Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) has jumpstarted a massive national campaign meant to clean up its image. After the numerous accusations and videos broadcasting PPFA’s disregard for federal and state guidelines, the nation’s largest abortion provider is trying to save its line item in the federal budget. The House of Representatives voted 240 to185 to strip the abortion conglomerate of their federal funding last month by means of an amendment to the proposed budget. That budget was defeated in the Senate, but Pro-Lifers are ardently trying to change that. Since then, the pro-abortion left has been on a crusade to repair its image.
Cecile Richards, PPFA’s president, has been on numerous talk shows, trying to convince the public that Planned Parenthood is worthy of $363 million of taxpayers’ money. She asserts that Planned Parenthood is the “largest family planning provider and the most cost-effective.” She also argues the more federal funding PPFA receives the fewer abortions will be performed. The argument that more federal monies reduce the number of abortions, however, contradicts PPFA’s own numbers.
National Right to Life’s Randall O’Bannon stated that Planned Parenthood’s intake of federal dollars has gradually increased since 1998. However, the number of abortions done by Planned Parenthood has not dropped with the influx of taxpayers’ money, but has actually increased:
Revenue Planned Parenthood receives in “Government Grants & Contracts” has gone from $165 million in 1998 to $363.3 million in the organization’s fiscal year ending June 30, 2009. During the same time, and at roughly the same rate, abortions have more than doubled at Planned Parenthood, from 165,509 in 1998 to 332,278 in 2009.
Abortions, on a national level, have decreased by 25% in the past ten years, but the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics across the country has doubled.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America says its goal is to decrease the number of abortions performed in America, but requiring all affiliates to have a clinic that provides abortion by 2013 contradicts that claim. PPFA insists that only 3% of its services are abortion-related, but its own published figures tell another story. In 2009, Planned Parenthood reported 332,278 abortions committed in its clinics. The average first trimester, surgical abortion costs $451; the total revenue Planned Parenthood received from abortions was nearly $1.5 million. The abortion provider took in total revenue of almost $405 million in 2009. That 3%, however, makes up 37% (more than a third) of Planned Parenthood’s total profits.
Indiana Congressman Mike Pence is the author of the Pence Amendment, passed by the United States House of Representatives that would strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding. He has stated that Planned Parenthood does not deserve any taxpayer money and has denied PPFA’s claim that doing so would harm women. “Advocates for the abortion industry have sought to portray efforts to defund Planned Parenthood as a ‘War on Women,’ but the issue is big business, and that business is abortion… And Big Abortion routinely puts profits over women’s health and safety.”
Claiming that abortions are a small percentage of Planned Parenthood’s services belies the facts shown by its own numbers. Planned Parenthood has misled millions of women about the services it provides and harmed women by the services it refuses to provide (reporting sexual abuse of minors). Planned Parenthood Federation of America is under pressure to prove its worth and save government funding from being cut. Time has proven that the more federal funds Planned Parenthood receives the more abortions it performs. If Planned Parenthood truly wants to reduce the number of abortions, it would willingly give up its federal funds.
http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2011/03/from-planned-parenthood%e2%80%99s-own-reports-more-funding-more-abortion/#more-623
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/PP_Services.pdf
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/263454/battling-big-abortion-rep-mike-pence