It's Wednesday, February 26, 2025.

I'm Albert Mowler, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian

worldview.

It tells you something when the most influential newspaper in the United States runs a front-page

article with the headline,

A Crisis of Care at Planned Parenthood Clinics. This turns out to be a story that looks big

and indeed is big, because this is an expose of lax medical standards at Planned Parenthood

clinics. The very fact that this kind of article, this news report, appears in the

mainstream media, tells us something. If they're reporting on Planned Parenthood representing an

organization in crisis, particularly a crisis in the delivery of medical care, you can count on

the fact it's a big story. And even as the New York Times begins this account, it reminds us,

quote, Planned Parenthood is synonymous with the fight to preserve abortion rights, but it is also the

health care provider of last resort to millions of the poorest Americans. Its clinics offer

cancer screenings, birth control, annual gynecological exams, and prenatal care, regardless of whether

patients can pay, end quote. Well, we need to unpack that just a moment. Indeed, Planned

Parenthood is a vast organization of clinics, and it is true. And let's just state this even as

the truth would require it. Yes, Planned Parenthood is about more than abortion.

But the whole point of this story is that when the money gets spent,

the National Planned Parenthood Federation spends the money in the legal and political defense of abortion,

not on health care.

The crisis in the delivery of health care is made clear

very early in the article where their paper tells us that its review, quote, of clinic documents

...