Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, who has described himself as “close to” the Center for Medical Progress’ smear of Planned Parenthood, argued this week that public support for Planned Parenthood has been inflated because pollsters aren’t lying to poll respondents about the nature of the organization’s federal funding.
In an interview on Ave Maria Radio on Wednesday, Pavone reacted to a Pew poll finding that 60 percent of Americans support federal funding to the women’s health provider by saying that surveys should instead ask, “Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion business in the country, do you believe your taxpayer money should fund those abortions?”
The reason pollsters don’t ask the question that way may be because, under federal law, no federal funding goes to the organization’s abortion services except in very limited cases.
Pavone also insisted that “much of the American public does not even realize that Planned Parenthood does abortions” because “they cleverly hide it in the very title of the organization. ‘Planned Parenthood’ sounds something like you’re in favor of parenthood, not that you’re in favor of snuffing it out.”
Pavone also reasoned that Planned Parenthood must not be interested in providing health care to low-income people because if it, was it wouldn’t attract campaigns to defund it, or something:
If you, Planned Parenthood, really believe that, if you believe that you are so necessary to provide so many good things to people that otherwise wouldn’t have them, then why do you act so irresponsibly doing this immoral things that most of the public rejects, doing potentially illegal things that you’re now being investigated for? If you really consider yourself to be such an important part of society’s service to people, clean up your act! If you think that if you close your doors, all these people are going to be out of services, then shouldn’t you be more careful that the government doesn’t have to come in and close your doors? Stop the immoral and illegal activity!
