Planned Parenthood Upset that Defunding It Would Result in Thousands More Births

Careful, Planned Parenthood, your true purpose is showing.

Pro-life Members of Congress have put forward a new health care proposal – the American Health Care Act (“AHCA”) – the ObamaCare repeal reconciliation bill currently under consideration. A significant provision in the proposed bill (right on page 2) prohibits federal Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood gets more than $527 million in federal funding, the vast majority of which comes through Medicaid reimbursements. Under the terms of this bill, Planned Parenthood would be prohibited from receiving those taxpayer dollars.

Notably, according to the CBO, in the first year in which Planned Parenthood would not receive Medicaid funding, “the number of births in the Medicaid program would increase by several thousand.”

Put another way: defunding Planned Parenthood could save “several thousand” babies.

Planned Parenthood, in response, actually stated that this result – more babies – would be a “disastrous consequence[].”

Planned Parenthood continues to show the world that its true aim is not to assist women in their healthcare decisions. Although the organization continually asserts that abortion makes up only 3% of its services, this lie has been fully debunked.

Planned Parenthood will do anything it can to retain its ability to conduct abortions and make taxpayers pay for it. President Trump even offered that Planned Parenthood could keep its federal funding if it would only cease conducting abortion services. If abortions make up only 3% of what Planned Parenthood does, why would any company refuse hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the sake of such a small percentage of its work? And if Planned Parenthood were truly concerned about the safety and welfare of its patients, why would it not stop doing abortions? And yet, Planned Parenthood refused the compromise.

Now, the abortion organization is coming after the President directly, planning to target him with an advertising campaign in an attempt to convince him that Planned Parenthood is more than an abortion mill. As Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, has admitted herself, the organization does not provide mammograms.

Additionally, although Planned Parenthood has tried before to convince the public that they are in business for another purpose than to earn a profit from abortion services, their claim that they provide prenatal care for women who want to carry a baby to term was recently found to be mostly untrue. Out of 97 clinics that were contacted by a pro-life organization, Live Action, only five confirmed that they do provide these services. In response to these findings, Planned Parenthood had to remove the lie from its website that these services are widely offered.

The fact is that Americans do not need Planned Parenthood. There are numerous federally qualified health centers that do not provide abortions, but actually do provide cancer screenings and prenatal care that are better prepared to provide comprehensive health care to women than Planned Parenthood. As House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) recently stated, “for every one Planned Parenthood clinic, there’s 20 federal community health centers. There’s 20 to one, and we think it’s better to send these dollars to those clinics that do a very good job of giving women the services they need – the preventative services – without all the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood.”

With each new controversy exposing Planned Parenthood for what it is – an abortion giant concerned with money, not women – Americans are realizing more and more that their tax dollars would best be used elsewhere. Planned Parenthood employees even sometimes let the truth slip about what the organization’s true purpose is.

The ACLJ has been working for more than three decades to defund Planned Parenthood. With these latest provisions in the American Health Care Act, we’re close to finally seeing it become a reality.

As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial disease. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” We at the ACLJ continue to work daily to shed light on the true work of Planned Parenthood and fight for the unborn. Join us in the fight.