Ohio Politician Requests Inquiry Of Planned Parenthood Reply To Calls By Antiabortion Advocates Posing As Donors

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 14 May 2008 - 9:00 PST

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Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (R) last week asked House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to launch a congressional investigation into responses given by Planned Parenthood clinics to callers who posed as potential donors and asked that their donations be used to provide abortions to minority women, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

According to the Dispatch, several University of California-Los Angeles students who oppose abortion rights called Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio and Planned Parenthood Federation of America affiliates in Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma and other states in July 2007. The students posed as potential donors and asked whether they could "underwrite" abortions for minority women. Recordings of the calls have since been posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube, the Dispatch reports.

The caller to PPCO said he wanted his potential donation to fund an abortion for a black woman because there are "way too many black people in Ohio." According to the Dispatch, the PPCO receptionist said "OK." However, Stephanie Tresso, a PPCO spokesperson, said the call was edited to exclude comments by the receptionist that the contribution would be used for any woman in need.

Tresso said the call was an attempt to discredit the organization. "It was quite an unprofessional call that [the receptionist] received, and she struggled with how to address it," Tresso said, adding that the receptionist "filed an incident report and notified her supervisor" after taking the call. The supervisor then notified other PPFA affiliates, and the Ohio affiliate "realized that this was happening all over the country" and was "an organized effort," Tresso said. After the incident, PPCO updated its donation policy and provided staff with training on how to handle such requests, Tresso said.

Lila Rose, a UCLA student who was involved in the effort, said the calls show PPFA's willingness to accept racially motivated donations. "They could have hung up, they could have disagreed, they could have said 'No, we don't discriminate,' but not a single clinic did that, and that's disturbing and shocking," Rose said.

Blackwell Letter, Congressional Reaction

A letter from Blackwell to Boehner -- which was copied to the entire Ohio congressional delegation -- said, "As if [the call and PPCO's response] isn't disturbing enough, it is not an isolated incident." Blackwell wrote that PPFA receives more than $300 million annually in government funding, adding that he hopes Boehner "will agree that such an organization needs, at a minimum, to be investigated by Congress."

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) said that PPFA affiliates have provided "quality family planning and other reproductive health care" services to low-income and uninsured people that "have been critical to the African-American community." Tubbs Jones said she is "saddened that Ken Blackwell, along with a misguided group of students, have resorted to these deceitful tactics in an effort to attack and discredit a positive organization like Planned Parenthood." Boehner spokesperson Jessica Towhey did not comment on Blackwell's request but said that Boehner "does not believe that American tax dollars should be used to fund abortions" and that "he has supported measures to stop public funding for Planned Parenthood" (Candisky/Riskind, Columbus Dispatch, 5/10).

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