This Just In - Evidence Planned Parenthood Is Expanding Telemed Abortions To DBQ On the Table

Ever since the visit of Cecile Richards to Cedar Rapids last year for the Planned Parenthood East Central Iowa (PPECI) 30th Anniversary gathering evidence has been growing that plans were in the works to add DBQ to the list of sites that offer telemed abortions. Each time evidence has surfaced, PPECI's spin doctors have gone to work to make it sound like nothing definite was in the works. But, as those of us in the Pro-life movement know, PP rarely admits to the truth & does all it can to cover up until it can present an expansion as a fait accompli.

Even now, after the recent merger announcement between PPECI & PP Heartland (PPH), they continue to deny that anything definite is in the works. But once again, PP has let the truth slip out that the facts are different.

This morning's edition of the DBQ TH has a front page story about the expansion of telemed abortions into DBQ. The article repeats the PP claims, but then it goes on to share a quote from a recent PPH fundraising letter that shows that expansion to DBQ has been long on the table.

In the letter Jill June mentions the former CEO of PPECI, Joe Lock. What she says proves that the claims of nothing definite was in the works made by Lock last year were clearly a lie. "Joe Lock & I have worked together as CEOs these past five years. In fact, it was Joe who sought us out to find a way to expand and provide telemedicine to clients of PPECI." (emphaisi mine) Yet last May a PPECI spokesperson said "PPECI has no plans at this time to provide abortion services." Sounds to me like the plans were a lot more definite than PPECI wanted to (or PPH wants to) admit.

I would also like to ask PPH Communications Director Shelby Cloke why she said there has been no discussion of services when June says in another place in the letter "We feel certain that through a newly merged affiliate, patients will benefit from the expanded services we will be able to provide."? Once again it sounds like there has been a lot more discussion of services & things are a lot further along than Cloke is willing to admit. Yes there are a lot of things to work through. But years ago i learned from personal experience that what is said about how far along plans are versus what the real plans are can definitely be 2 different things. I my case the retail chain I worked for was bought up by another chain at the end of Sept. They said no plans would be made until after the 1st of the year about closing stores. But then the 1st Friday in Dec the ax was dropped & we were told our store closing. & on the day of the Christmas employee extra 10% discount to boot. So, don't tell me things are not far along Ms. Cloke. I've taken a PR class. & that on top of my experience tells me what you are saying is pure BS PhD. (BTW, I love her name. Very appropriate for the job she is doing, cloaking the truth.)

In fact things are playing out exactly as I predicted last June in a post on the subject. At the time I said "I honestly think that how it will happen is that PPECI & PP-Heartland (who currently does the Telemed abortions) will announce a merger. & it will be PP-Heartland who will take over & do them." Well, the merger is in the works. & PPH is working to expand telemed abortions to DBQ.

The 2010 PPH Annual Report talks about how telemed abortions continued to be rolled out "to almost all of our health centers in Iowa." (16 of the 19) & they talk about how the merger with PP of Nebraska & Council Bluffs enabled them to expand where they offer "medicine abortions" to Nebraska. The way they are trumpetting it in the report makes it clear they see it as the wave of the future & plan further expansions. & even though the report was prepared before the merger announcement, you can be sure that any future expansion include DBQ.

A couple weeks ago the DBQ site was visited by who were probably some PPH people to check out the site. The person who was there told me that the PP pezzonovante were not too happy to see the Pro-life presence. (Other reports have come back that they didn't expect us to keep up the protest this long either.) I have no doubt that 1 of the things in mind was suitability for providing telemed abortions.

I have to add 2 thoughts before closing.

1st of all, once again PP's arrogance is showing in how they are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. You would think by now that the Pro-lifers are smart enough to catch it when their words & actions don't mesh. But instead they act as if we are too dumb to know what they are saying to their supporters. But then, when they are caught, it is clear they think the average person is too dumb to figure out that their denials are spin when the facts show something else.

2ndly, there was 1 thing in the PPH 2010 report that was more proof of how they try & make it sound like they truly provide all options for women. The report brags about the 7 adoptions they helped with. Sounds good, until you look at the number of unborn children they murdered, 5,685 abortions according to the report. (I assume that is telemed & surgical combined.) That is a little over 812 abortions for each adoption. & as PP admits they don't automaticly provide information on all the alternatives, just that they may. IMHO, PPH is spinning what it sees as 7 failures to make it sound like they truly provide all the alternatives. (I won't go into the other spin they have with the numbers to make it sound like abortions aren't so big a part of their business as I have done that plenty of times before.)

So, as I said before, PPH's actions are pointing towards the goal of adding DBQ to the telemed abortion sites they have. The only 2 things that may prevent it are the Iowa Board of Medicine rightly ruling that under current law what PPH is doing is illegal (hopefully, but given some of the facts about how cosy they are, I suspect they won't). Or that a new law is passed clearly banning them. Given the small number of people that actually go into the DBQ site, they need the revenue from telemed abortions to keep it going. & if they are banned, I am willing to bet PPH will close the DBQ site rather than continue to lose money like the probably are now.

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Note: As I write this, the TH has yet to put today's articles on their website. When they do, I will add a link to the article in this post. Meanwhile, KUDOS to DCRTL's Steve Brody for his continued voice speaking out for the unborn & pointing out the truth about what PP is doing.

(Added 11 Jan 2011 @ 12:06am) Telemed abortions coming to Dubuque?

Additional coverage of DBQ & PP Telemed threat: Dubuque, Iowa Could be Next Location for Telemed Abortions (added 11 jan 2011 @ 4:42 am)