Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards testifies before Congress — under oath — that she never said that her organization provided mammograms to women. But that’s a stark contradiction to what she actually said in a 2011 interview with Joy Behar on CNN.
On Tuesday, Ms. Richards, who has been president of PPFA since 2006, testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on PPFA’s use of taxpayer funding.
During her testimony, she said: “We do not have mammogram machines at our health centers, and we’ve never stated that we did.”
She added that “for women who go for a breast exam, if you need a mammogram, you’re referred to a radiological clinic.”
Yet in 2011, Ms. Richards painted a very different picture of the horrific effects on women if Planned Parenthood were to be defunded. The primary example she used is that “millions of women in this country” would lose their most basic healthcare, “you know, mammograms.”
Appearing on The Joy Behar Show to oppose the Pence Amendment to end Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer subsidies, Richards claimed, ‘If this bill ever becomes law, millions of women in this country are gonna lose their healthcare access — not to abortion services — to basic family planning, you know, mammograms.’”
At the time, the pro-life group Live Action released a series of audio tapes contradicting claims that the organization made that it provides mammograms.
The president of Live Action, Lila Rose, said that the recordings confirm Planned Parenthood’s “corruption.”
“Planned Parenthood is first and foremost an abortion business, but Planned Parenthood and its allies will say almost anything to try and cover up that fact and preserve its taxpayer funding,” Rose said.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome