Planned Parenthood to have seat on "Super Committee"

It was just announced that Washington's senator and guardian of Planned Parenthood's privileged position, Patty Murray has been assigned to the Super Committee. Her job will no doubt be to make sure no cuts are made to PP's federal largesse in upcoming talks over budget cuts.

See story on Super Committee appointments: http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/congress/source-democrats-murray-baucus-kerry-on-super-committee-20110809

Anti-Choice Project Confronts Planned Parenthood Supporters with Reality of "Choice"

Our friends at the Anti-Choice Project (love that name), were out in force at Planned Parenthood's "I Stand with Planned Parenthood" Rally at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle March 19th.
As usual the pro-abortion crowd attempts to cover up the graphic signs illustrating "choice".

Women are holding signs with slogans like "Don't take away my breast exams" and "Don't take away my birth control".

I'm always curious about the men in the crowd. Why aren't they holding a "Don't take away my birth control" sign?  The FDA said men have a "right" to Plan B, a.k.a. the-morning-after-pill. King County Public Health reminds visitors to their Birth Control Gallery that, "No prescription needed for people over age 18 and men can get Plan B for their wives, girlfriends, sisters and friends!

We also know that "birth control" means abortion too. How many men in the audience paid for an abortion or pressured a girlfriend or wife into getting one?

Why is it so hard for men to claim it and own it?

Photos from 2009 Everett Vigil to Planned Parenthood

Some great pictures from the Everett vigil and procession to Planned Parenthood were sent to me.



Here's some more of the Mass and the Knights of Columbus with Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Speaker Pelosi’s “Birth Control Stimulus” Could Worsen Washington State’s Budget Crisis

Contact: Mary Emanuel
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 27, 2009

Seattle, Wa, JAN 26, 2009 --- The independent web site Abortion in Washington reacted to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s defense of “stimulating the economy with more birth control” by saying, “Speaker Pelosi simply hasn’t looked at the numbers, which clearly show that despite giant subsidies to the state’s single largest supplier of birth control, abortions are up, as are Medicaid funded births. Pumping more deficit spending into birth control would be a disaster for the state’s budget and women.”

Abortion in Washington released several reports in 2008 on the Washington’s Take Charge program and the finances of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest (formerly Planned Parenthood of Western Washington). The site reports that the program has led to increased abortion and is costing the state millions in funds it promised it would save. One report shows the number of abortions performed by the program’s leading partner, Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, has been increasing 11% per year and jumped a shocking 16% from 2006 to 2007, to a record 9,059. Additionally, the cost-savings effects intended by the designers of the program are not being realized.

Take Charge is a Medicaid section 1115 Waiver program initiated in 2001 to provide free contraceptives to low-income women not already covered under Medicaid. It was originally funded for 5 years in 2001, then extended for 3 more years, and comes up for renewal in 2009.

When the program began, the state was paying out $200 million a year for childbirth services under Medicaid. That figure has shot up 50%, to $300 million under the program. The state of Washington is now at a point where almost half of all births in the state are paid for by Medicaid.
“We need to put some sanity back in to our state finances as well as our public policy toward women and children,” said Mary Emanuel, assistant publisher of Abortion in Washington.

The state of Washington encourages the widespread use of contraceptives on the theory that with more women using contraceptives the number of unwanted pregnancies will decline, thus leading to a decline in the number of high cost Medicaid-paid births. Contrary to the justification for the program, this has not turned out to be the case. Additionally, further harm has been created because birth control does nothing to prevent the rampant spread of STD’s.

###

Planned Parenthood of Western Washington to Reorg, Join with PP Alaska, PP Idaho

American Life Leauge Reports --

Major merger of Planned Parenthood affiliates in the Northwest

As of January 1, 2009, three Planned Parenthood affiliates have merged their operations. Planned Parenthood of Alaska, Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, and Planned Parenthood of Idaho will now operate as one new affiliate – Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest. According to the latest financial data filed by each of these affiliates, their annual income is:

Planned Parenthood of Alaska.................$ 2,653,590 (2007)
Planned Parenthood of Western Washington.....$ 28,946,766 (2006)
Planned Parenthood of Idaho..................$ 2,190,789 (2007)

Clearly, this is a situation where PP of Western Washington is expanding its reach. We have told you previously that the Planned Parenthood Federation wants to do away with all of its smaller affiliates. That desire is what led Planned Parenthood of Amarillo to withdraw from the federation and that desire is clearly at work here.

According to our records, the combined organization will operate a total of 27 clinics in the three states (28 when the new Juneau, Alaska site opens). This includes 20 facilities that do medical or surgical abortions. The initial announcement was that no clinics would close and no employees would lose their jobs, but it is normal for both to happen during the first year of operation following a merger such as this.

Planned Parenthood continues to cut costs and streamline its operations. With the merger of these affiliates, the number of Planned Parenthood affiliates falls to 99 – the lowest number since 1960. At its peak, Planned Parenthood had 191 affiliates in 1978, but that number has steadily declined through the years. When a merger happens, duplicate positions (presidents, executive directors, medical directors, etc.) normally get eliminated and PP saves money – and makes more profits.

In addition, Planned Parenthood of Western Washington pointed out in its fall 2008 newsletter that “the merge means multiplying the political clout of Planned Parenthood in the region by three. Our Government Relations, Media Relations, Public Relations, and Public Policy teams can apply the influence of the entire three-state region.”

In other words, the new affiliate can be expected to try to obtain more and more government money and get favorable laws and regulations passed in all three states.

Shocking New Report from Seattle's Largest Abortion Chain

In a stunning new annual report, Planned Parenthood of Western Washington (PPWW) reveals that it saw a significant drop in customers in 2007 … with one major exception.

The total number of “medical visits” fell 15%, from 150,000 in 2006, to 127,000 in 2007.

The number of emergency contraception sales – a significant source of largely illegal revenue – fell 13%. Government records show a $1m drop in revenue from Medicaid billings for emergency contraception.

And their number of Take Charge patient exams actually fell 25%, from just under 70,000 to just over 50,000. The Take Charge program has been the major factor behind PPWW’s doubling in size and revenue under the Bush Administration. Again, state Medicaid records show a $1.5m drop in reimbursements for oral contraception. Their extraordinary – and again largely illegal – profits from reselling all forms of contraception at a 3 to 4 times purchase price even fell, from $9.6 million to $7 million.

Even more dramatically, the number of “Pregnancy Visits” fell a startling 50%, from just under 32,000 to just over 16,000.

Their number of “Tests and treatments for Sexually Transmitted Infections” also fell 50%.

With this drop in clients and revenue line items, you would expect their program revenue to have taken a hit from the 2006 level of $22.5 million.

And you would expect the number of abortions to have declined also, right?

But you would be wrong on both counts. Very, very wrong.

Program revenue stayed pretty much flat. How did they do that? Well, we don’t know for sure. But we have a partial explanation.

The only number that didn’t go down was the number of abortions performed. In fact, that number jumped a shocking 16% from 2006 to 2007, to a record 9,059.

It seems that regardless which direction all the other numbers move, one thing that is constant with PPWW is that their number of abortions goes up.

We have noted on this blog that their number of abortions has been rising at 11% per year despite all their claims that “no-one does more to reduce the need for abortion” than Planned Parenthood, and their repeated promise that distributing emergency contraception was going to result in hundreds of thousands of fewer abortions across the country.

But now they are actually killing 50% more babies than they were just 3 years ago!

How Do They Do More Abortions With Fewer Clients?

We have asked PPWW about these stunning figures, but they have refused to comment, so we are left to speculate.

The most obvious question is: how are they doing 16% more abortions with 50% less “Pregnancy Visits”? Now almost 60% of all pregnancy visits end in abortion. Three years previously, just 18% of pregnancy visits ended in abortion.

Our best guess is as follows: historically abortion clinics like PP have women come in when they are pregnant for a pregnancy test and a counseling session. That counts as 1 visit. Then they would schedule an abortion, previously all surgical. That’s a second visit. Then some of those women would come in for a followup. Third visit.

The new PP “protocol” seems to be to do the counseling session on the first phone call. This includes the abortion sell. At the end of that phone call the abortion is scheduled for the first visit. No pregnancy test. No ultrasound viewing of their baby. No viewing of fetal models. No reflection period. We suspect these conversations include subtle pressure about how if they “wait too long” they will no longer be eligible for a chemical abortion, which is “more natural”, “more like a miscarriage”.

Probably most of these abortions are now chemical. The 2006 annual report noted that 33% of their abortions were now chemical. The new report (2007) made no mention of the new figure.

We don’t know if the women are pressured to take the first abortion pill at the clinic to avoid the “risk” of the women changing their mind if they take it home to take. But we do know that many women don’t return for the followup visit.

This would perfectly explain the new numbers.

Interestingly, the annual report is long on whining and complaining about government cutbacks and forced employee layoffs. But there is no attempt to explain any of these astonishing trends in their abortion rate, or how they managed to keep their program revenue almost flat despite the loss of non-abortion clients.

And there was absolutely no attempt to explain why their abortion business keeps growing faster than the federal debt despite all their supposed efforts to proliferate contraception, emergency or otherwise.

Washington's Family Planning Experiment Sees Increased Abortion, Medicaid Costs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mary Emanuel
November 18, 2008
seattlecampaign@yahoo.com

Ending Family Planning Programs Would Cut Costs, Decrease Abortion

Seattle, Washington -- An analysis of Washington state’s Take Charge pilot program reveals an increase in both abortion and tax dollars spent on abortion and childbirth services. The investigation by the independent web site Abortion in Washington shows the number of abortions performed by the program's leading partner, Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, (PPWW) has been increasing 11% per year. Additionally, the intended cost-savings are not being realized.

Take Charge is a Medicaid section 1115 Waiver program initiated in 2001 to provide free contraceptives to low-income women not already covered under Medicaid. It was originally funded for 5 years in 2001, then extended for 3 more years, and comes up for renewal in 2009.

“The state is facing serious financial challenges. The last thing we need are government programs that do more harm than good and are actually failing to deliver the promised benefits”, said Mary Emanuel, assistant publisher of Abortion in Washington.

When the program began, the state was paying out $200 million a year for childbirth services under Medicaid. That figure has shot up 50%, to $300 million under the program. The state of Washington is now at a point where almost half of all births in the state are paid for by Medicaid.

“Taxpayers are supposed to be saving money and there are supposed to be fewer abortions but with this program we are seeing the exact opposite,” added Emanuel. “With the tight budgets King County and the state government are facing, ending family planning programs like Take Charge at Community Health Centers would be a win-win for everybody.”

The contraceptives are distributed through Planned Parenthood offices as well as Community Health Clinics on the theory that with more women using contraceptives the number of unwanted pregnancies will decline, thus leading to a decline in the number of high cost Medicaid-paid births. As the data shows, this has not been the outcome.

"Given the budget crisis facing government at all levels, ending this taxpayer largesse to Planned Parenthood is long overdue," said Dan Kennedy CEO of Human Life of Washington.

It seems that the only one benefitting from Take Charge in Washington is PPWW, which has seen their annual revenues skyrocket from about $17 million to near $35 million. (Download a .pdf of PPWW's 2006 IRS 990 form here.) A spokesman for PPWW admitted earlier this year that it had indeed used the profits from the Take Charge business to open up new abortion clinics. Planned Parenthood’s own annual report reveals that fully 70% of their 150,000 client visits were funded by Take Charge. The state is then left to cover the cost of an abortion or a Medicaid birth. Planned Parenthood is under investigation nationwide for Medicaid fraud in the illegal profiteering from contraceptive sales.

###

For more information contact: Mary Emanuel, Abortion in Washington, http://abortionstate.blogspot.com/

Abortion Industry Hooks-up with Euthanasia Movement to Deny Pharmacists Right to Conscience

On November 14th, the Governor Christine Gregoire's office produced an email that is addressed to Planned Parenthood of Western Washington from Christina Hulet, the Governor's Aide. It says…

Amy,
The Governor received a letter of strong support from Robb Miller, Executive Director of Compassion and Choices of WA, regarding the pharmacy board issue.

We're following up with a letter from the Gov, but wanted to also pass on the name to you in case their organization isn't part of the coalition. His contact number is 206-256-1636.
Christina

Saying "I told you so" just doesn't cover the sum of my feelings on this topic.

It's interesting that the supporters of assisted suicide claim they believe in allowing providers to opt out (as stated in the initiative's exemption), but they have also urged the Governor to force pharmacists to fill all prescriptions. I'll bet the long term plan is to get rid of the opt-out.

We are looking forward to reading the promised follow-up letter from the Governor. Perhaps someone can send all the correspondence to Archbishop Burnett since he still believes Gregoire to be a supporter of the Catholic Church's teachings on life. Maybe an email and a letter from Governor Gregoire showing her pimping for the Euthansia-Abortion-Contraception movement will get his attention.

HHS Finally Responds to our Charges that Take Charge program is just Planned Parenthood Boondoggle

Readers of this blog know that we have called repeated attention to the state program known as Take Charge. This program is the single greatest reason that Planned Parenthood (PP) has doubled its revenues, profits, clients, and clinics in Washington State in the last eight years. And as such, it is the greatest single contributor to PP's 11%-a-year increase in abortions.

The program is easy to understand: it simply increases the number of people eligible for free (aka Medicaid-funded) birth control. The idea is that by getting more women on birth control, the number of unwanted pregnancies will decline, and then the number of Medicaid-paid births -- which are very expensive -- should go down. Taxpayers are supposed to save money, and there are supposed to be fewer abortions.

The program is an experiment, originally funded for 5 years in 2001, then extended for 3 more years, and comes up for renewal in 2009. It's part of a set of similar experiments governments do to see if Medicaid costs can be reduced. The Washington State program has occurred entirely under the Bush Administration, and Planned Parenthood of Western Washington (PPWW) has seen their annual revenues skyrocket from about $17 million to near $35 million, despite the group's simultaneously monotonous yet shrill declarations of George W. Bush's "war on women".

Planned Parenthood jumped at the opportunity to be the primary agency for delivering this birth control, and has been reaping millions of dollars in extra revenues from the approximately 150,000 Take Charge clients in Western Washington alone.

Half of all WA Births Paid for by Medicaid, since Take Charge began

Unfortunately, in addition to making PP fantastically wealthy, it also seems to have had the opposite results of what was intended. When the program began, the state was paying out $200 million a year for childbirth services under Medicaid. That figure has shot up 50%, to $300 million. The goal was to reduce that number. Put another way, the percentage of births paid for by Medicaid in Washington before the program was just over 40%. Now it is almost 50%.

We have contacted state and federal bureaucrats responsible for this program to confront them with the numbers showing its failure and terrible side-effects. After months of phone calls and emails, we were lead to Dr. Herb Kuhn (pictured right), Acting Director of the Center for Medicaid Studies, in Washington DC, in the Bush Administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under Secretary Michael Levitt.

Back in the Spring we sent Dr. Kuhn a detailed report, including graphs, outlining all the numbers in detail. Only after several reminders was a response received, a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, that response was extremely disappointing, and indicates once again a failure by the bureaucracy to show any concern as to the actual effects of their policies, not to mention a lack of concern for their stewardship of taxpayers’ money.

Acknowledges Concerns of PP Medicaid Fraud

Most of the letter was "boilerplate" repetition of known policy and accepted facts.

We will continue to press this issue aggressively and make the proper authorities defend this failed program. It's our view that the only reason this program is able to continue is because of the fact that the public has no idea about it, and also because of the blind faith in contraception, a view which has made serious inroads into the Evangelical community, alas.

The one encouraging element of the letter was where Dr. Kuhn acknowledged that Planned Parenthood is under a federal Medicare fraud investigation for ripping off taxpayers with the 340B drug discount program. PP Affiliates of California is also being sued for defrauding taxpayers of $180 million over several years. We argued that an organization under such a serious cloud should be suspended from participation in a program which specifically revolves around distribution of birth control under Medicaid until it has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Shockingly, while admitting they were watching the case very closely, Dr. Kuhn refused to take that step.

Four Simple Questions The Government Owes Us Answers On

To summarize, here are a few of the basic questions we demand answers to:

1) It is clear that the Take Charge program has massively enriched Planned Parenthood in this state. PP of Western Washington makes no bones about this. It also has admitted that it has used these profits to aggressively expaned its abortion business, which has result in 11% more abortions each year. In short, Take Charge is increasing the abortion rate. That is completely unacceptable. Will HHS acknowledge this fact and state for the record whether it considers that an acceptable side-effect of the program?

2) The program is clearly not reducing the overall amount of money being spent by Medicaid on birth. It is up 50%, or $100 million since the program began. This is the program's stated goal, yet it is failing. How long will this program be allowed to continue while having the opposite results of what was intended?

3) Federal law requires that this program be revenue neutral: the money spent on all this "free" birth control must be offset by the savings in births avoided. Yet nowhere has anyone involved in this program demonstrated with hard numbers that the program is revenue neutral. The Final Report which led to the program extension didn't even include any claimed figures as to overall costs to taxpayers, and only intimated at cost savings. What are the alleged cost and savings figures for this program as required by law?

4) Nowhere has anyone explained what safeguards are in place to ensure that abortion isn't used by Take Charge clients to reduce the total number of "Medicaid births". Until demonstrated otherwise, we take it to be true as an observed fact that Take Charge clients who get their birth control from Planned Parenthood and subsequently become pregnant (and 10% of women on the pill will become pregnant in a year, according to the CDC) turn to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. All facilitated by our tax dollars and our federal and state governments.

Winning is Easy

It's writing a blog that's hard.

Or so it would seem from the slipshod coverage of the 40 Days for Life Campaign from Planned Parenthood's roving activist "Emily X". The creepy, back-alley, assasin-on-the run style blog "I am Emily X" finally got around to covering the Everett Campaign.

Telling the truth also seems to be to difficult for Planned Parenthood.

We have seen no one with an umbrella, yellow or otherwise.
We have seen no one with a vest, yellow or otherwise.
There has not been one "graphic poster".

Short notice? The schedule has been posted on-line for several weeks.

As part of their "Pledge-a-Protester" campaign she also lists "Protesters: 7". How could anyone trust that number after all the other lies in the post.

If you are a "Pledge-a-Protester" supporter and want to make sure Planned Parenthood is telling you the truth about how many "protesters" were out on the day Emily X claims to have been there, email me and we'll get you the correct number.

David Bereit of 40 Days for Life Visits Washington

David Bereit, the leader of the national 40 Days for Life Campaign, visited Washington and spent some time with the great pro-lifers who are holding vigils outside our state's Planned Parenthood abortion mills. This is a great man who will no doubt be part of American history books some day.

Check out the great pics at the bottom of the page from his visit to the Washington vigil sites!

Baby saved, Woman Injured at Olympia Planned Parenthood

This just in from the 40 Days for Life Campaign in Olympia.

A girl was going into Planned Parenthood here in Olympia, WA to have an abortion. One of our Show the Truth sidewalk counselors reached out to her verbally and she responded. After some soul searching the girl decided to accept his offer of help. She is now receiving that help.

Unfortunately, another girl was not so fortunate. She left Planned Parenthood's parking lot on a gurney in an aid car. Please pray for her recovery.

Barr Labs Doesn't Deny Secret Deal with Planned Parenthood, Fails to Offer Evidence of Plan B Effectiveness

By Jonathan B.
In an interview with Abortion In Washington, the manufacturer of the lucrative 'morning-after pill' known as Plan B did not deny that it has a secret deal with Planned Parenthood to provide them the drug at a massively discounted price of $4.25 per unit.

This deal between Barr Labs and the nation's largest and most profitable abortion conglomerate has been reported in the Boston Globe and many other places. It was first made public from court documents in California in 2004.

AIW is the first news source to confront Barr Labs directly with this evidence. This deep discount is highly controversial because PP sells this drug to clients at anywhere from $24-$38 per unit, and bills Medicaid $10.15, plus an $11.50 "dispensing fee", for a total of $21.65. All of this adds up to many millions of dollars of pure profit. Customers generally have no idea that they are being gouged with these enormous markups.

Carol Cox, Barr spokeswoman, would only say: "I am unfamiliar with the court case to which you are referring," and then weakly added: "As a matter of Company policy, Barr does not comment on litigation matters, nor on product pricing."

AIW had not asked them to comment on the litigation.

Ms. Cox also conspicuously failed to make any effort to answer our questions about Plan B's reported ineffectiveness in achieving its widely advertised goals.

Barr Labs, Prof. Don Downing of the University of Washington, Planned Parenthood, and countless governmental health and human services departments have been promoting Plan B as a way to dramatically reduce the abortion rate, by reducing the number of unintended pregnancies.

But we pointed out to Ms. Cox that there have been no studies anywhere in the world showing any correlation between increased Plan B availability and reduced rates of unintended pregnancies.

"Can you please comment on that?" we asked.

Silence, from the drug's manufacturer. Dead silence. A subsequent repeated request to get this question answered met with similar silence.

We followed up with a specific, local example.

We told Ms. Cox that Planned Parenthood of Western Washington (PPWW) reports that they are selling about 120,000 units of Plan B a year -- for an apparent profit of about $2.4 million -- yet their abortion business has been growing at about 11% every year during this time. Moreover, we added, they have claimed that their sales of her firm's product have resulted in many hundreds of fewer unintended pregnancies: "This prevents an estimated 600-800 unintended pregnancies every month, about half of which would have resulted in terminations," reads PPWW's 2005 Annual Report.

"How would you explain that?" we inquired. Again, Barr Labs had nothing to say.

When we spoke to PPWW's Brian Cutler about this topic, he squirmed for a bit, and eventually asked "Well, does it really matter?"

We have made repeated efforts to speak to Prof. Don Downing, who runs around the country getting the drug distributed as widely as he can, presumably for financial gain. Despite contacts by email and voicemail, Dr. Downing has had nothing to offer in his defence.

Pharmacists for Life International Executive Director Bo Kuhar condemned Barr's refusal to answer such simple questions. He told AIW: "Once again, the largest abortion provider has found a creative way to kill more preborn children through chemicals and make a greater profit margin doing it," He added: "We are not surprised at [their] sleezy business dealings [and] siphoned off over $300 million in taxpayer money and made a profit of over $112 million last year."

AIW Celebrates Third Year of Publishing

Abortion in Washington officially launched May 2005 when Jonathan put up our first simple post -- This blog has been created to publicize factual information relating to abortion in Washington State.

It was July 18th, 2005, however, that we published our first full length post.

From then on we posted information and commentary, analysis and investigative reporting on the abortion industry and their supporters. We also decided we want to cover pro-life events that were mostly ignored in the MSM. The Seattle Post Intelligencer, the Seattle Times and all three television stations on the west side of the mountains have refused to cover one of the most audacious and news worthy events in the debate over abortion since its legalization -- the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.

We covered it.

Here's more of what we've accomplished in just 3 short years:

• We've had over 16,000 visitors and 24,500 page views since 2005.
• We are the only news source -- blogger, newspaper (online or otherwise) television or radio station -- that reported the details about the financial and professional relationships between Planned Parenthood, Professor Don Downing (UW School of Pharmacy), the
  Washington State Pharmacy Assocation, the Washington State Board of Pharmacy and
  Barr Laboratories (manufacturer of Plan B) in their ongoing efforts to force
  pharmacists to sell their product (Plan B) or lose their job. See also here.
• We are the only news source that has analyzed the finances of various Planned Parenthood affiliates of Washington and given a true accounting of the direct cost to the taxpayers of Washington state.
• We are the only news source to reveal that while Planned Parenthood, Professor Downing and the Washington State Board of Pharmacy were touting the ability of Plan B to reduce the abortion rate, the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood had been increasing by 11% a year.
• We got Planned Parenthood of Western Washington to admit that Plan B wasn’t reducing the abortion rate, and to admit that it “didn’t really matter”.
• We are the only news source to reveal the truth behind Planned Parentood's claim that they were closing their Longview clinic due to suspension of the Take Charge Program, when in fact the Take Charge Program had been extended, and in fact Longview kicked them out because of their green and aggressive efforts to push their contraceptive/abortion agenda on the community.
• We've conducted interviews with executives of Planned Parenthood and NARAL and confronted them on their unwillingness to institute any safeguards to ensure women are given full informed consent to abortion without coercion.
• We interviewed the executive director of the abortion trade group NARAL Washington who told us, "abortion is a very hard thing for women emotionally." -- An admission akin to a cigarette company executive admitting that cigarettes are bad for your health.
• We exposed that Planned Parenthood affiliates of Washington State have seen their revenues and profits skyrocket because of the federal government’s Take Charge program, designed to reduce the tax dollars spent by Medicaid on childbirth, but that in fact that number grew by 50%.
• We are one of only seven blogs with a permanent link at Pharmacists for Life International.
• We are contributors to other important Washington state pro-life blogs Life of the Party and The Reagan Wing.
• State legislators have contributed feedback to our posts.
• Human Life of Washington regularly publishes and distributes our articles to their affiliates and list of pro-life activists state wide.
• Our readers come from the Washington state, United States, and around the globe -- including the Vatican. Planned Parenthood employees, NARAL Washington and NARAL national employees, federal and state government officials, pro-lifers, and university and high school students all visit our site.

We are glad that so many of you in the local abortion industry are reading the blog regularly. We continue to invite you to get out of the evil you are doing. For those who are knowingly killing children and scarring women or are addicted to the money, perhaps these words come too late. For the rest of you, who still feel the twinges of conscience, who desperately avoid looking into the eyes of the aborted babies before they are “disposed of”, we invite you to listen to that conscience, to look those babies in the eye.

We also invite you to contact us and let the world know what you saw.

We would remind you of the courage of P. Victor Gonzalez, the former CFO of Planned Parenthood of San Diego, who came clean and is now suing PP Affiliates of California, as a whistleblower under the False Claims Act, for $180 million because they fired him after he refused to go along with the systematic fraudulent billing of Medicaid under the 340B drug discount program. Let’s talk.

The only regrets are the stories we haven't had time to investigate or write up. Alas, we do this in our spare time. (Can you imagine if we got paid for this?)

Keep reading. Keep praying. The best is yet to come.

Blessings to our readers, contributors, friends, and supporters.

The Contraception Deception

Not since the editorial board came out in support of partial birth abortion has the Seattle Times published such a wicked and shameful editorial. The editorial – Lift the Plan B Ban – is wicked because it willfully and haughtily lies to people about Plan B and misrepresents the pleas of the pharmacists who refuse to sell it. It is shameful because at a time when the public needs factual information about this drug in particular, how it came to be on the market, and the Constitutional issues surrounding the cause of the pharmacists we are given trite, shop worn propaganda about “women’s health”.

Enough.

There is no Plan B “ban”. Plan B and contraceptives are ubiquitous. They are in our schools. Advertisements for them litter the pages of glossy magazines. Our politicians, even those claiming “pro-life” credentials support their widespread distribution. The combined Planned Parenthood affiliates of Washington received about $20 million dollars from the state of Washington for the purchase and distribution of contraceptives in 2007. They are there for the asking. There are two maybe three pharmacists in the whole state who do not want to sell this product.

Plan B is not a prescription drug. Plan B is sold over the counter. No trip to the doctor is necessary. No prescription is required. It was after the granting of OTC status that sales of Plan B went through the roof. Doesn't sound like a "ban" or a lack of "access" to me.

Plan B is not health care. Plan B is an overdose of the steroid hormone progesterone. The makers and promoters of Plan B claim that for every 100 women who have unprotected sex one time during the second or third week of their monthly menstrual cycle, 8 of them will get pregnant. But if those same 100 women use Plan B, only one will get pregnant. Their hook is the claim that "Plan B reduces a woman’s risk of pregnancy by 89%." What very few people have bothered to notice or point out is that in this scenario 92 women have taken a drug that they didn’t need and unnecessarily exposed them to high levels of steroids. This is basic health care for women? Are we back to selling snake oil?

A debate over the First Amendment is not a “red herring.” This battle is part of the larger crisis facing the country: the loss of the rule of law under the Constitution and the ensuing creep toward totalitarianism. That every branch of our government would collude with Planned Parenthood and big business interests of the pharmaceutical companies to coerce private citizens to violate their conscience in the pursuit of unbridled profit and power should concern every citizen. That the media is complicit only makes this battle all the more acute.

John Senior, in his book the Death of Christian Culture, said it best, “If truth is nothing but opinion, then right springs from the barrel of a gun.”

The Northwest Women’s Law Center, Seattle Times, Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, Professor Don Downing of the UW School of Pharmacy, and the Washington State Board of Pharmacy have not once addressed or corrected these errors and concerns. Instead they keep repeating the words ‘access’, ‘women’ and ‘health care’ like some magical prayer.

The so-called "free press" for its part has done nothing to inform the public as to background on this drug and who is driving it in the marketplace.

Plan B was initially developed in part by an investment from Planned Parenthood of Western Washington and approved by the FDA in 1997. PPWW sold their interest in the drug to Barr Laboratories in 2004 when Barr agreed to pay a total of approximately $21 million, including approximately $9 million of assumed liabilities.

Professor Don Downing of the UW School of Pharmacy came on the payroll of Barr Laboratories to get Plan B into every pharmacy in the nation and secure distribution without a doctor’s prescription by “leveraging” boards of pharmacy. (That's what the Seattle Times means when it says, "...pharmacists have been key partners in strengthening women's access to contraception".)

Professor Downing was also one of the biggest proponents of using Plan B to “prevent abortion.” A lie based on fantasy, which has sadly become apparent as nations like the United Kingdom and states like Washington see their abortion rates increase.

Since Plan B went OTC Planned Parenthood of Western Washington’s profits from the sale of birth control have skyrocketed from $0 just three years ago to an extraordinary $7m. This is on $2m of merchandise. In other words, they bought $2m of merchandise, and turned around and sold it for $9m, pocketing $7m in pure cash.

In abortion jurisprudence and media coverage of abortion there’s something called the “abortion distortion”. All laws, commentary and public policy on abortion are twisted and distorted to accommodate abortion to the point that keeping abortion legal takes precedence over any and all other concerns. What we have now is a “contraception deception.” If the Court rules against the pharmacists next April I’m afraid the deception, and coersion, will only get worse as every law is scrutinzied to ensure it supports the contraception agenda that will ultimately take precedence over the Constitution and the health of women.

Planned Parenthood Refuses to Discuss Increased Demand for Abortion Services

We have recently documented the Washington abortion industry's awkward reluctance to talk about what they do.

PP of Spokane makes some provocative claims on their website. They claim that the demand for abortions in eastern Washington has declined in recent years. They also claim that the reasons for this are the Take Charge program and the distribution of emergency contraception.

As AIW readers know, there have been no studies anywhere in the world linking the availability of emergency contraception with lower abortion rates, and we have shown that the massive growth in the Take Charge program has been correlated with large increases in the number of abortions performed by PP of Western Washington. It's also correlated with large increases in sexually transmitted diseases so that today 1 in 4 teenage girls has an STD. In England and Wales the abortion rate hit a record high after a campaign of widespread distribution of Plan B in the United Kingdom began in 2001. "Among the very young, girls aged under 14, numbers have increased from 135 to 163, a jump of 21 per cent."

So we asked PP of Spokane (PPS) how they came to these conclusions. Unfortunately, it turned out to be much harder to get answers than you would hope.

At the very least, we wanted PPS to back up their claim of reduced abortion rates with actual numbers.

It took more than half a dozen phone calls and voicemails to PPS spokesman Jet Tilley to get a returned call. Eventually, we got through and spoke in person. We asked for answers to our above questions.

Ms. Tilley seemed reluctant to disclose any information about their abortion business, but indicated she would do so by email after some research.

No email was forthcoming.

We placed several follow-up phone calls with Ms. Tilley, speaking with her on several occasions.

She admitted that answering our questions was not a priority, but said she had tried to send the answers via emails but that "the emails had bounced", or that she didn't have our email address.

We sent emails to her to make sure she did have the correct email address, yet still no answers were forthcoming.

In fact, we have given her months to get us answers, yet we still have none.

Why is Planned Parenthood of Spokane unwilling to admit how many abortions they do every year? Why do they claim that emergecy contraception distribution and the Take Charge program has reduced the abortion rate when they can't back up this claim?

Is Planned Parenthood of Spokane lying?

If they had the guts to answer our questions, maybe we could find out.

by Jonathan B.

Mum's the Word at Local Abortuaries when it Comes to Truth about Abortion

By Jonathan B.

The British Parliament recently concluded debate on a bill that would have reduced the maximum age at which unborn children can be executed through abortion. While the leftist-dominated Parliament eventually voted down the reform, widely publicized ultrasound images have piqued the consciences of the British public and reignited a long-simmering discussion over the obvious humanity of the defenseless unborn child.

Since 1967, the United Kingdom has allowed abortions up to 24 weeks, or an incredible 6 months! Ultrasound imagery of babies as young as 12 weeks sucking their thumbs and otherwise behaving like, well, babies has revealed the horror of this policy. The proposals were only to reduce the limit by 4 weeks, to 20, a small step, but in the right direction.

We decided to ask what Washington State's abortionists and abortion industry leaders thought about this grassroots and science-driven groundswell in the UK.

Another major development out of England recently has been the publishing of new research and guidelines by the Royal College of Psychiatry, stating that women seeking abortions should be screened for risk of emotional trauma, and warned of the risk of long-term psychological harm. The abortion industry and their enablers in the medical elites have long tried to maintain that no such link exists.

We contacted Deborah Oyer, abortionist and owner of Aurora Medical Services, for comment. We left two messages with her assistant, and sent two emails. Despite these efforts, Ms. Oyer, who admits to performing abortions up to 18 weeks of human life, declined to call or write us back with her thoughts on why the British people were moved to consider these changes to the law, or why the country's leading psychiatric professionals consider abortion to be a source of long-term emotional damage.

We then tried Eileen Gibbons, abortionist and owner of the downtown high-rise abortuary which goes by the curious name of Seattle Medical and Wellness Clinic. Again, despite repeated phone calls, Ms. Gibbons who does abortions up to "18.2 weeks" did not want to talk about the reaction of disgust that secularized, independent, informed observers have about her source of income.

Having failed twice, we decided to try Washington's true late-term abortion chain, Cedar River Clinics. We contacted Beverly Whipple, founder and director of Cedar River which was fraudulenty started with an auto loan and does abortions up to a horrifying 24 weeks. Again, despite repeated attempts by phone and email, we could not get Ms. Whipple to return our overtures to discuss what it might be about what she and her employees do every day that would move a modern, liberal people to recoil and gasp and call for the government to step in.

We also wanted to know if her three clinics warn women of the emotional and psychological risks of abortion. Apparently she didn't want to talk about this either, just like Ms. Gibbons and Ms. Oyer.

Having failed to get the state's leading practitioners of late-term abortion even to return a phone call or email, we contacted Planned Parenthood for comment. While Planned Parenthood in this state reportedly doesn't perform abortions past 12 weeks, they oppose every possible legal restriction on abortion. The only Planned Parenthood spokesman we could reach was Jet Tilley, of Planned Parenthood of Spokane. We spoke to her by phone. When asked for comment on the developments in the UK regarding lowering the legal age of abortable babies, Ms. Tilley said she had none except that Planned Parenthood supports the legality of abortion up to "viability", whatever that might be at any moment in time.

When asked what the British public might have seen in the ultrasound images that prompted this move -- it's no mystery really -- Ms. Tilley claimed she had no idea.

When further asked about the new position from the Royal Society of Psychiatry that women seeking abortions should be screened for risk of emotional trauma warned of the risk of long-term psychological harm, Ms. Tilley claimed she had never heard about it. She promised to get hold of a copy and get back to us. Despite repeated subsequent phone calls and emails, no such response has been forthcoming.

Planned Parenthood, like all Washington abortion businesses, continues to ridicule such claims in public about abortion's long-term psychological harm, and withholds any information about such risks from their clients.

Update: Planned Parenthood has lost it's appeal to stop a South Dakota law that requires women be told they have a right to continue a pregnancy and that abortion may cause women psychological harm, including thoughts of suicide.

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that South Dakota can begin enforcing a law requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions about the potential for psychological harm and that the procedure ends a human life.

Despite the overwhelming scientific and anecdotal evidence Planned Parenthood still doesn't want to admit the scientific truth about what abortion does to the baby and the mother. They'll fight tooth and nail to prevent their "doctors" from telling women the truth or as in our state they just bury their heads in the sand.

Big Abortion Partners with the Big Box: The Planned Parenthood - Wal-Mart Collaboration

MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
26 June 2008
CONTACT: Katie Walker
540.659.4942 kwalker@all.org

PLANNED PARENTHOOD SELLS SEX AT WAL-MART

Washington, DC (26 June 2008) – Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion chain in the country, has teamed up with a Wal-Mart Supercenter, an affiliate of the largest retailer in the country, in an effort to supersize their campaign to sell sex to children.

Planned Parenthood will pass out information at the Wal-Mart in Richland, Washington from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on June 27.“Planned Parenthood is now in such desperate need of customers it’s willing to do anything – even stand outside shopping centers to lure young people into its clinics,” said Marie Hahnenberg, a researcher for American Life League.

Planned Parenthood, Hahnenberg says, is responsible for the deaths of over 289,700 babies in 2006 alone and also recently was willing to accept donations earmarked specifically for the abortion of black children. The organization faces lawsuits across the country for protecting child rapists and is coming under increasing fire for its use of pornography in tax-subsidized programs, advertisements and literature.

“They’re pushing pornography and contraception onto young children – beginning in kindergarten. Now parents aren’t even safe to go shopping without worrying Planned Parenthood will pressure their kids into promiscuous lifestyles that will increase their bloated birth control and abortion profits,” Hahnenberg said.

American Life League is asking community members to call Wal-Mart at (509) 628-8420 or 1-800-WAL-MART and demand they stop Planned Parenthood from this literature distribution.

For more information on Planned Parenthood, visit www.all.org/stopp/

###

FOR MORE INFORMATION: KNDO RIGHT NOW: Free HIV Testing (26 June 2008)

STOPP International

Revised 2007 Numbers on State Planned Parenthood Funding

By Jonathan B.
In a previous post, we estimated the total amount of money given by DSHS to all Planned Parenthood’s in Washington State through Medicaid at $15 million. We want to apologize. We were wrong.

Our numbers were off.

It turns out that the total, for 2007, was $23 million! ($23,158,857 to be precise)

The only good news in there for those who want to see the state get out of our children’s bedrooms is that this was actually down from the previous year, wherein Olympia doled out over $26 million for “health care” services.

That $23 million which was spread across the four state affiliates: PP of Western Washington [PPWW], PP of Central Washington [PPCW], PP of Spokane [PPS], and PP of Mt. Baker [PPMB].

The lion’s share of that figure, of course, went to PPWW: $15 million. The break down was as follows:

PPWW: $15 million
PPCW: $3.3 million
PPS: $2.4 million
PPMB: $2.1 million

About $2 million of the $23 million was directly for abortion. Most of the remainder was for contraception.

In typical Planned Parenthood fashion, a few legitimate health care services like STD testing are thrown in there as well.

No funds were spent on labor and child delivery.

Show the Truth Washington Wraps Up Spring Tour

[We are honored to announce we have a guest blogger at AIW --Christina from Mossyrock, Washington. She is a homeschooler and a fervent pro-lifer. Christina and her family have been generously and lovingly warning the women and men of Washington about the dangers of contraceptives and abortion for many, many years. She is also a blogger at Generations for Life and we look forward to reading her wonderful insights and reporting that will help us shine the light of truth on Washington's abortion industry. God bless you, Christina! -- Mary]

Report On Our Pro-Life Tour
by Christina

The pro-life tour across Washington State with Show the Truth was absoutely great! We went from Olympia to Spokane over a period of five days, stopping at abortion mills, colleges, and universities along the way and holding signs and passing out literature.

There were seven of us teenagers along on the tour, and each of us had a wonderful time and really loved every bit of it! It was very inspiring to see all these kids taking time off school and work in order to dedicate some time and energy to saving babies. I think also that we learn very much on these tours!

One college that all of us really like to visit on our tours is The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

This college is known in Washington for some of its students who are strongly and aggressively active in furthuring the Culture of Death. By no means are all of Evergreen’s students involved in such things, but those who are have made a name for their college.

And of course these students wouldn’t all congregate at Evergreen if the college was not friendly to their cause in the first place.

So The Evergreen State College is a stronghold for the Culture of Death and those who promote it, and we love to go there and educate the students about abortion and its consequences.

If we arrive there later in the day, we will almost surely have a pretty fantastic counter-demonstration and debates with the students. During Show the Truth’s first visit to Evergreen a few years ago, there was quite an uproar. The pro-life people had their signs spray-painted and punctured, and an excited crowd of students were totally unglued about the visit. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and hopefully the students learned about abortion. And Show the Truth made a resolution to return again to Evergreen.

Since that first visit, things have somewhat smoothed out, and the students are accustomed to seeing our display. However, there are still many good discussions between us and the students. During my very first visit to Evergreen, I seriously felt like losing it! I’d never been in any such situation before, and the taunts of the students were almost overwheming. I was fifteen, and they’d say things like, “I hope that you grow up and go to college someday and learn that you are wrong”. The good thing is, I didn’t lose it, and since then I feel like I’ve come such a long way in knowing how to talk with people and keep cool and really help them with their difficulties. We always hold graphic signs of aborted babies when we are at Evergreen. We also hold a few graphic signs of live preborn babies. And I found that the students really like to see such positive graphic signs; they like to be told what they can do. While holding aboption signs, I’ve had several students come over and thank me for holding that sign instead of a sign with an aborted baby on it.

It might be a good idea during such demonstrations to have only a few signs with aborted babies and a lot of signs that show adoption and the life of the preborn child.

Another college that we were really hoping to be able to visit during this tour was Columbia Basin College in Ellensburg, Washington. This college actually has a public room inside their buildings, where people can put on educational demostrations and have great access to students who are on break from class.

Last spring Show the Truth was able to have their display inside this college, and it went wonderfully. We were able to hand out literature and fetal models to students and talk with them.

I remember two young guys coming over to our table rather hesitantly. They really wanted to see what we were doing. I said hi and kind of tried to welcome them over. They commented that I was probably wondering why they, being boys, were interested in preborn babies and pregnancy. I said, “Oh no, because you guys can be fathers!” They immediately approved of that and became comfortable. I found it very wonderful that they loved the idea of fatherhood and babies, and it was an eye-opener to see that the idea of abortion being a “woman’s issue” is only a falsehood that is forced on them; they do not willingly accept it and are eager to embrace their vocation of fatherhood, if only they would be allowed to.

We were not able to have a table inside this college again this year because the student who signed us up for last year is no longer attending that college.

When we arrived in Yakima, Washington, we went first to the Cedar River abortion mill there. Every year this particular visit is very interesting. The employees here all come pouring out of the mill to watch our demonstration. We usually have a couple of vehicles with large pro-life signs, and these really set the employees off.

Once we even had the abortion mill employees out on the street holding pro-abortion signs in retaliation to our signs! We figured that we were being really effective! There is a great little pro-life group that demonstrated outside this mill once a week. Every year they are faithfully there with us and are doing an awesome work.

And in Yakima, we always have one or more news people come out to interview us and take pictures. One of these is a Christian news station and is very wonderful and supportive of us! While in Yakima, we stayed overnight at a former seminary that is now the headquarters for Reach Youth Ministry. This is a group that does a very wonderful work of putting on retreats for young people in efforts to bring them closer to Christ. We love meeting the super kids that are in this Ministry, and they are always excited to see us.

It happened that one of the nights that we stayed in Yakima was the night for Reach’s annual fundraising dinner. We thought it would be great to go to this and give our suppot to their work. As it turned out, the dinner was spectacularly impressive and too much fun! They did a superb job on the whole thing, and everyone there (it was a full room) had a great evening! Some people gave speeches, and the Reach kids put on their own little skit. There were also some sweet little girls who put on this most wonderful little skit you ever saw! They sang beautifully and were totally confident up there on stage.

And wow! the Reach group really knew how to raise money! They gave us some great ideas for our pro-life fundraisers! We were very glad to have been able to attend this dinner and always look forward to returning to Yakima.

And now the abortion mill in Spokane, Washington. Whoa!! It’s aggressive there! We almost always have one or two aggressive incidents while we are in front of the Planned Parenthood there.

People will come up screaming at us, and stop short of physical abuse. So we keep our cameras ready, and are grateful for all the men that we have in our group!

The Planned Parenthood is situated on a fairly busy street right next to a very busy intersection, so we get great coverage for our signs. And the strange thing about this particular Planned Parenthood is that the building right next to it is a daycare center!! Why in the world?!And even stranger is the fact that the women who staff the daycare center come over to us and complain about our graphic signs. Yep, this is one of our easiest cases to argue.

I didn’t get the chance to speak with any of these women, but if I would’ve, I might have said something like, “What would you expect to see if you worked at a daycare built right next to Auschwitz?”

There is a really wonderful lady who puts on pro-life demonstrations at the Spokane Planned Parenthood every week, and she is doing a terrific job. She has definitely met with some aggressive and angry retaliations from passersby. Her husband is a lawyer and is thus able to help her very much with any cases involved with pro-life. He is also Show the Truth’s lawyer.
Several years ago, my mom was able to talk a little with one of Planned Parenthood’s escorts while we were there on a tour. A short time later, one of these escorts quit this job, and we believe that he was the same escort who mom talked with. This was very exciting and great news for us!

While in Spokane, we also stopped at Gonzaga University. We usually have a pretty good reception here. We noticed that the students there, though they don’t always agree with what we’re doing, are polite and caring. This is a breath of fresh air for us. Sadly though, I was told by a supportive student that our graphic signs are very needed at Gonzaga. I guess that a lot of students there support abortion. I expect better from a Catholic University.

One of our last stops was Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. We had a very satisfactory stop there, being able to hold signs and pass out some literature. We also were challenged by the campus security there, who said that we could not legally stand where we were standing with our signs. The director of Show the Truth handled it very well. He actually ended up calling 911 because the campus security officer was getting out of hand and needed to be put back in line. It was comical seeing the police arrive to help take care of campus security! But it all worked out and there were no arrests.

Our second to last stop was at the Planned Parenthood in Olympia, Washington. This was on Friday, when they do abortions. They usually do around eight abortions on Fridays, but on this Friday we believe that they did one abortion. We are hopeful that we prevented the other average seven!

And when we were there on Friday, Planned Parenthood actually called in counter-protesters. And one of them was the former head of NARAL!! So they must be getting desperate. It can be an interesting time at the Olympia Planned Parenthood because we sometimes encounter students from The Evergreen State College. They usually don’t give us too much trouble, but recently someone (who looks like he comes from Evergreen) wrote vulgar graffiti on the pro-life sign on Show the Truth’s truck.

Our last stop on our tour was at the Planned Parenthood in Centralia, Washington. This went extremely well, do in large part to the vast support for pro-life in this area. We were able to hand out a whole bunch of fetal models to passing cars and had an impressive display of signs in front of Planned Parenthood.

Altogether it was a fantastic tour, and we are all very pleased with it! We got to do some great work for life, and we got to meet and work with some absolutely wonderful people in the pro-life movement. We also learn so much on these tours!

Our very special thanks to all the great people who helped us, who joined us, and who hosted us at their homes on this tour, and for all the prayers for us and our work; and a very, very big thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Sauley who organized the tour. We love seeing you and working with you, and you are each a huge blessing! God bless and love you all!

And before I finish this somewhat lengthy account, let me tell you of a very unique and very wonderful little incident that happened while we were at the Planned Parenthood in Centralia. I can’t resist telling you all about it! It was one of those things that don’t happen very often, and it was also one of those things that only those in the pro-life movement get to see!

This is what happened: We all suddenly noticed that, a ways down the street from where we were standing, there was a young man standing with a cardboard sign. He had a mohawk haircut dyed pink, and was wearing black clothes with all kinds of silver chains, buttons, and other trinkets. We couldn’t see what his sign said because he was standing with his side facing us, but we (most of us) immediately assumed that he was holding some kind of sign that was against us. However, we did wonder why he was standing so far away from us.

The director of Show the Truth decided to go over and take a picture of this interesting guy. But then we saw him cross the street and shake hands with the guy and start talking. I thought, “Wow, Mr. Sauley (the director) is great at being able to talk and get along with just everybody!”

After a little bit Mr. Sauley came back and told us about the guy standing over there. He said the guy’s parents came over from Russia in the 1960’s, and his dad was a punk rocker. The guy also is a punk rocker like his dad. The guy also said that his mother hates him, sadly and strangely.

So after telling us these things about the guy standing over there, Mr. Sauley asked us, “And do you know what his sign says?” We said, “What?!” It said, Thank God Mommy didn’t abort me.