On Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that as part of the process to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Republican congressional leaders would include a provision that would prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal funding.
Here are ten reasons why every taxpayer should support congressional efforts to defund Planned Parenthood:
1. Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in America—and the largest recipient of federal funding for family planning.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) has 57 affiliates that operation approximately 650 “health centers.” PPFA require that at least one clinic per affiliate must perform abortions. The result is that PPFA is America’s largest abortion provider, performing more than 323,000 abortions a year.
PPFA is also the largest single recipient of federal funding for family planning. A report produced by the by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2015 found that over a three year period (2010-2012), PPFA received $344.5 million in direct federal funds and an additional $1.2 billion in funding from Medicaid (which includes a combination of federal and state funds). Altogether, Planned Parenthood gets nearly a half a billion dollars every year from the American taxpayer.
2. Planned Parenthood covers up the crimes of rapists, pimps, and sex traffickers
Planned Parenthood has repeatedly and consistently turned a blind eye to reports of statutory rape. Some of their clinics have also demonstrated a willingness to partner with pimps and sex traffickers to exploit young women instead of safeguarding their health and safety.
In 2015, Planned Parenthood even encouraged Congressional Democrats to oppose a domestic anti-trafficking bill because it would prohibit money in a restitution fund from being spent on abortions.
3. Planned Parenthood’s corporate profits come at the taxpayer’s expense
Based on Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, taxpayer dollars accounted for at least 40 percent of all the corporation’s revenue—and 100 percent of the corporation’s profits. As Americans United for Life notes, that is profit after paying all expenses, including not only its employees’ salaries and benefits (such as the half a million dollars compensation to the corporation’s president) but also over half a billion dollars for categories it describes in its reports as “public policy,” “building advocacy capacity,” “increase access,” “renew leadership,” “refresh our brand,” and “engage communities. Without this taxpayer funding it is unlikely that Planned Parenthood would be able to earn a profit or to fund their advocacy for abortion.
4. Planned Parenthood opposes abstinence-only education and promotes sexual deviancy
Planned Parenthood strongly opposes sex education that focuses on abstinence and has gone so far as to file lawsuits against school districts that have decided to implement abstinence-only programs. The organization claims to offer “value-neutral” sex education. (As an example, on their website aimed at teenagers, they included an article that teaches kids that, “Some straight couples use anal sex as a way to preserve the woman's virginity.”)
5. Planned Parenthood systematically engages in fraudulent ‘overbilling’ to maximize revenue from government-funded programs
Investigations of Planned Parenthood financial data and practices conducted in 12 states found hundreds of thousands of abortion related claims were billed unlawfully to Medicaid. Auditors and investigators have specifically identified Planned Parenthood affiliates as the source of at least $12.8 million in waste, abuse, and potentially fraudulent overbilling and penalties. The audits also found numerous improper practices resulting in significant federal funding overpayments of more than $8.5 million, and overbilling of state family planning programs amounted to more than $123.8 million.
6. While taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood doubled, the number of cancer screenings they provided dropped by half
One of the justifications Planned Parenthood uses to acquire federal funding is the claim that they provide necessary medical services, such as cancer screening. But taxpayer funding of the abortion provider has doubled since 2005 while the number of cancer screening has been cut by 50 percent (and the number of abortions provided increased by more than 12 percent).
7. Planned Parenthood may have violated federal law in selling fetal tissue for monetary gain
A recent Congressional investigation uncovered documents and received testimony from confidential informants indicating that four Planned Parenthood clinics may have violated federal law forbidding the transfer of fetal tissue for “valuable consideration.” Congress has referred the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice for further investigation.
8. Planned Parenthood altered abortion techniques to increase success of harvesting fetal tissue from abortions
The recent Congressional investigation uncovered that Planned Parenthood would change abortion techniques to maximize recovery of intact fetal parts (i.e., body parts from unborn babies). When congressional investigators questioned a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood abortion provider, she admitted she would change abortion procedures as to increase the likelihood of a successful procurement of specific fetal tissue for resale.
9. Planned Parenthood violated patient confidentiality to facilitate sale of fetal tissue from aborted babies
Some Planned Parenthood affiliates seem to be more concerned with making a sale on body parts than they are with securing their patient’s privacy.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) established the Privacy Rule, which protects all individually identifiable health information by setting limits and conditions on the uses and disclosures that may be made of such information without patient authorization. A recent Congressional investigation found that several Planned Parenthood clinics violated this rule by disclosed patients’ individually identifiable health information in an effort to resale human fetal tissue obtained from abortions to a biomedical supply company.
10. Planned Parenthood supports infanticide through advocacy of partial-birth abortion
For more than two decades, Planned Parenthood has consistently supported partial-birth abortion and opposed any efforts to ban this infanticidal practice.
In this gruesome procedure, the abortionist pulls a living baby out of the womb feet-first and into the birth canal, except for the head, which the abortionist purposely keeps lodged just inside the cervix. The abortionist then punctures the base of the baby’s skull with a surgical instrument.
In 2013, a Planned Parenthood of Florida lobbyist, testifying against Florida's Born Alive Infants Protection Act, told lawmakers that if a baby survives an abortion, it is debatable whether that baby should live or die. And while in the Illinois state senate, Barack Obama worked with Planned Parenthood to determine how he should vote on partial-birth abortion legislation. (With Planned Parenthood's blessing, he voted “present” to protect his “100 percent” record on pro-abortion votes.)
If you are not ok with your tax dollars funding abortions, help us defund Planned Parenthood by signing a petition for Congress. Sign your name here.
