Time to end the taxpayer subsidy of Planned Parenthood

For years Planned Parenthood has sold itself as an organization dedicated to “women’s health and safety.”  But Live Action’s undercover investigations over the past four years have revealed Planned Parenthood to be a corrupt and dangerous organization that has anything but women’s health and safety as top priorities. Planned Parenthood’s top priority is abortion, at the expense of the well-being of women and young girls. 

In 2008, Live Action showed how 10 Planned Parenthood clinics in 6 different states flagrantly violate mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse. When presented with a very young girl impregnated by a much older man, these clinics ignored clear cases of statutory rape, coached the girl to lie about her age or the man’s age so the abuse would not be reported, and, when applicable, circumvented parental consent laws so the girl’s parents would never find out about the abortion and the sexual relationship with the older man could continue. 

The fallout from the investigation included:

• Planned Parenthood of Indiana closed six clinics and fired 17 employees.
• The Alabama Department of Health placed Planned Parenthood of Birmingham on probation for one year after finding nine statutory and regulatory violations.
• The Tennessee legislature overwhelmingly passed legislation to divert nearly $1.1 million in public funding from Planned Parenthood to local public health centers in 2009.

Over the past month Live Action released new undercover footage of seven Planned Parenthood clinics in New Jersey, Virginia, New York, and Washington, DC, which shows clinic staff from management on down willing to aid and abet the sex trafficking of young girls. Investigators posed as a pimp and a prostitute seeking cheap and secret STD testing, contraception, and abortions for the 13, 14, and 15-year-old girls that they “managed.” Clinic workers were only too happy to help, offering reassurances that no one would ask questions about the sex work or advising that the traffickers have the girls lie about their ages to avoid questions. A New Jersey clinic manager even offered suggestions for how the child sex slaves should make money while recovering from abortion: they should do sex acts “waist up, or just be that extra action walking by.”

Steve Wagner, former director of the human trafficking program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, confirms that sex trafficking in the United States has risen sharply in recent years. If actors portraying a sex trafficker and a prostitute can so easily get help from Planned Parenthood today, how many actual sex traffickers have been aided and abetted by Planned Parenthood and its “no questions asked” policy in recent years? How many girls have been exploited and endangered?  

Congress can no longer justify funneling taxpayer dollars to fund Planned Parenthood’s corruption – especially with an annual deficit approaching $2 trillion and a national debt over $14 trillion.  The fact that taxpayers foot the bill for a full third of the billion-dollar budget of an organization that so callously disregards the law is more evidence that a cut-off of all federal funds is overdue. 

Planned Parenthood has lived on the edge with its federal funding by perpetuating the deception that none of it goes for abortion. But given the organization reported in 2009 that it performed over 332,000 abortions in one year, 27.5 percent of the national total, and that more than one in every 10 Planned Parenthood clients receives an abortion, and that money is fungible, it is hard to believe taxpayer money doesn’t finance abortions at Planned Parenthood in some way.

Planned Parenthood is the last “non-profit” that should profit from taxpayer dollars, let alone in this economy in crisis. We call on our Congressional Members to have the backbone to say enough to government funding on behalf of the American taxpayer, women, and children.  

Lila Rose is the president of Live Action, an anti-abortion group.