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BuzzFeed Tries And Fails To Do PR For Planned Parenthood

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BuzzFeed News interviewed Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen about her vision for the organization, but she took to Twitter to call it out for a headline that “completely misconstrue[s]” her ideas.

BuzzFeed ran a headline Monday — Planned Parenthood’s New President Wants To Focus On Nonabortion Health Care — inaccurately representing the organization’s true mission, according to Wen.

“I am always happy to do interviews, but these headlines completely misconstrue my vision for Planned Parenthood,” Wen tweeted Tuesday.

First, our core mission is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care. We will never back down from that fight – it’s a fundamental human right and women’s lives are at stake.

— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) January 8, 2019

BuzzFeed discussed with Wen her five-month listening tour she will begin Wednesday. Wen will visit 20 Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country, according to BuzzFeed. Her first visit will be a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Ohio.

As part of the tour, Wen will meet with clinic workers who could potentially serve at Planned Parenthood clinics to treat diet, depression and opioid related-needs.

The article’s subheadline, however, still states Planned Parenthood is “committed to providing abortions and reproductive care,” but Wen made it clear in her tweets — and in the interview itself — just how important the procedure is to the organization.

“What we will always be here to do is provide abortion access as part of the full spectrum of reproductive health care, it’s who we are,” Wen told BuzzFeed.

” … it in no way means we are backing down from fighting for abortion access or from the important political work our advocacy organizations do,” she tweeted.

That’s exciting. And it in no way means we are backing down from fighting for abortion access or from the important political work our advocacy organizations do.

— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) January 8, 2019

Wen previously claimed the abortion organization offers “live-saving care,” and that Planned Parenthood’s work is “about saving people’s lives.”

Wen assumed her role as Planned Parenthood president Nov. 12, 2018. She was previously the Baltimore city health commissioner and an emergency physician.

While BuzzFeed might have attempted to give Planned Parenthood some positive press following a number of recent flops afflicting the abortion organization, including its alleged discrimination against current and previous pregnant employees, Wen shut down that attempt.

Planned Parenthood previously tried to distance itself from pointing to abortion as its core mission, claiming abortion services make up little of its work. The Washington Post fact-checked the group’s claim that “Three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services,” and found the claim largely false, giving it three pinocchios in 2015.

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