A fact-checking web site is confirming what pro-life advocates have pointed out for the last two years — the Planned Parenthood abortion business does not provide mammograms for women.
Former Komen for the Cure vice president Karen Handel has written a new book exposing how the abortion giant pressured the breast cancer charity to renew its hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual funding. Funding was initially denied in part because Planned Parenthood operates as a pass-through that doesn’t provide direct health services like mammograms for women but merely takes grant money and pays for mammograms at legitimate medical centers.
In her book, Handel says Komen had considered ending the relationship with Planned Parenthood “for at least a decade,” as Komen restructured its grant model to focus on measurable outcomes to fighting breast cancer. That focus, she said, excluded much of what Planned Parenthood did.
“The truth is, Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms,” she wrote. “Planned Parenthood refers women to mammography providers, serving as the middlewoman, if you will.”
The PolitiFact web site decided to check into the claim and found it to be true.
So are mammograms on Planned Parenthood’s service menu?
We asked, and in an email response, a spokeswoman for the organization said doctors and nurses at Planned Parenthood health centers provide clinical breast exams and refer patients to facilities with technicians for mammograms based on breast exams, age or family history. Planned Parenthood also refers women to breast specialists when a potential abnormality is found and follow-up tests are needed. And with the organization’s expanded breast health initiative, Planned Parenthood will be able to cover the cost of this specialized care for more women, the email said.
Handel’s statement that Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms and only refers clients for those services at other facilities is supported by the organization itself. We rate the claim True.
Despite that confirmation, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards misled women as recently as August about whether the abortion business does mammograms.
Planned Parenthood itself has admitted that it does not perform mammograms for women — something the Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity confirmed last year.
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LifeNews.com and pro-life blogger Jill Stanek followed up with phone calls to various Planned Parenthood centers and confirmed they do not do mammograms.
Then, the organization Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
