Abortion Opponents Demand Feds Pull the Plug on Planned Parenthood

CNS News ^ | December 06, 2001 | John Rossomando

[1Peter2:16]

Opponents of abortion and government waste are demanding that Congress pull the plug on the millions of dollars Planned Parenthood receives from the federal government.

Foes of Planned Parenthood believe the money the organization receives from federal, state and local governments is unnecessary because of the millions of dollars Planned Parenthood is able to raise on its own.

Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP) and Concerned Women for America (CWA) claim Planned Parenthood uses the $363 million it receives annually from the federal government on programs that promote teen sexual activity.

They cite Planned Parenthood's "Joe Sperm" character and the "Three Rivers Condom" ad which featured a picture of the implosion of Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium and the subheading: "It Contains The Explosion," as examples of Planned Parenthood's alleged irresponsibility with federal funds.

STOPP and CWA have also attacked Planned Parenthood's efforts to offer free abortions in New York, and red, white, and blue condoms in Virginia following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Planned Parenthood doesn't need any taxpayer money. This organization has shown itself to be an aggressive and effective marketing company, continually finding new ways to generate lots of cash," STOPP International (a division of American Life League) President Jim Sedlak said. "They make tremendous profits every year."

"We have tracked Planned Parenthood's income and expenses every year since 1987 and there has never been a year where they haven't made money," Sedlak said. "The minimum they have made is six million dollars, and the year before last, they made $125 million in profits, and through all of this time they have been raking in millions and millions of money from our federal government, from our state governments, and our local governments."

CWA is concerned that Planned Parenthood's advertising campaigns promote sexual activity and leave more of the nation's youth vulnerable to teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

"They claim that their goal is to help young people avoid sexually transmitted diseases, but the very thing that they promote ends up with a higher rate of teen pregnancy, more cases of sexually transmitted diseases," said CWA Communications Director Wendy Wright. "Condoms do not protect against many forms of sexually transmitted diseases and have a terrible failure rate even [for] the ones they can prevent in a small manner."

Wright said Planned Parenthood's advertising campaigns and its alleged pressure of women to have abortions are evidence of the organization's irresponsibility in handling public money.

"Planned Parenthood has a terrible track record of coercing women into having abortions, which has put many of these women at risk of health problems later in life including breast cancer," Wright said. "The government should stop funding Planned Parenthood because the very activities Planned Parenthood is involved in is dangerous to the health of women, and they have shown that they are not responsible."

CWA cites a St. Louis. Mo. case involving a woman who was allegedly denied access to her ultrasound by a Planned Parenthood counselor and pressured into undergoing an abortion against her will as an example of Planned Parenthood's philosophy.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has also called for an end to Planned Parenthood's public funding.

"We are not too crazy about how non-profit entities receive federal money," said CAGW spokesman Sean Rushton. "If they are going to be engaged in good works or civil society activities, why is that not a private function?"

"Furthermore, in the case of this group they have the capacity to raise hundreds of millions of dollar on their own, so the question as to why they would even need federal dollars is doubly questionable," Rushton said. "Areas of life that are controversial in nature are better left to private individuals rather than using U.S. government funds that are coercively taken."

A Republican congressional staffer said the current conditions in Congress make it next to impossible for the GOP to defund Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood did not return phone calls seeking comment.

[ventedpipe]

Good. I've never understood the how PP could get one cent of tax money anyway.

Planned Parenthood Gives "Sexual Freedom Kit" to Afghan Women

[Lysander]

Planned Parenthood doesn't need any taxpayer money.

It does not have anything to do with need. Those of us who do not believe that abortion is morally sound should not be forced to pay for them.

[MissMillie]

Cut down the access to birth control pills, condoms, hormone shots, etc. and you'll end up paying for more of them.

[babyface00]

Cut down the access to birth control pills, condoms, hormone shots, etc. and you'll end up paying for more of them.

If Planned Parenthood concentrated on these areas with the same gusto that they push abortions, they'd generate far, far less controversy.

[MissMillie]

American policies regarding "abstinence-only" based sex ed put us far behind other developed countries.

http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/archives/nr_euroteens.html

[joathome]

Yeah, we know how giving teen girls birth control pills and hormone shots protects them against sexually transmitted diseases.

The girls are then free to sleep around even more, and PP knows it. Their literature is some of the most disgusting on the planet. They also make lots of money on abortions when the pills fail, because the type of teens they market to are notorious for being irresponsible.

[babyface00]

I'll read your link if I have time, but I honestly don't care what the rest of the world does or thinks. There's no way you can convince me that encouraging pre-adults to have sex is a good thing. They're barely able to drive, if they're even that old. They're certainly ill-equipped to deal with the emotional consequences, much less the inevitable pregnancies that will result from this age group not known for being bastions of responsibility.

I'll agree that they may do it anyhow, and if they do, then they should be able to get birth control. However, and I may be wrong, Planned Parenthood doesn't seem to consider abstinence at all, puts very little effort on birth control, and instead focuses on abortion access.

To me, this is like closing the barn door after the horse has left, but with far greater ramifications.

I'm not going to get into a discussion of the moralilty of abortion, but since a huge percentage of the country is opposed to it, and this seems to be Planned Parenthoods raison d'etre, perhaps funding them with tax dollars, which are coerced through government force, is inappropriate?

[Okies love Dubya 2]

Agree with you totally on this! I had a roommate in college who was 'seeing' this guy (actually all he was was a 'booty call'). One night they had unprotected sex and the next morning she was heading to PP to get the morning after pill. This wasn't a naive 15-year-old--this girl was 23 years old. I was so mad I could have killed her. Luckily the school year was about over and I had as little to do with her as possible until then. The year before, someone else I hung around with now and then got pregnant by a guy she was seeing. She had an abortion (even after I counseled her not to and even though she was Catholic), and her only regret is that she couldn't have sex for x number of weeks afterward. After that I found new friends.

I could tell you more stories like this unfortunately. Makes you wonder why I am pro-life, natural family planning (which is 99% effective, even according to organizations like PP and doesn't act as an abortifacient--sp?), and for teaching abstinence to kids.

Personally, I don't care about the methods used in Europe because they basically teach the same thing our sex-ed programs do. My tax dollars shouldn't be going to support abortions and condoms and morning-after pills to irresponsible teenagers who can't keep their pants on. The old line people use about us being animals and having 'urges' is a bunch of bs. We are capable of self-restraint-for example, I may feel like killing someone, but I don't do it because I know it isn't right. Of course, with moral relativism and the 'if it's right for you, you should do it, regardless of whether it is right or wrong in the grand scheme of things' attitude, I know that I am in the minority in a lot of aspects.

Sorry for the rant, but I get so sick of people thinking we should hand out birth control to kids who can't even clean up their rooms simply because 'they are going to do it anyway.' With that kind of mentality, it's no wonder we as a culture have the problems that we do.

[Alas]

Not often I find a post I can totally agree with. Thanks Peter.

Alas

[IM2Phat4U]

I came across some interesting old threads on Freerepublic:

TeenWebsite of Federally Funded Planned Parenthood Tells Your Kid How to Get an Abortion

Visit Federally Funded Planned Parenthood's Anti-Bush Site: It's Time to Defund These Guys

Interestingly enough, PP's anti-Bush website (www.ROEvBUSH.com) was apperently shut down shortly after September 11. It is beyond belief that any Republican could possibly support funding these guys after PP spent over $10 million in an effort to defeat George Bush.

[ravingnutter]

Oh please...birth control can be obtained for free at any community health clinic and condoms are available in just about every public restroom I walk into for 50 cents.

Planned parenthood clearly shows its bia on the abortion issue. From their website...

At the local, state, and national levels, Planned Parenthood conducts a range of advocacy activities:

engaging in litigation to defend reproductive freedom

debunking disinformation campaigns and providing accurate information to the media and the public

developing vote education campaigns to register young, diverse, and disenfranchised populations

ensuring greater access to all reproductive health options

increasing public awareness of who is behind anti-choice activities and violence

mobilizing clergy to take the moral high ground

promoting Republicans for Choice®

Source

[truthandlife]

Since we as a country are in a budget deficit, I don't think it would hurt to cut off funding to organizations that KILL INNOCENT CHILDREN IN THE WOMB.

[IM2Phat4U]

bump

[babyface00]

OK, I read the link. Compares the U.S. to France, Gr. Britain, Canada, Sweden. Seems to me that their "solution" is to have the state control health care delivery, vocational training, job placement and other "social support". By some bizarre logic, they seem to think that by having the state run these functions, couples have more responsibility with regards to pregnancy.

Abstinence sure seems a lot cheaper to me. I wonder why teen pregnancy and STDs weren't such a problem 50 years ago? Could it be that the policies of organizations such as Planned Parenthood are actually the cause of the problem, rather than the solution?

[hsszionist]

Planned Parenthood - Murder Inc., and were still funding it.

[BibChr]

Cut down the access to birth control pills, condoms, hormone shots, etc. and you'll end up paying for more of them.

1. Eliminate public funding for inconvenient-baby-killing, and by definition, I'll "end up paying" for none of them.

2. Eliminate the "it's-OK-if-something-goes-wrong-I-can-always-scrape-it-out" mentality, and more guys will be hearing "No" (which is why abortion-on-demand is favored more by [clintonly] men than women)

Did you really think very long before you wrote that?

Dan
The Bible and the Bull's-Eye on the Baby

[Ragin1]

Entry level conservative I presume.

[EdReform]

"Planned Parenthood doesn't seem to consider abstinence at all, puts very little effort on birth control, and instead focuses on abortion access."

From PLANNED PARENTHOOD SEX CLASS ---- AT A CHURCH! [Free Republic]:

"According to a current Planned Parenthood brochure, "What children should know and when they should know it,"... The nine to thirteen age group should be informed, according to PP, about what abortion is (not from the baby's point of view of course) and that sex acts can be separate from reproductive acts. Planned Parenthhood also desires that children in this age group should be able to name types of contraceptives, and where to obtain them..."

Some resources on Planned Parent Abortionhood:

Behind the Mask - A Hard Look at the Real Agenda of Planned Parenthood by Glenn T. Stanton (Published by Focus on the Family):

"Planned Parenthood: The Ultimate Masquerade: Read this eye-opening report and get the real story on one of the most radical, destructive social forces in our nation. Behind the Mask exposes Planned Parenthood's horrifying agenda and what's really going on in this federally funded agency with an annual budget of $450 million and a work force of 22,000 people."

Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood by George Grant (Published by Holly Hall Publications):

"Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood is an in-depth exposé stripping away the silver lining and revealing the rot within this powerful organization. As both sides continue their debate, now is better than ever to take a godly stand and make a difference in the direction society is heading!"

Planned Parenthood Legacy I-III by George Grant (CD of Broadcast, Published by Focus on the Family):

"Exposing the Shameful History of Planned Parenthood: Dr. George Grant joins Dr. Dobson for an in-depth discussion of Planned Parenthood's racist roots, systematic suppression of facts about abortion and false image as a "healthcare provider" for women. He exposes the real agenda of "pro-choice" activists and tells Christians what they can do to take a stand."

[babyface00]

BTW, the link goes to a page on the Alan Guttmacher Institutes' site. From their site under

An Integrated View of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

They want to
"expand and equalize access to information and services that will enable them to:

Avoid unplanned pregnancies;
Prevent and treat sexually transmitted infections, including HIV;
Exercise the right to choose abortion;
Achieve healthy pregnancies and births;
Balance parenting with other roles; and
Have healthy satisfying sexual relationships."

Not exactly an unbiased source to cite.