At a recent donor retreat in Southern California, libertarian billionaire Charles Koch derided corporate welfare by saying, “Business leaders (must) recognize that their behavior is suicide, that it is suicide long term. To survive, long-term, they have to start opposing, rather than promoting, corporate welfare…This means stopping the subsidies, mandates and special privileges for business that enriches the haves at the expense of the have-nots.”
Mr. Koch’s call to end corporate welfare rings true for Planned Parenthood, the “family planning” corporation that received $528.4 million in federal funds according to its most recent annual report.
Planned Parenthood has been caught, yet again, engaging in ghastly acts as documented in a series of investigative videos from the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). As a result of CMP’s videos, elected officials from across the country have vowed to investigate and/or strip Planned Parenthood of taxpayer dollars. This led to the U.S. Senate holding a vote to defund Planned Parenthood last week –only to fail as Republicans couldn’t garner the 60-vote threshold to make it a reality. Previously, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to defund Planned Parenthood back in 2011.
Prior to the vote, several Senate Democrats attacked critics for “assaulting” so-called women’s rights. Most notably, fake Native American and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren derided criticism as a “right wing” attack.
“…I simply cannot believe that in the year 2015, the United States Senate would be spending its time trying to defund women's health care centers, ” said Warren.
She later suggested the attempt to strip the organization of federal funding is a “deliberate, methodical, orchestrated right wing attack on women’s rights.”
Killing babies on the taxpayer dime – regardless of developmental stage in the womb – doesn’t constitute women’s healthcare. It’s corporate welfare. (Even pro-choicers agree the effort to defund Planned Parenthood isn’t an affront to women’s healthcare.)
Conceived and later birthed by notorious eugenicist and racist Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood claims to speak for all women and concern itself with women’s healthcare. Its actions point to the contrary. Abortion services (or pregnancy “services”) comprise more than three percent of Planned Parenthood’s services; in fact, 93.78 percent of pregnant women who paid Planned Parenthood a visit from 2012-2013 received an abortion. So much for adoption referrals, pap smears, ultrasounds, and other health services…
Under the Hyde Amendment, passed in September 1976 as a rider attached to Medicaid, federal funds are prohibited in covering abortion except in the cases of incest, rape, or life threatening circumstances. Despite opposition from Democrat lawmakers, it has been renewed every year. Interestingly enough, these instances- rape, incest, life of the mother- account for less than two percent of pregnancies as reported by Planned Parenthood outfit Guttmacher Institute.
If 93.78 percent of women who visit Planned Parenthood undergo abortion and only two percent of women abort preborn children in extreme cases, how can Planned Parenthood claim their federal funding isn’t primarily directed to abortion services? Facts are stubborn things, especially when Planned Parenthood is caught deceiving and misleading Americans.
Pro-lifers, conservatives, libertarians, and even moderate voters agree: Planned Parenthood should be defunded. Three states—Alabama, Louisiana and New Hampshire—have already slashed funding to Planned Parenthood in wake of these new investigative videos. Other states are expected to follow suit, as well.
It’s incumbent upon all Americans to voice their outrage over Planned Parenthood’s abuse of our taxpayer dollars. Corporate welfare has no place in our country, especially if it involves the selling of baby parts for profit.