Republicans just love to talk about how they’re “pro life,” and that every child conceived is precious to them. This is ironic since the GOP is fond of cutting programs that help children once the kids are born. Also, while they want to eliminate a woman’s right to exercise her reproductive freedom, I don’t see too many of them standing in line to adopt all of the unwanted children in this country.
And now Occupy activist Jesse LaGreca has distilled all the Republican hypocrisy over their latest hobby horse–defunding Planned Parenthood–down to a single tweet which he posted. Here it is:
According to the latest GOP Big Lie, the heavily edited (and very likely illegally obtained) videos from the Center for Medical Progress are proof positive that Planned Parenthood is running an assembly line of aborted fetus body parts. If it were true, it would be horrific and wrong. But it is not true, and the far right minions know this. But as is so often the case with the do-gooders on the right, the truth is secondary to accomplishing your goals. Just ask Dick Cheney.
So let’s get to some facts, and then we can watch the GOP read them and see their heads explode:
Abortion services are just 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services. The other 97 percent serves 2.7 million people a year with cancer screenings, contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and STIs and tests and treatment for STIs. Also, the organization’s federal funding cannot be used for abortion-related procedures, Read that again: CANNOT be used for abortion-related procedures. To which the GOP will no doubt say, “Yeah, but they are.” Then where is the proof? And please, don’t point to the bogus videos. We want real evidence.
Take a look at this chart showing what services are provided at Planned Parenthood clinics across the country:
Also, Planned Parenthood is a not-for-profit organization. That means there is zero profit motive behind their efforts. Yet the GOP wants to revoke their not-for-profit status at the same time they seek it for Tea Party radicals who call for the lynching of the President. Again, the hypocrisy is just beyond belief!
And yet, if indeed profiting from death is wrong then the massive level of GOP hypocrisy skyrockets off the charts when you consider that Republicans support the National Rifle Association (NRA) without reservation. 33,636 Americans were killed by firearms in 2012, the last year for which the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has data. And the reason that this information is no longer available: Because the NRA has used its strongarm lobbying power to defund the CDC’s research on the public health impact of guns. How about the children killed by guns? Oh, well, the GOP says with a harrumph, nothing can be done about that.
The NRA contributes in excess of $1 million a year to Republican candidates and $3.4 million on lobbying those candidates to do whatever they ask. So Republican crocodile tears, which they shed over profiting from death, appear directly connected to their own ability to make a buck off those deaths.
But facts, as I noted, do not matter to the GOP and their lemming-like followers. Which is why, as I have said on more than one occasion, they will never win another national election. Never!
