Examining Komen's history with Planned Parenthood; Rep. Blackburn wants expanded Planned Parenthood investigation

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Feb 12 2012

ProPublica examines Komen's shifting history with Planned Parenthood. In other news, Planned Parenthood's services for men are examined and a Republican congresswoman is asking for a larger investigation of the organization.

ProPublica: Komen's Contortions: A Timeline Of The Charity's Shifting Story On Planned Parenthood
Starting last week in a head-snapping series of events, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity cut funding to Planned Parenthood, and after a wave of outcry, reinstituted the funding days later. Along the way it gave a string of seemingly contradictory explanations for its decisions. We break down exactly what Komen said, and how it's changed (Groeger, 2/9).

McClatchy: Defunding Planned Parenthood: Did You Know It Serves Men, Too?
Planned Parenthood performs 770,000 Pap smears annually, and more than four million tests for STDs (for men, too!). Three of four clients visit clinics for services to prevent unintended pregnancies, which helps reduce the need for abortion. … Maybe the trick is for Planned Parenthood to focus more on men's reproductive health and start performing vasectomies. Women's bodies are battlefields, but we never seem to argue about men (Heller, 2/9).

The Hill: Rep. Blackburn Urges 'Full-Scale' Planned Parenthood Investigation
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is taking the lead in asking Congress to double down in its investigation of Planned Parenthood. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Energy and Commerce Committee member is asking for a "full-scale series of congressional hearings to expose the damage Planned Parenthood has caused to our nation." The letter comes after an anti-abortion-rights group issued a report on Tuesday that accuses the nation's largest abortion provider of "waste, abuse and potential fraud." The report is aimed at fueling calls for investigatory hearings by the House Energy and Commerce Oversight panel, which launched a probe into Planned Parenthood last year (Pecquet, 2/9).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.