Jon Kyl Lies to Senate, Claiming:"Planned Parenthood is 90% Abortions"

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) has been dragged to the proverbial woodshed for claiming last week, during Senate debates over the federal budget standoff, that performing abortions is "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does."

Discuss.

If this was a Senate hearing, can't he be nailed for perjury?

"Not intended to be a factual statement" a posteriori ain't no defense against perjury.

edited 12th Apr '11 8:46:59 AM by SavageHeathen

What's to discuss? Politicians lie and get away with it because their allies won't cut them loose, and their allies won't cut them loose because they're doing it too. Such is the way of the world.

Okay, less bitterly - this troubles me because it's an example of how political grandstanding obscures issues rather than clarifying them. I think that a lot of my fellow Christians would be a lot more discriminating about voting for pro-life politicians if they actually knew the numbers behind the great abortion debate. But it's hard to learn the numbers when you've got things like this going on - how many people will just assume Kyl knows what he's talking about? Probably lots.

It's not a perjury claim, just taken out of context.

90% of all services to pregnant women are abortions.

Also, have PP explain this.◊

Or this.◊

Or this.

Edit: Tiny URL replacement.

edited 12th Apr '11 9:04:07 AM by MajorTom

Or simply used out of context intentionally to stir shit up with the dumber part of America that isn't inclined to think about statistics for more then two seconds.

It's standard republican tactics to make bullshit claims and rely on the stupidity of their base.

Also, try to use something more official then photobucket to display charts or graphs, you know, things that are very easy to photoshop.

Oh and, I don't buy that story.

edited 12th Apr '11 9:12:19 AM by CommandoDude

Good God, Tom, could you be any more of an apologist? The man you're saying was taken out of context has ADMITTED that the statement wasn't factual! He wasn't taken out of context, he was lying his face off and he knew it.

Also, your links are off topic and, once again, an attempt to obfuscate the issue.

This is only here because it involves a republican and abortions other than that it is hardly news worthy.

Tom: try this.

@Tom: I support Planned Parenthood in all respects, but even I have to admit those statistics are a little suspicious, assuming the makers of that chart aren't stretching the truth in some way.

^^ I'm curious, did they just pull up the PP pdf file from their website and not cross-check it?

There's been too many leaks and scandals regarding PP of the last few weeks (true or not) to take them at their word.

Here's the ruling about whether PP "lost" all that funding

"True or not"? You realize that, by following your logic, you could just make shit up about a person or group and use that as a reason to distrust them?

edited 12th Apr '11 10:16:30 AM by Linhasxoc

^ Welcome to real world politics. Remember "Blood for oil"? Bush couldn't defend himself in his own words because of such lies. So we had to look at independent things happening around. (And guess what, "Blood for oil" was rapidly disproven.)

PP is no different. Until we see from independent sources to back up what PP says, we cannot trust them. That's the nature of organizations getting involved in politics. The original claim in this topic the lie it is does bring up a legitimate question, can we trust such organizations especially if funded by the Federal government?

Technically irrelevant, because regardless of whether PP is lying to make itself look more palatable to pro-lifers, Kyl has no access to information that would prove his statement, or he would have backed it up instead of retracting it. The issue isn't PP's integrity, it's the fact that JK is lying to further his agenda instead of relying on what facts are available, however flawed they may be.

Major Tom: Should not by the same logic all arguments against PP require proper sound statistics too? Which again means all arguments against it will be based on lies.

So I could quite happily state that you are in fact a child molestor then Tom and since I have stated that as a rumour and its being "leaked" then we clearly can't trust you around children.

Why not just have a "Truth=lies" thing added to the triumvirate of things from 1984.

^ Based on his avatar! There is hard evidence.

So anyway, is all the hoopla because it indirectly funds abortion? Is that the issue? It seems to me like a ridiculously small budget item that provides a vital service in the medical field.

edited 12th Apr '11 10:56:58 AM by breadloaf

PP does perform abortions, but by law federal funding can't go to it. Protesters cry that funding anything PP does therefore funds abortions by giving PP the budget to spend elsewhere. It would be a legitimate complaint were the numbers statistically significant, but people aren't starting lines 'round the street corners for abortions.

Although it does make me wonder, why not just circumvent the entire debate, and split PP off into a solely abortion-providing organization and an organization that does all the other stuff.

That's a good point actually, it'd allow the one service to focus more on sex education and such, allowing some actual progress in that area, while the abortion service gets all of the fire on it, because let's face it, that's a lost cause, abortion is going to have fire on it no matter what (and from people like me), but sex education does need a greater focus.

Because that would simply give the anti abortionists a definite target to aim at?

x3Because the abortion-providing part would be much easier to kill that way.

x5Glenn Meck Raped and Murdered a Girl in 1990! (Seriously, that's exactly the kind of thinking this meme parodied.)

edited 12th Apr '11 11:03:29 AM by Linhasxoc

@Josef

They're already treating PP like that, at least this way a certain group whose actions are far less controversial aren't being attacked due to association.

edited 12th Apr '11 11:05:36 AM by Usht

If they can't kill PP right now, I don't think that could kill an organization dedicated strictly to abortions. i may be wrong in that, but seeing things from the pro-lifer pov, they've probably tried everything they can as it is.

I just like the fact that we seem to be going back to a state of affairs best summarised as "every organisation is innocent until presumed guilty". And by "like" I ofc mean "utterly loathe"

There is also the fact that that particular part of the organisation would be the first to get cut or closed for examination if an unscrupulous candidate wanted to quickly win votes with the Christian Right.

edited 12th Apr '11 11:10:03 AM by JosefBugman

Why would you split pp. A split target is easier to destroy. I like pp.

Because I think that both sides of the aisle can agree that improving sex education and educating about birth control is both an intelligent move for controlling birth rates and saving money in the long run (welfare, etc, etc.).

However, splitting that side of PP from the side that performs abortions would allow the side both parties agree is beneficial to exist while they carry on the never-ending battle over the legality of abortions in the other, split-off half of PP.

edited 12th Apr '11 11:19:29 AM by ExterminatorZed