According to Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood clinic director and one of the organizers of “Call Planned Parenthood for an Imaginary Mammogram” thousands of pro-life people called to Planned Parenthood yesterday to ask for the mammograms.
The day before the calls were scheduled to begin, Planned Parenthood issued a statement admitting that it does not offer mammograms. President Obama stated incorrectly in this week’s Presidential Debate that they did offer mammograms. He was repeating claims made by the President of Planned Parenthood in television interviews earlier. (See here.)
An article from LifeSiteNews detailing the story says in part:
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 18, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The day before hundreds of pro-life activists prepared to flood Planned Parenthood’s offices with requests to schedule a mammogram, the organization issued a statement admitting that they do not offer the cancer screening procedure at any of their facilities.
The calls were placed today as part of “Call Planned Parenthood to Schedule Your Imaginary Mammogram Day” – an event organized by pro-life activists in response to President Obama’s statement during the presidential debate Tuesday that the abortion organization offers mammograms.
“There are millions of women all across the country, who rely on Planned Parenthood for, not just contraceptive care, they rely on it for mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings,” the president had said, repeating a claim he had made earlier this summer in an interview with Glamour magazine.
But Obama isn’t the only one.
The notion that Planned Parenthood offers mammograms is one of the most enduring myths about the abortion giant. The claim is regularly trotted out by pro-abortion politicians eager to defend taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, but wary of invoking its controversial status as the country’s leading provider of abortions.
And it’s no wonder the myth persists. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards herself sowed confusion by citing “mammograms” among her organization’s services in February last year.
Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director turned pro-life activist, and one of the organizers of the “Call Planned Parenthood” day, told LifeSiteNews.com that she and other organizers estimate that more than 1,000 calls have been placed today to schedule mammograms. More than 1,800 people replied to a Facebook event page saying that they would participate in the event, with another 150 responding “maybe.”
Johnson described the event as “extremely successful,” pointing to Planned Parenthood’s statement as a major victory.
Pro-life groups have been hot to expose the false mammogram claim ever since Richards’ “mammogram” remark, which was made in response to a proposed bill to cut Planned Parenthood’s funding in February 2011. In reaction the pro-life organization Live Action called dozens of Planned Parenthood clinics to schedule a mammogram, only to discover that not one of the clinics offered the procedure.(Read more here.)
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