Dr. Leana Wen, the brand new president of the nation’s largest abortion organization, appeared on “The View” Thursday and dodged some tough questions from hosts Sunny Hostin and Abby Huntsman.
Hostin opened by bringing up Planned Parenthood’s dishonesty about what percentage abortion makes up out of all of their services. She cited a Washington Post fact check which found that Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortion is just 3 percent of their services was inaccurate and that the number was likely at least 12 percent.
“Planned Parenthood provides more abortions, the most abortions than any other healthcare provider in the United States and in fact I think it was in 2016 Planned Parenthood provided 328,448 abortions,” Hostin emphasized, asking, “why isn’t Planned Parenthood more transparent about its true position?”
Dr. Wen did not address the Washington Post fact check or what exact percentage abortions make up amongst the organization’s services. She simply disagreed that the organization had a transparency problem.
“I disagree with this,” she said. “Planned Parenthood just like every major medical organization that I’ve ever worked for follows the law and is transparent and makes clear what are the procedures that we perform and what are the services that we perform.”
“Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of reproductive healthcare in this country,” she conceded, “that includes abortion but over 90 percent of the services performed are preventative care services.”
“Why not be transparent about that?” Hostin pressed, “it seems to me that Planned Parenthood is trying to have it both ways.”
The issue of pro-life Americans who object to their taxpayer dollars going towards abortion then came up and Wen insisted that “there are no federal taxpayer dollars that go towards abortions.”
She explained that “Planned Parenthood doesn’t get a check from the federal government, it’s not as if they get a check written every year about funding. Planned Parenthood just like every other hospital gets reimbursed for medical services like breast cancer screenings, like cervical cancer screenings, like birth control.”
Huntsman replied to this by pointing out that pro-lifers don’t care if the money goes directly to abortion or not. They simply don’t want their money going to an organization that provides abortion.
“I hear all the time I don’t want my taxpayer money going to fund an organization that provides abortions whether or not the money is direct or indirect,” she explained, “that’s being done and a lot of people have a really hard time with that.”
Wen did not address the concerns of those who disagree with abortion and thus do not want to fund it. Instead, she insisted that healthcare “shouldn’t be political.”
“Here’s my concern though that healthcare shouldn’t be political,” she said. “Needing medications for your children isn’t political.”
“View” host Whoopi Goldberg jumped in backing her up and arguing that abortion should not be political.