Each time Congress debates whether to defund Planned Parenthood, the inevitable refrain from the group's supporters is that the money it receives from taxpayers doesn't pay for abortions and that, besides, abortion makes up just 3 percent of its services. The group's leaders saturate the media with their claim that their 700 clinics offer women and families "a range of health services."
But an abortion is nothing like a breast exam, which Planned Parenthood clinics offer, or a mammogram, which they do not (though its supporters often claim they do). An abortion is much more serious and consequential. Unlike those other services, it is not meant to protect or enhance life, but rather to destroy it.
Yet Planned Parenthood's arguments have always had the intended effect. It has received federal funds continuously since 1970 in amounts steadily rising to roughly half-a-billion dollars last year.
That may at long last be coming to an end. The American Health Care Act, the House Republican bill to replace Obamacare, includes a provision halting federal funding of Planned Parenthood.
Abortion leaders claim that federal law already forbids taxpayer funds from covering abortion. But money is fungible, and those funds help free up resources for Planned Parenthood's abortion business.
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04.29.2024