Although the Susan G. Komen Foundation – a prominent cancer-screening organization – reversed its decision earlier this year to cut ties with Planned Parenthood, the politically charged controversy seems to have taken a toll on the nation’s leading abortion provider.
Planned Parenthood slashed its spending on lobbying in the first quarter of 2012 by 88 percent, disclosure records show.The Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its advocacy arm, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, spent a total of roughly $99,000 in the first quarter on lobbying activities. That’s a huge drop from the fourth quarter of last year, when the two groups spent a combined $839,000 on lobbying.
It’s also a dramatic cutback from 2011, when the two groups spent an average of $435,000 on lobbying over the course of four quarters.
A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood declined to comment on the drop in lobbying expenditures.
Perhaps the political backlash from the national controversy is why Planned Parenthood is slashing lobbying spending? After all, the organization received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Komen Foundation to provide mammograms when – as it turns out – they don’t even perform cancer screenings at their own clinics.