The Catholic Standard & Times - The Taxpayer's Right to Choose

December 7, 2006
By Susan Brinkmann, CS&T Correspondent

If you had a choice, would you want your tax dollars to pay for promoting partial birth abortion and programs that encourage teen promiscuity and undermine parental authority? Would you support the marketing of items that mock Christianity, such as Choice on Earth Christmas cards, and key chains that depict God handing Adam a condom?

If you dont, you may want to consider supporting Senate bill 2206, The Title X Family Planning Act, which is sponsored by Senator David Vitter (R-La.).

According to the United States General Accounting Office, between 1997 and 2003, American taxpayers gave $1.492 billion dollars to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America through Title X funding and in other government grants and contracts. That money makes up 31.2 percent of the organizations total revenue for that period.

No matter what one thinks about abortion, the idea that were funding Planned Parenthood is outrageous to many, many people, said Jay Alan Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a law firm and educational organization that specializes in Constitutional law.

Like most Americans, Sekulow had no idea taxpayers were footing such a huge chunk of the bill for Planned Parenthoods pro-abortion agenda until he was thumbing through a congressional journal during the 2004 challenge to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 in New York.

I read that Planned Parenthood was getting yearly allotments of up to $270 million a year from Congress, Sekulow said.

They were getting this money from Congress, then turning around and suing Congress over the partial birth abortion ban, he said. In essence, the taxpayers of America were funding this litigation.

One-fourth of Planned Parenthoods federal funding is channeled through Title X of the Public Health Service Act.

Title X allows the government to grant money to private entities to aid in the operation of family planning projects, although the legislation states that none of the funds appropriated under [Title X] shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.

In other words, Sekulow said: Title X doesnt exclude abortion providers it excludes abortion grants. The money cant be used for abortion but what Planned Parenthood does is use the money for things like defending the right to abortion. [And] this taxpayer money frees up $260 million a year of their money to do so.

That adds up to $1.5 billion over a 10-year period, he said.

Senator Vitters bill says that if you are an abortion provider, you dont get Title X money even if youre not using it for abortion and that includes sub-grantees, Sekulow said.

The proposed legislation would close a lucrative loophole that has allowed Planned Parenthood to advance an agenda that the majority of Americans do not approve of.

In March 2006, the Zogby polling group surveyed 30,117 people in 48 states on the issue of abortion. It found that just over half of the respondents (51 percent) do not believe the government should finance abortions in America, and more than two-thirds (69 percent) said the United States should not fund abortions in any other country, either.

The Zogby poll was one of many during the last year that found public support for abortion is waning. A CBS News poll found a 50-42 pro-life split. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found a 51-46 pro-life split. And a Gallup and Wirthlin Worldwide poll found a 55-45 pro-life margin.

So why is the money continuing to flow into the coffers of a controversial organization whose annual revenue in 2005 reached a record high of $810 million?

Because people dont know about it, said Jim Sedlak, vice president of the American Life League and head of the Stop Planned Parenthood (STOPP) project.

When we go around the country and speak about this, our audiences are always surprised by the amount of money Planned Parenthood gets from the government, Sedlak said. When they hear it, they become very outraged.

Sedlak has been trying to stop taxpayer funding for Planned Abortion since 1985. From the time he began tracking the numbers in 1987 until the end of fiscal year 2005, Planned Parenthood received a total of $3.9 billion from taxpayer pockets, he said.

This is federal, state and local money, Sedlak added. About 70 percent of their taxpayer money comes from the federal government [and] 30 percent comes from state and local governments. Of the federal money, Title X accounts for about 25 percent of Planned Parenthoods income from federal money.

That amounts to about $65 million a year, Sedlak said: Their profit in 2005 was about $63 million what they take in from Title X money. If they didnt get this money, they probably would still have broken even, but they wouldnt have been able to put money in the bank.

Sedlak has collected 25,000 signatures on an internet petition that can be found at his Web site, and the Center for Reclaiming America is also sponsoring a petition. Sedlak says they will join with Sekulow, whose petition is already garnering an enormous response.

We received over 100,000 signatures in a week- and-a-half, Sekulow said. We launched it the week before the partial birth abortion case at the Supreme Court and by Nov. 17, we had 97,895 signatures.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle now is the new Congress. Two of the co-sponsors of S.2206, Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) lost their reelection bids.

Its going to make it difficult, but some of the conservatives who were elected are pro-life Democrats, Sekulow said. Vitter is going to reintroduce this bill to the new Congress, and Im sure hes working on new co-sponsors. Its a herculean challenge, no doubt about it, but if we get to a million signatures which is my ultimate goal that would make a huge difference.

Let Planned Parenthood know you support a taxpayers right to choose not to fund them by signing the petition.