The special election in Georgia between Karen Handel and Jon Ossoff resembles that of last November in one important respect: The sizable investment lost by Planned Parenthood after backing pro-abortion Democratic candidates.
The tax-subsidized abortion corporation lost more than $30 million trying to get Hillary Clinton elected. Now it has just burned a whopping $735,000 on behalf of Jon Ossoff.
Planned Parenthood’s investment in Georgia may seem large for a congressional seat, but there is personal history between Handel and the abortion provider which may explain their “all in” support for Handel’s opponent. Back in 2012, Karen Handel was in charge of public policy at Susan G. Komen, the well-known breast cancer charity. Handel had recommended that the charity stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood and other organizations whose breast cancer prevention work was negligible.
Virulent attacks from the left led to a public relations disaster for Komen and Handel’s resignation. But the fiasco also shined a bright light on Planned Parenthood’s misleading claims of providing mammograms for low-income women. Thanks in part to these events, the public became aware that the corporation does some cancer screening, but that abortion is its bread and butter.
Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, who set a record for out-of-state donations (he had almost four times as many donors in San Francisco as in Georgia), tried to use Handel’s history with Planned Parenthood against her. In one attack ad, he accused her of hurting women by cutting off funding for cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood.
Handel previously described the defunding as a routine “business decision” by a company trying to “set the highest standards and criteria” for their grant-making process. And she indicated that Komen was trying to “move to neutral ground” and away from a corporation many Americans regard as an abortion mill, not a women’s health provider.
Ossoff’s attacks on this issue might have worked to Handel’s benefit. After all, the years since 2012 have not been friendly to Planned Parenthood’s public relations situation. In 2015, the corporation’s president, Cecile Richards, had to set the record straight at a congressional hearing by admitting that the abortion provider “does not, in fact offer mammograms or have mammogram machines in its clinics.”
She was walking back a statement she had made earlier in an interview with Joy Behar when, while speaking about cutting funding to the company, she said, “. . . millions of women in this country are going to lose their health care access … to … you know, mammograms, cancer screenings, cervical cancer.” Voters viewing the attack ad probably sympathized with Handel, who lost her beloved job at Susan G. Komen because of a business decision meant to put the charity’s money to its intended use – saving women from breast cancer.
Perhaps voters were not just sympathizing with Handel, but cheering her on and hoping to send her “defund Planned Parenthood” attitude up to Washington, D.C. where it can do some good. Recent undercover videos showing the company’s abortion doctors maniacally chortling about the grisly dismemberment of late-term fetuses for profit have opened a window into the company’s internal culture. The view is not pretty.
The national drive to defund Planned Parenthood has been gathering steam with these revelations and Ossoff’s ads probably gave Handel significant credibility on the subject. So maybe it’s time for Democrats to consider the possibility that partnering with Planned Parenthood isn’t good policy or politics.
Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie practices radiology in the Miami area and is a policy advisor for The Catholic Association.
Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
