Did you watch the big hearing in Congress the other day? Congressional Republicans, having failed completely with their plan of holding their breath until the Democrats and Obama agreed to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, had to settle for the consolation prize. They hauled up Cecile Richards, PP’s president, so they could browbeat her for five hours. If you watch any five minute segment of it you will have seen the whole thing. The Republicans asked one stupid, mendacious question after another, and then cut Richards off the second she tried to answer. I’m sure the crazies loved it, but I don’t think the Republicans made any inroads toward getting the all-important sane vote.
An especially interesting moment came when Jason Chaffetz, a congressman from Utah, presented what he thought was a damning piece of evidence against Richards. It was a graph showing two lines. One showed the number of “Cancer Screenings and Preventative Services” offered by PP. This line was pointing down with a high slope. The second line showed the number of abortions over the same time period. This line was pointing up with a high slope. The lines crossed somewhere in the middle. The point was to challenge PP’s claim that abortions make up a tiny percentage of the services they provide. “I got these numbers from your own corporate reports,” Chaffetz intoned.
Now, as Richards had the satisfaction of pointing out, this was a big lie by Chaffetz. The graph came from a pro-life website, and not from his own meticulous reading of corporate reports. The way we know it came from that website is that Chaffetz’s chart had the source clearly printed at the bottom.
More than that, though, the chart is a real masterpiece of dishonesty. It takes people with no conscience at all to produce a graph as dishonest as this one. Kevin Drum has the full details. The graph, you see, had no y-axis. Without that, what you have is not any honest presentation of data, but rather just two lines with made-up slopes.
The actual numbers speak for themselves. According to what is on the chart, the number of abortions went from roughly 289,000 to 327,000, between 2006 and 2013. During that same time period, cancer screenings and whatnot went from a little over two million down to roughly 935,000. Of course, cancer screenings hardly cover the totality of PP’s non-abortion services. When you factor in STD testing and contraceptive services, the number goes from slightly over nine million in 2006, to 8,892,000 in 2013.
Yet somehow, these lines managed to cross on Chaffetz’s graph.
To anyone capable of looking at and understanding numbers, this is a complete vindication of PP’s claim that abortion is a tiny percentage of the services they provide. Chaffetz’s graph proves the exact opposite of what he said it proved. But the pathological liars of the far right do not care about such things.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1iNl9uP
Did you watch the big hearing in Congress the other day? Congressional Republicans, having failed completely with their plan of holding their breath until the Democrats and Obama agreed to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, had to settle for the consolation prize. They hauled up Cecile Richards, PP’s president, so they could browbeat her for five hours. If you watch any five minute segment of it you will have seen the whole thing. The Republicans asked one stupid, mendacious question after another, and then cut Richards off the second she tried to answer. I’m sure the crazies loved it, but I don’t think the Republicans made any inroads toward getting the all-important sane vote.
An especially interesting moment came when Jason Chaffetz, a congressman from Utah, presented what he thought was a damning piece of evidence against Richards. It was a graph showing two lines. One showed the number of “Cancer Screenings and Preventative Services” offered by PP. This line was pointing down with a high slope. The second line showed the number of abortions over the same time period. This line was pointing up with a high slope. The lines crossed somewhere in the middle. The point was to challenge PP’s claim that abortions make up a tiny percentage of the services they provide. “I got these numbers from your own corporate reports,” Chaffetz intoned.
Now, as Richards had the satisfaction of pointing out, this was a big lie by Chaffetz. The graph came from a pro-life website, and not from his own meticulous reading of corporate reports. The way we know it came from that website is that Chaffetz’s chart had the source clearly printed at the bottom.
More than that, though, the chart is a real masterpiece of dishonesty. It takes people with no conscience at all to produce a graph as dishonest as this one. Kevin Drum has the full details. The graph, you see, had no y-axis. Without that, what you have is not any honest presentation of data, but rather just two lines with made-up slopes.
The actual numbers speak for themselves. According to what is on the chart, the number of abortions went from roughly 289,000 to 327,000, between 2006 and 2013. During that same time period, cancer screenings and whatnot went from a little over two million down to roughly 935,000. Of course, cancer screenings hardly cover the totality of PP’s non-abortion services. When you factor in STD testing and contraceptive services, the number goes from slightly over nine million in 2006, to 8,892,000 in 2013.
Yet somehow, these lines managed to cross on Chaffetz’s graph.
To anyone capable of looking at and understanding numbers, this is a complete vindication of PP’s claim that abortion is a tiny percentage of the services they provide. Chaffetz’s graph proves the exact opposite of what he said it proved. But the pathological liars of the far right do not care about such things.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1iNl9uP
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