Pelosi: Want Fewer Abortions? Then You Should 'Love' Planned Parenthood.

During a panel discussion on health care at East Los Angeles College on Monday, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the audience that while she didn't want to be a "fear-monger," what Republicans are trying to do with "a woman's right to choose" abortion is "really dangerous." She also argued that if people really want fewer abortions, they should want to fund places that promote "family planning," like Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion provider in the nation. 

"I don't want to be a fear-monger, but this is scary. This is really dangerous what they're trying to do to a woman's right to choose," Pelosi said in comments reported by The Blaze.

The Democratic leader then pivoted to mocking Republicans for supposedly being against "big government" when it comes to things like "clean air" and "clean water," but wanting to use the government to clamp down on abortion — which are performed in America at a rate of about 650,000 per year over the last decade (down from well over a million in the '90s).

"It's a funny thing because they don't believe in governance, they don't want clean air, clean water, food safety — all those things that governments do, they don't want this, they don't want that, but they — Big government when it comes to a woman's right to choose. Big government there," she said. "So this, we have a fight on our hands."

Pelosi then revealed the warning she says she repeated in her first quarter-century in Congress: Republicans supposedly "don't support family planning." Though nobody believed her then, now things have changed, she claimed. The proof, she suggested, are Republicans' attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, which performs over 300,000 abortions per year (about half of all abortions in the country).

"But I'll tell you this one thing, for 25 years, my first 25 years in the Congress, I was banging my head up against a brick wall trying to say to people, 'They don't support family planning,' nobody would believe that. Until just a few years ago they decided they were going, when they had the majority, they would take away all the funding for Planned Parenthood," she said. "They don't believe in family planning." 

She closed her comment by underscoring that those who are against abortion should support family planning organizations, like Planned Parenthood.

"So it's not just about terminating a pregnancy, it's about preventing money going to people — If you don't like terminating a pregnancy you should love family planning right?" she said. "But they do not support that."

As the Heritage Foundation highlighted last year, a report released in 2018 found that Planned Parenthood receives an average of over $500 million in taxpayer funds per year. "Over a three-year period, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates spent $288 million in federal funds. They also received $1.2 billion in funding from Medicaid, which combines federal and state funds," Monica Burke reported.

"Yet despite receiving billions in taxpayer funds over the course of three years, Planned Parenthood’s scope and services have both declined," Burke notes. "The organization’s 2015-2016 report revealed that Planned Parenthood served 100,000 fewer women in 2015-2016 compared to 2014-2015. Their number of health centers and affiliates declined, and they performed fewer cancer screenings and prevention services. They also performed fewer breast examinations, fewer HPV vaccinations, and provided prenatal services to 8,000 fewer women than the previous year."

While Planned Parenthood and its affiliates were providing fewer women's health care services, the abortion giant performed over 325,000 abortions per year, which amounted to "83 abortions for every one adoption referral."