectomy, an emergency bowel resection, and the emergency removal of an ovary and fallopian tube."
These cases were filed before Dobbs, in a state that has enshrined abortion on demand in law since 1990. What's the excuse there?
At other Planned Parenthood locations in blue states, young women like Cree Erwin, Tonya Reaves and Alyona Dixon have also died following legal abortions.
The chair of Planned Parenthood's political arm brushes off complaints as coming from "disgruntled staff people," saying, "You will see that the health care outcomes are fine."
In one more infuriation, the Times reports one of the few Planned Parenthoods making any effort to offer prenatal care (they are rare) rejected a $1.3 million contract from a California county to provide such care for low-income women - because they would have to cover a much smaller part of the costs themselves. Hard choices, indeed.
Media outlets like the New York Times should be calling for accountability, not running cover. Planned Parenthood released its last annual report almost a year ago. Americans deserve to see where their tax dollars are going right now.