Government report uses data from biased Planned Parenthood-affiliated sources

A new Live Action News analysis of the April 2017 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report comparing Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs — a term used interchangeably with health centers or community health centers) with Planned Parenthood centers (PPAHCs), has concluded that many of the CRS sources were pro-abortion organizations, such as Guttmacher, the journal Contraception, the National Abortion Federation (NAF), and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards.

In summary, it should be noted that in this analysis, Live Action News is not attempting to dispute the details of the report, (although some points may be disputable), but to show that a large amount of the information published in the CRS report originated from pro-abortion organizations who support Planned Parenthood and its agenda.

The report, entitled, “Factors Related to the Use of Planned Parenthood Affiliated Health Centers (PPAHCs) and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs)” is being quoted by the media and politicians on both sides of the defund Planned Parenthood battle. In this analysis, Live Action News will review several sources of the data outlined in the footnotes of the CRS report.

While several footnotes indicate that Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) was a source for CRS, sourcing certain PPFA documents is reasonable, as Planned Parenthood is the object of the report. However, the fact that CRS quoted from a study commissioned by PPFA is concerning.

According to CRS, Planned Parenthood Federation of America studied whether FQHCs would be unable to “absorb additional Medicaid family planning patients in the event that Medicaid reimbursements were no longer available to PPAHCs in Wisconsin.” CRS quotes the Planned Parenthood commissioned study as concluding (surprise, surprise — see footnote #93) that “nearly half of the alternative providers likely did not have the capacity to absorb new PPAHC patients.”

Despite FQHCs outnumbering Planned Parenthood centers by the thousands,  Planned Parenthood and its supporters like to suggest that an organization responsible for nearly 35 percent of abortions nationally are the only ones able to care for the needs of the 2.5 million patients they serve. This was the same fear that plagued Democrats when they passed the Affordable Care Act, yet they argued that the system would be more than able to handle that influx.

What CRS failed to detail fully (although they mention Planned Parenthood’s decrease in some services) is that while many of Planned Parenthood’s patients and services are decreasing, abortions have increased 27 percent at the organization since 2004. At the same time, taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood doubled over a decade ($272.7 million in 2004 to $553.7 million in 2014).

While Planned Parenthood has lost half a million patients since 2011, federal health centers increased their patient load by over 2 million by 2015, providing care to 24,295,946 people.

GUTTMACHER

A generous amount of the CRS report can be attributed to data obtained from Guttmacher, a pro-abortion organization which, as recently as 2005, was still referred to as a “special affiliate” of Planned Parenthood.

A 1998 General Accounting Office (GAO) report described Guttmacher this way:

Four years later, a 2003 General Accounting Office report also referred to the Guttmacher Institute as an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, admitting that Guttmacher was “originally a division” of Planned Parenthood:

The Alan Guttmacher Institute was originally a division of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and became an independent nonprofit corporation in 1977 with offices in New York City and Washington, D. C. It remains an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Planned Parenthood referred to the Guttmacher as a “special affiliate” in 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 – where on page 15, PPFA references the Guttmacher Institute as a “special affiliate to which PPFA supplies some support…” — in other words, funding. But the money between Planned Parenthood and Guttmacher flows both ways. Guttmacher (also funded by the taxpayer) has given millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood over the years.

For this reason, it is incredibly concerning that CRS uses data obtained by Guttmacher.

Below are footnote numbers of where CRS referenced Guttmacher data:

• • 42- “PPAHCs [ Planned Parenthood] made up 13% of Title X clinics, but served 37% of Title X clients.”

  • 46- “In 2010, researchers found that FQHCs administer 38% of Title X clinics and serve 16% of overall Title X clients.”

  • 50- “FQHC saw 330 contraceptive clients per year; in contrast, the average PPAHC saw 2,950 contraceptive clients per year.”

  • 54- “When compared to other provider types, 99% of PPAHCs provided at least 10 reversible contraceptive methods on site as compared to 71%-81% of other provider types.”

  • 71- “Another study found that [ FQHCs] 37% offered on-site refills of oral contraception.”

  • 74-“In 2015, more than two-thirds of FQHCs (71%) provided access to at least 10 reversible contraceptive methods compared to 99% of PPAHCs.”

  • 79- “A survey of clinics in 2015 found that 98% of PPAHCs offer any LARC method compared to 69% of FQHCs, and that the overall percentage of clinics stocking any LARC had increased from 66% in 2010 to 75% in 2015.”

If directly sourcing Guttmacher weren’t bad enough, CRS obtained data from several articles authored by Guttmacher staffers, without referencing their connections to the former special affiliate. 

For example, CRS writes:

PPAHCs, by specializing in family planning services, may be wellsuited to meet their patients’ needs as compared to a more generalized provider. For example, researchers have found that some patients prefer to use specialized family planning clinics, including PPAHCs, for family planning services, for a number of reasons, including that patients can receive longer-term contraceptive supplies.

Where did CRS get the information concluding this?

According to footnote 19, the information came from a report published by “Women’s Health Issues,” which sounds great until you realize that the authors are Guttmacher associates and that the report was eventually published by Guttmacher.

• Jennifer J. Frost is a Principle Strategist with Guttmacher

• Rachel Benson Gold is VP for Public Policy with Guttmacher.

• Amelia Bucek’s LinkedIn page shows she was a 2011-2012 Planned Parenthood activist Council Member and abortion facility escort and is also listed as with Guttmacher here.

In footnote 61, we also see no reference to Guttmacher, despite the fact that author Rachel K. Jones is a Principal Research Scientist for Guttmacher and author Jenna Jerman is a Research Associate with Guttmacher.

CRS also made this statement:

Researchers have also examined services at FQHCs and PPAHCs and found differences in how they deliver the same services. FQHCs tend to provide shorter-term prescriptions for oral contraceptives than do PPAHCs. Although both FQHCs and PPAHCs that receive Title X funding are more likely to offer a range of contraceptives than do those that do not receive Title X funding, PPAHCs overall (i.e., regardless of Title X funding status) are more likely to provide LARC on-site than any other type of clinic; 98% compared to a range of 69% to 77%. PPAHCs are also more likely to provide LARC insertion as a same-day service; 98% of PPAHCs surveyed in 2010 were able to offer same-day insertions compared to 87% of FQHCs that were able to do so.

From where does this originate? From footnotes 76 and 77, in which CRS again cites the Guttmacher-affiliated authors of “Women’s Health Issues.”

JOURNAL CONTRACEPTION

CRS also used data obtained by the journal Contraception, as identified in several of their footnotes (seen in the image below):

As Live Action News has previously reported, Contraception is the official journal of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals and the Society of Family Planning. ARHP was originally founded as The American Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians (AAPPP) in 1963 by Planned Parenthood president, Alan Guttmacher, and has gone through multiple name changes.

The current editor of Contraception is none other than Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America senior medical advisor who was heard and seen on undercover Center for Medical Progress recordings discussing how the fetal tissue (including the gonads of unborn baby boys) that she provides for research is “fresh.” Westhoff was also involved in the clinical trials of RU-486 and has previously testified in favor of keeping partial-birth abortion legal:

FULL FOOTAGE: PPFA Dr. Carolyn Westhoff

Additional editors also have radical pro-abortion connections, and are detailed by Live Action News here.

As the Senate considers a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood, all the facts are important — including information not detailed by CRS, showing how Planned Parenthood has been cited for overbilling abuses and Medicaid fraud, violating patient privacy, and failing to report child sexual abuse.

Such an organization does not deserve American taxpayer dollars. It is time to defund Planned Parenthood.