Every day during 40 Days for Life protesters stand in front of the fence at the Planned Parenthood in Bryan, and every day they spread misinformation and lies to the patients that utilize the clinic for reproductive health care. The protesters regularly attempt to pass information to the clients of Planned Parenthood both verbally and in written form. However, much of the information that the protesters try and give the clients is both intellectually dishonest and factually incorrect. Often false information is given about the services provided at Planned Parenthood and the facts about abortion and reproductive health care.
One of the pamphlets that are often given to clients, titled "10 Reasons to Avoid Planned Parenthood," includes several factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations. The first claim listed is that the services at Planned Parenthood focus only abortion, and that while over 6,000 abortions were performed less than 300 women received prenatal care. The truth is that according to annual reports abortion only makes up 7% of the total services provided at Planned Parenthood. Also Planned Parenthood does provide both prenatal care and adoption refers for women that chose not to terminate a pregnancy.
According to the Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas 2006 annual report, 87% of the patients visited Planned Parenthood for family planning: 89,611 out of the 103,004 patients. Also, 4,969 people were tested for HIV and counseled on prevention. Only 6,811 patients who visited all of the area Planned Parenthoods, including the Houston metropolitan area and Bryan-College Station, terminated pregnancies.
Another distortion of the facts include implying that surgical abortions are dangerous, even though less than 0.3% of abortion patients experience a complication that requires hospitalization.
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| The pamphlet also claims that the free condoms available at Planned Parenthood are "ranked dead last" in a study by Consumer Reports. This particular study used the airburst method instead of the "gold standard" water burst method, and all of the condoms tested in the study are FDA approved. While two Planned Parenthood where ranked last in the comparative study of condoms, another Planned Parenthood condoms was ranked 14th in the same study. Consumer Report recalled the study after it was found to be flawed. It should also be noted Coalition for Life and its supporters are against all forms of birth control.
Free services such as pregnancy testing and STD screening are advertised in the pamphlet to be available at the local crisis pregnancy centers, and it claims that Planned Parenthood "is not the cheapest place in town." However, Planned Parenthood does offer free pregnancy testing, and because Planned Parenthood is a medical facility medical grade pregnancy test are used and onsite STD screenings can be performed. Planned Parenthood also accepts Medicaid.
These distortions and outright lies are part of the propaganda that is spread by the protesters from the Coalition for Life in front of Planned Parenthood. The Coalition for Life does not care about the women of the Brazos Valley, as their advertisements proclaim, the Coalition for Life only cares about attempting to preventing women from having access reproductive health care.
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