In an e-mail sent to supporters yesterday, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan slammed “Women Up,” which is a new Republican outreach to women. The e-mail blast, as seen in part in the screenshot below, uses less-than-accurate facts to support its claims.
Let’s take a look at Keenan’s three supporting statements:
1) Keenan: “We know that the House voted to defund Planned Parenthood.”
Nancy Keenan, NARAL President
This is TRUE!
2) Keenan: “We know that anti-choice lawmakers pushed the Blunt amendment to allow your boss to block you from getting insurance coverage of birth control.”
This is FALSE. The Blunt conscience amendment would not have allowed employers to “block” employees from getting insurance coverage from birth control. What the measure did was allow employers the choice to offer insurance with or without birth control. Employees under the Blunt amendment would have the power to purchase whatever insurance or insurance rider they wanted if they did not like the insurance offerings of their employer.
3) Keenan: “We know that the House held a hearing attacking birth control featuring an all-male panel.”
This is also FALSE. The panel was convened to look at what impact on religious freedom the HHS mandate would have. The panel featured two women, so it was not an “all-male” panel. Pro-abortion interest groups and some liberal media publications falsely reported at first that the hearing did not contain any females. This falsehood was not eagerly corrected, and NARAL continues it to this day. The NARAL e-mail cites an article from Slate.com, a publication supportive of abortion, as backup for this “all-male” claim. Upon examination of the Slate.com article by pro-abortion activists and former John Edwards campaign staffer Amanda Marcotte, it is clear that the piece does not even support the claim the Nancy Keenan is making. The Slate article in an update even acknowledges that women did testify at the congressional hearing:
Update: In a second panel Thursday afternoon, two women appeared as witnesses to testify against the coverage policy.
The claim of an “all-male” panel is a false and deceptive effort by NARAL to advance its own agenda. Manipulating the truth in a self-serving ideological endeavor damages NARAL’s credibility as an honest party in the abortion debate.
