AUSTIN — Texas health officials have decided to cut Planned Parenthood out of the state Medicaid program entirely because of issues revealed in a controversial undercover video, the Houston Chronicle has learned. The video, released this summer by the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress, showed that workers at Planned Parenthood’s Houston affiliate have altered their abortion process to preserve fetal organs for donation and have allowed private citizens into the lab wearing only gloves - “program violations that justify termination,” according to the inspector general of the state health commission…. “The State has determined that you and your Planned Parenthood affiliates are no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner,” inspector general Stuart Bowen wrote in a letter to be sent to the organization. Gov. Greg Abbott, who ordered the health commission review amid the controversy over a series of similar videos, praised the decision in a statement, calling it “another step in providing greater access to safe healthcare for women while protecting our most vulnerable - the unborn.”
Not that Texas Republicans have ever been particularly concerned with the truth, but when they can claim to be providing greater access to safe healthcare for women” and “protecting” the unborn with no trace of irony, you know that political dishonesty is afoot. When politicians can get on board a movement based on a video selectively edited to painted Planned Parenthood in the worst possible light, truth no longer has any meaning. Nor does the reproductive health of women. As for the unborn, if Texas Republicans truly cared about “our most vulnerable,” they’d be ready, willing, and able to pay for programs designed to reduce the likelihood of unplanned pregnancies. Instead, their only strategy is to condemn those women with unplanned pregnancies as “sluts.”
CMP’s video, based as it is on dishonesty and deceit, is hardly a factual representation of the work Planned Parenthood does to provide for the health of women, many of whom are poor and unable to obtain care via any other means. To contend that Planned Parenthood is “no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner” is to choose to completely ignore the work that Planned Parenthood does on behalf of women. Then again, when you believe women to be the property of men and that the ONLY people competent to make health care decisions for them are White Conservative Christian males, you’ve entered a realm in which facts and reality no longer matter. When the only “truth” is what you can convince sheeple to believe, the only thing you have left to believe in is your agenda. Anything that runs counter to serving that agenda is discarded and ridiculed as “propaganda,” even though you’re in fact the one trading in propaganda and disinformation.
I suppose it’s true. One man’s propaganda really is another’s abject truth.
Supporters of abortion rights decried the move as politically motivated. Planned Parenthood has denied any wrongdoing and said the videos were heavily edited in an attempt to outlaw abortion.
Planned Parenthood does not receive any taxpayer money for abortions or anything related to fetal tissue donation, and already has been cut out of most state health programs. Being kicked out of federally-funded Medicaid, however, would be a major blow to the organization’s ability to provide services such as breast cancer screenings.
When you can with deny women vital health services like breast cancer screenings, not only are you no longer dealing in the realm of truth and facts, there’s a pretty good chance the Christian conservatism you cling to is merely a cover for your being a sociopath.
What the state of Texas is conducting is in effect a taxpayer-funded witch hunt designed to hound Planned Parenthood out of existence. State officiala have yet to find a smoking gun- nor are they likely to- but when you act in pursuit of an agenda, a lack of evidence to support your beliefs only means you’re not looking hard enough.
When you get right down to it, this isn’t about Planned Parenthood. Not really. It’s not even about abortions. It’s about the enduring belief among Texas Republicans that when women are allowed the freedom to make decisions regarding their reprdoductive functions, tyranny can’t be far away. You can believe that when you hate women Just. That. Much.
