The only certainties in this world, a famous quip says, are death and taxes. No group in America weds the two like Planned Parenthood. The indisputable head of the abortion industry, they boast of more than 400,000 abortions a year – at least ten times the capacity of Times Square. And they do it while raking in nearly 40% of their $2 billion in income from taxpayers.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that just passed the House of Representatives is the best opportunity to stop forced taxpayer funding of Big Abortion since 2017, when a similar effort fell short by one vote. As the Republican majority works through budget reconciliation, all the Democrats’ old lies are re-emerging: “Women will lose critical health care.” “Planned Parenthood does more than abortion.” More than ever, they fall flat.
For the longest time, it seemed certain Planned Parenthood was “too big to fail” and politically untouchable. At over a century old, they’ve outlived scandal after scandal: multi-million-dollar payouts to settle Medicaid fraud charges. Dozens of employee lawsuits alleging racial discrimination. Their eugenics-driven foundress, Margaret Sanger, getting cast under the bus during 2020’s summer of unrest. Even – horrific as it is – the revelation of their selling freshly harvested organs of aborted babies for thousands of dollars apiece in incentives.
The abortion giant not only survived – the subsidies taxpayers were forced to pay increased to more than $700 million, including about half a billion from Medicaid.
They’ve survived in part by grossly exaggerating their importance as a health care provider of last resort for poor women – for instance, allowing the public to think they provide mammograms (they never have). They cling to this fiction as a shield, even while their own reports show massive declines in everything from contraception to pap smears. Except abortions, of course. Those are at record level. When a pregnant woman enters Planned Parenthood looking for help, 97% of the time she is sold an abortion, rather than supported in parenting or planning for adoption.
Now, a new analysis by the Charlotte Lozier Institute estimates community health centers offering women’s health care outnumber Planned Parenthood locations (in-person and virtual) 15 to one nationwide. These include 5,500 federally qualified health centers, which provide comprehensive health care services to low-income and underserved populations, and 3,300 rural health clinics serving Medicaid and Medicare patients in areas particularly vulnerable to care shortages. That’s on top of thousands of pregnancy resource centers that provide free baby supplies, education and assistance.
Women have real choices. Community health centers are vastly more available than Planned Parenthood, and more women choose them already. When Medicaid patients choose these centers, Medicaid dollars stay with them.
At last, scandal-plagued Planned Parenthood is poised to collapse under its many detriments. The New York Times, no pro-life outlet, acknowledged Planned Parenthood botches procedures and subjects patients to inhuman treatment. In one case, sewage was allowed to leak into a recovery room for days. NPR highlighted “dysfunction” between rank-and-file employees and management, with one former employee stating she was repeatedly expected to break protocol to assist surgical abortions despite being the sole nurse on duty.
Moreover, billions of dollars in donations go not to fix their appalling conditions, but to fund the organization’s constant litigation and political activism. OpenSecrets found Planned Parenthood spends more to lobby the federal government than any group on either side of the abortion issue. Supposedly in a financial crisis, they’ve just taken out a full-page ad in The New York Times – the outlet they feel betrayed them – signed by some of the richest people in America.
But the media won’t save them. The courts won’t bail them out. Even Gavin Newsom is cutting them off.
Enter a new administration focused on rooting out waste and fraud. In March, the Trump administration halted millions in Title X funds to Planned Parenthood, citing a review of their DEI policies. In any case, millions of Americans strongly reject abortion as “family planning.” Groups that treat it as such aren’t entitled to tax dollars. The freeze is already having an effect as Planned Parenthood centers shutter across the country. Only Congress can tackle mandatory Medicaid spending, however.
Some say we’re tilting at windmills, since the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funding of elective abortions. Because money is fungible, this is like claiming subsidies to McDonald’s Corporation wouldn’t underwrite hamburger sales. It’s rich coming from Democrats in Washington, some of whom used to support the life-saving Hyde Amendment but virtually all of whom despise it today. Even occasional Republicans, making anonymous, uninformed statements to the media, miss this key point. Fortunately, they are a minority; the pro-life movement is united to defund Big Abortion, as is the GOP with leaders like Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune.
Defunding Big Abortion is a win-win for fiscal hawks and patients. With 70% of voters concerned about wasteful spending, there can be no more excuses for forcing such a terrible investment on taxpayers. This is the new certainty: Planned Parenthood’s gravy train must end.
Have courage, Senate Republicans. Women deserve better than shoddy and shrinking care. They won’t miss the smell of sewage. It’s time to expose the Democrats, not only as patronizing and hypocritical but radically blind to the harm to women and children.
Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
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