Univision has demonstrated, yet again, that unfettered access to abortion-on-demand remains high on the network's policy advocacy agenda, second, perhaps, only to immigration. The blatant advocacy was on full display in recent days, in a series of Univision stories on Planned Parenthood that was perfectly timed to coincide with the PinkOut campaign on behalf of the nation's leading abortion provider, and in opposition to cuts to the organization's federal funding.
The three-part series infomercial began last Wednesday, which was actually Pink Out Day, on Despierta América, which is to Univision as the Today show is to NBC. Here's how Univision news anchor Satcha Pretto, decked out in pink, introduced the series:
SATCHA PRETTO, ANCHOR, DESPIERTA AMÉRICA: Attacks against Planned Parenthood have placed this organization in the eye of the hurricane. Critics are looking to block the federal funding that they receive, and supporters say that it (PP) is the best option for reproductive health care services, including abortion, for hundreds of thousands of women. But, what does this organization really do? Peggy Carranza tells us, from Alabama.
In case you didn't get the hint that Univision was going to be all the way in on Planned Parenthood, here's how the network very clearly and editorially captioned its video of the story on their website (link here):
Groups that reject women's right to control their own bodies support the conservative proposal to withdraw public funding from Planned Parenthood, but defenders of the organization explain why it is neccesary to continue providing care to millions of persons of limited resources.
As we've mentioned many times before, anchor framing is a tonesetter, and Pretto's framing of this story is not the exception. Following this setup, correspondent Peggy Carranza proceeds to interview a young woman who shares a brazen rationale for having an abortion. The baby is presented here as little more than an inconvenient obstacle to this young trilingual psychologist-violinist-nursing student's journey towards self-realization.
Following the presentation of the sympathetic abortion advocate, Carranza proceeds to propagate Planned Parenthood's infamous 3% lie, as seen in the chart to the right (a near-identical regurtitation of the chart displayed in Planned Parenthood's 2014-2015 annual report). It's a lie used by the organization to mask the essence of its abortion-based business model.
Now, here's how the verbal sleight-of-hand works: the 3% number means that out of every 100 individual services performed by Planned Parenthood facility, 31 are contraceptive distributions, 45 are STD treatments, 7 are cancer screenings, 14 are "other services", and 3 are abortions. However, abortion accounts for 86% of Planned Parenthood's non-federal revenues, a fact that Univision's viewers never get to see.
In the interest of "balance", Univision devoted about ten seconds of a three-minute feature story to the pro-life view. This is consistent with the remainder of the series, the central arc of which was to present Planned Parenthood in a light most favorable, to attack the idea of community health centers as alternate recipients of Planned Parenthood funding, and to squash or otherize pro-life voices within the Hispanic community.
As we pointed out last month, Univision is still very much in the tank for Planned Parenthood. But this series, with its callous indifference for the unborn and its summary dismissals of what is still a majority position with the Hispanic community, represent a new low for the network.
Below is a full transcript of the above-referenced news story as it ran on Despierta América on March 29, 2017.
SATCHA PRETTO, ANCHOR, DESPIERTA AMÉRICA: Attacks against Planned Parenthood have placed this organization in the eye of the hurricane. Critics are looking to block the federal funding that they receive, and supporters say that it (PP) is the best option for reproductive health care services, including abortion, for hundreds of thousands of women. But, what does this organization really do? Peggy Carranza tells us, from Alabama.
PEGGY CARRANZA, CORRESPONDENT, DESPIERTA AMÉRICA: Stephanie Estrella is 25 years old, is a psychologist, speaks three languages, plays violin, and is now studying nursing. According to her, it was precisely the desire to continue pursuing her own personal development that led her to make one of the most important decisions of her life. At 19, she underwent an abortion.
STEPHANIE ESTRELLA, STUDENT: I wasn't ready to have a child, I didn't have the money, I had many goals, aspirations...and with a child it was very difficult to obtain all the things that I wanted to do...
CARRANZA: Stephanie claims to not have received sexual education. It wasn't until after she got her abortion that she turned to Planned Parenthood in order to receive her first contraceptives.
ESTRELLA: I know that it is a place where they don't judge, where they are professional- that they are there for their patients, and that is very important to me. I didn't go to them, then, for the abortion, but I went to them for my birth control pills, my Pap smear...
CARRANZA: Planned Parenthood provides reproductive health care services to over two million women and men throughout the country. According to their most recent annual report, 45% (of thier services) encompass treatment against sexually transmitted diseases, 31% for contraceptives, 7% for cancer screenings, and 3% for abortions, which intensifies the controversy.
CARRANZA: Federal courts in at least six states have halted plans to cut Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. One of those (states) is Alabama, where their governor did not appeal the court ruling after Planned Parenthood promised to not donate fetal organs.
CARRANZA: Even so, critics of the organization state that the pro-life movement is gaining momentum, and this will be reflected with more antiabortion laws.
LAWRENCE GELMAN, ANESTHESIOLOGIST: There is no right to abort within the Constitution of the United States. It says nothing about a right to abortion, But there is a right to life.
CARRANZA: Next time, we'll show you the struggle to keep Planned Parenthood functioning in several states on their way to cutting their funding. In Birmingham, Alabama- Peggy Carranza, Univision.
