ABORTION FIELD TRIPS…. I’ve seen a few outlets noting Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) new attack on health care reform. Except, it’s not really “new” — it’s a point some right-wing websites raised a few months ago. Bachmann is just getting around to it now.
In a speech on the House floor last night, Bachmann warned about the dangers of school-based health clinics, patient privacy, and student records.
“What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what’s going to go on — comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care — is that abortion? Does that mean that someone’s 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.”
I’m not sure why Bachmann thinks school-based health clinics deserve to be characterized as “sex clinics,” though it does suggest the right-wing lawmaker has something of a dirty mind.
Media Matters Action Network noted, “Bachmann seems to be getting her information from fringe blogs like Free Republic and WorldNetDaily, both of which have recently promoted similar claims.”
PolitiFact.com fact-checked the claim in August: “We see no language in the three main versions of the bill that would allow school-based clinics, which have a long history of providing basic health services to underprivileged students, to provide abortions. Nor would the clinics even be new — they have been around for three decades. So we rate the claim Pants on Fire!”
Of course, if Bachmann’s pushing it, we can expect Beck and others to start parroting it soon.
