Defunding Planned Parenthood
- May 11, 2009 - 3
When the movie Juno received four Academy Award nominations and actually won the Oscar for best screenplay, former Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt was worried. In the film, Juno, a pregnant teenager, decides against an abortion partially due to her experience at an abortion clinic. Ms. Feldt admits, “The clinic in Juno is terrible.” But, she adds: “It’s a terribly untrue stereotype.”
When Juno arrives at the clinic, a flippant and heavily pierced receptionist seems to care more about forcing a lavender condom on her than on offering real help for her current dilemma. This is a parody on what we know about Planned Parenthood: that they’re a lot more about contraception and abortion than about abstinence and adoption. In an interview, Feldt said workers in Planned Parenthood clinics are “compassionate” and “dedicated to making women feel comfortable.”
However, it’s pretty hard to make someone “comfortable” about aborting her baby. Juno decided to opt out. She kept remembering something the pro-life volunteer outside the clinic told her: “It has fingernails.”
Despite its name, Planned Parenthood is all about preventing children from being born. And you and I are helping to foot the bill.
By law, taxpayer dollars cannot fund abortion. But organizations with privately funded abortion programs are eligible for public funds if they are used for other purposes. The truth is, Planned Parenthood is by far the nation’s largest abortion provider, performing more abortions every year. Their annual report, just released, shows an increase of over 15,000 abortions in 2007, for a total of 305,310.
Even though Planned Parenthood turns a huge profit, the organization receives nearly $350 million in federal funding annually. Its leaders say they keep the money on the contraception side of the operation. But, in some states, like Texas, authorities are getting wise to Planned Parenthood.
Four clinics in San Antonio were ordered recently to cease and desist from all abortions. It seems they were aborting without licenses. Clinic officials claim they didn’t know they needed a license to give out the abortion pill. They do. Because the clinics receive state funding, some Texas lawmakers are asking for an investigation. Corpus Christi, seeing the need for some budgetary restraint, announced in December that it was cutting out Planned Parenthood. Citizens who pushed for this said the organization is far too wealthy and controversial to be deemed worthy of public support. And in the Texas panhandle, after a 12-year battle, all Planned Parenthood clinics have been shut down. In 1997, there were nineteen of them.
A couple of Texas legislators have proposed completely cutting Planned Parenthood from the state budget. The idea is to channel funding from Planned Parenthood clinics, which also offer pap smears, cancer screening and contraception, to general practice clinics.
Other cities and states are looking at defunding Planned Parenthood. In Orange County, California, supervisors voted unanimously in March to deny the organization a $300,000 grant. This is a trend that should be encouraged.
Penna Dexter is a conservative activist and frequent panelist on “Point of View” syndicated radio program. Her weekly commentaries air on the Bott and Moody Radio Networks. She also serves as a consultant for KMA Direct Communications in Plano, Texas.
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. Our free, downloadable Impact resource on the sanctity of human life is now available at iLiveValues.com. Additional resources are available for purchase on our online bookstore and erlc.com.
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comments
1 On May 13th, 2009, at 8:07am, Buck Golden wrote:
Planned Parenthood is about many things but the most fundamental is giving women control over their fertility not all about preventing children from being born. That’s like saying all holy rollers are stupid.
2 On May 21st, 2009, at 12:33pm, Isabel wrote:
Thank you for this story. My personal belief is that Planned Parenthood has become a business. They claim to offer women an option when in fact they do not. If they were to provide every woman a ultrasound prior to the procedure, I doubt that the same number would choose to abort. This is the killing of human life regardless of how it is being described. Planned Parenthood has said many times that if a woman was to have an ultrasound, it will cause great trauma to the woman. With much respect, there are other options. Abortion has become a method of birth control in this country. PP should not, in my opinion, be getting federal funding. I personally do not want my tax dollars to make it through to a woman choosing this procedure.
May God richly bless you
3 On May 21st, 2009, at 5:12pm, Buck Golden wrote:
I don’t want my tax dollars blowing up civilians in foreign countries or feathering the nests of the rich. Unfortunately, we don’t get to decide where “our” tax dollars go.
If those in the anti abortion movement would do a little homework they’d find that many of the hospitals in this country that are revered for fighting cancer and treating a wide array of health matters also do abortions. And I’ve got some news for you: they do it for money. So, to single out Planned Parenthood and not go after all of these hospitals is myopic and hypocritical.