Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) must no longer be given American taxpayer money.
A majority of Americans do not want federal funding for family planning services to go to abortion providers. One-third of PPFA’s annual budget comes from the American people—and yet, 98 percent of PPFA’s services to pregnant women are abortions. A balance sheet sleight of hand has allowed government funds to continue to flow to PPFA. It is time to stop hiding the lie which makes the American people unwillingly complicit in abortions. Planned Parenthood must be defunded.
There are indeed encouraging steps being taken in both federal and local legislatures to end the tacit federal funding of abortion.
On May 4, by a vote of 251-175, the United States House of Representatives approved H.R. 3 “The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” Sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith, Republican from New Jersey, this bill prohibits federal funds in appropriations bills from being spent on abortions by codifying into law the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Since 1976, this amendment has been the impermanent rider annually stapled to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) budget forbidding government funding for abortion. The amendment was a response to the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion nationwide, thus removing the issue from individual states. H.R. 3 even goes further than the Hyde Amendment by withholding health care tax credits for insurance plans that cover abortions under the health care law of 2010 and by including a conscience clause which allows health care providers to refuse to perform abortions if they are morally opposed.
On April 28, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, announced he would sign a bill making his the first state to pull federal funding from PPFA. The bill cuts $3 million in federal money Indiana currently allocates to the women's health group, bans abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy unless the woman's life is threatened, informs women that life starts at conception and requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. President of Planned Parenthood in Indiana Betty Cockrum says her agency will sue to restore the funding.
On May 3, the Texas House of Representatives approved a provision in a bill concerning women’s health to ensure that state taxpayer funds do not go to the abortion business. Sponsored by Texas state Sen. Bob Deuell, the provision makes it so the entire Demonstration Project for Women’s Health Care Services health program is shut down if an abortion business files and wins a lawsuit to provide specialty family planning. PPFA plans to sue.
On May 5th, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) introduced Senate Bill S.906, companion legislation to H.R. 3, aimed at ensuring that American taxpayers are not involved in funding the destruction of innocent human life through abortion and providing conscience protections. S.906 has been read twice and currently sits in the Senate Finance Committee. Should doubtful passage occur in the Democratically-controlled Senate, a definite veto from President Obama awaits the act.
This defies the will of the majority of the U.S. population. 54 percent of Americans oppose giving tax dollars for family planning services to organizations that perform abortions according to an April 13, poll conducted by The Polling Company, inc./WomanTrend. In addition, 43 percent “strongly” oppose federal funds going to abortion providers.
PPFA, a for-profit business, performed more abortions in 2009 than it has in any prior year, according to their Website. Moreover, PPFA affiliates nationwide carried out 332,278 surgical abortions or abortions using RU 486 during 2009, according to statistics posted in February.
Thus, how can PPFA receive one-third of its annual funds from taxpayers? It is due to Title X.
“The Title X Family Planning program,"Population Research and Voluntary Family Planning Programs" (Public Law 91-572), was enacted in 1970 under President Richard Nixon as Title X of the Public Health Service Act. The Title X program is designed to provide access to contraceptive services, supplies and information to all who want and need them. By law, priority is given to persons from low-income families,” according to HHS’s Website. Title X money is prohibited from funding abortions directly. Nonetheless in FY2010, Congress appropriated around $317 million for the Title X Family Planning program. Twenty-five percent of all Title X money goes to PPFA affiliates. This enormous subsidy does contribute to paying for abortions. It is a sick shell game with an ante of unborn babies.
However, “if reducing abortion is a goal, then getting rid of the Title X program is not the way to accomplish it,” says nurse-midwife Karen Klauss of the Title X grantee for the District of Columbia Unity Health Care. "If the Title X program goes away, there's no question that unintended pregnancies would go up, and as a consequence of that, abortions across the country would go up."
Ms. Klauss is wrong. In 1997, Planned Parenthood received approximately $160 million in total taxpayer funding from various levels of government and performed about 160,000 abortions. Since then, both the number of abortions and the amount of money received from government has more than doubled. Clearly, more money for PPFA increased rather than decreased the number of abortions.
In short, the American taxpayer should no longer play the apathetic fool to the trickery of the cunning abortion industry. Abortion cloaked by family-planning-budget-antics is wearing thin. Both federal and state elected officials are responding. We must support these efforts to protect unborn babies and defund Planned Parenthood now.
- Kelly Kathryn Llobet is a writer living in Baltimore, a veteran Navy spouse and a proud mother of five.
