What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Examiner columnist Tim Carney has an intriguing column that explains another reason why Democrats tried to make the budget deal about funding Planned Parenthood to the tune of $350 million a year.
On all the big fights during Obama's presidency, Planned Parenthood has gotten what it wants: abortion subsidies in Obamacare, two Supreme Court justices who will uphold Roe v. Wade, and staunchly pro-choice Kathleen Sebelius at the Department of Health and Human Services, among other things.
It's no wonder. Planned Parenthood is no simple health care clinic -- it is a part of the Democratic Party. And despite the talk about "women's health," it is about abortion.
Carney goes through Planned Parenthood's argument that most of its services don't involve abortion but, he says, that misses the point. Obviously the abortion services are the main reason why some people loathe the organization. And almost all of its services to pregnant women are abortions. Then this:
Liberals argue that Planned Parenthood's federal funding -- a bit more than a third of its billion-dollar budget -- does not fund its abortions, but only pays for other worthy services. But that's like the notorious gambler who asks you for money to feed his family. If you decline on the grounds that he'll just gamble the money away, he retorts, "No, man, I've already got my gambling money -- it's the food money I need."
Planned Parenthood already has its aborting money, it's the HIV test money it needs from the taxpayers.
But this being a Carney column, he points out the obvious financial ties that all reporters seem to miss. Namely, Democrats benefited from more than a million dollars in political spending by Planned Parenthood and its PAC last year. And the group spent $700,000 on lobbying 2010, down from $1 million two years prior:
Federal subsidies allow Planned Parenthood to use the money it raises not only for more abortions, but also to support Democratic politicians and their agenda. Democrats and Planned Parenthood fund one another. It's hard to get more cozy.
It's helpful to keep some of this information in mind when deciding whether taxpayers should be forced to subsidize a partisan group that provides abortions.
- Comment (14)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments :
Nov '10
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Planned Parenthood is not only the nation’s largest abortion provider. It competes with the teachers' unions on money laundering for Democrats. The revolving money door is what Republicans should be talking about, but as Pat Caddell says, we don’t have a Democrat party and a Republican Party, we have a corrupt party and a stupid party.
Why don’t Republicans educate voters on how these crony schemes are just a way to force taxpayers to fund the Democrat party? Then propose a law that no company, organization, charity or group that receives any Federal subsidy will be allowed to make any political contributions to any political party or candidate nor spend any money advocating for any party or candidate. The 1st amendment will be honored by providing in the statute that accepting a taxpayer subsidy will constitute a voluntary agreement not to spend any money on political activities. It has to be any money since money is fungible.
Even if it never passed, and it wouldn’t, it would still point a laser at the issue.
Jan '11
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
It's particularly infuriating when the Left uses the same argument against spending money at Catholic schools, even when the money will be used for education and not religious purposes. Apparently Planned Parenthood can segregate the funds, but Catholic schools can't? It's a pure double standard.
It's also annoying when we discover that Planned Parenthood uses the money to support politicians on the basis of abortion. They claim not to use the money to fund abortions, but they do use the money to support politicians on the basis of abortion. It's such a big difference, isn't it?
Jun '10
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Remember Bill Clinton's formulation for abortion: legal, safe, and rare.
By my calculation, America has had, since 1973, about 50 million legal abortions. The "rare" part of the formulation was pure political eyewash to convince the unconvinced that even pro-abortion advocates don't really like abortions.
The fact is that Planned Parenthood is an organization of abortion, by abortion, and for abortion--they like abortion, A LOT. That the tax dollars of people like me and others opposed to abortion goes to Planned Parenthood is disgusting. Their effort to convince the us that public money does not fund abortion is appalling in its intellectual dishonesty.
Mar '11
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Ok - we get it - Planned Parenthood bad. I understand and agree that the government has no business compelling you to support a (for you) morally repugnant organization. I do not know enough about them to have an opinion, but I would not support them myself.
By focusing on this one tree, are we not missing the forest? For you, PP may be an egregious example of the immoral basis of the current government and the system it has embraced. And that may be true for many here at Ricochet. It is not true for me and it is not true for the many Americans you must convince to join your cause to limit government's power and scope.
I have commented before and I will again - focus on the big picture and the great cause of freedom. Or you and the rest of us will lose and your opponents will carry on as they do now. Fight the war - not your small battle.
Feb '11
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
While I don't discount the ideological component of the pro and con positions over Planned Parenthood (count me in the latter camp). I think instead this should be viewed as an opening tactic in Democrats attempt to supress social values voters support for the GOP. The only way Obama and any purple state Democrats can win in 2012 is by beating down GOP candidates and demoralizing parts of our base. The base of the GOP can be thought of as three legs of a stool: fiscal (taxes, spending & regulation), military/foreign affairs, and social. Some view only one leg as important, while many parts of our base are in sync on two legs of that stool, and a few are are equally in line on all three. What the Democrats are attempting here is to supress the vote of those in the base for whom the social components are overwhelmingly most important. I think this tactic will not work this year because the Democrats' economic distruction of the past two years has moved most of those who previously primarily embraced the social leg to equally embrace the fiscal one.
Jun '10
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
I don't understand the reluctance to fund abortions. The results are most likely to be one less drain on taxpayer dollars. I do understand that there is a political aspect to Planned Parenthood, but why is this organization allowed to make political donations if it gets public funds? Wouldn't that money be better spent paying for itself and using less public money?
Feb '11
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
What the Republicans did here, throw in cuts to social programs that receive the ire of social conservatives, was a smart choice. It showed that while Republicans' main goal is to avert a fiscal crisis they value their social conservatives too. This likely increased the amount of cuts that would have been achieved otherwise, and showed social conservatives why they should be on board with future cuts, if they aren't already. There is the question as to whether these types of cuts, to programs social conservatives oppose will alienate independent voters, but I think they will not. If social conservatives see that their goals can be furthered through budget cuts, the "legs" of the party can come together, speak the same rhetoric, and achieve their respective goals.
Edited on Apr 11, 2011 at 11:09amJul '10
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Johnny: Thanks to James O'Keefe's work, I place the PP issue in the same basket I place ACORN, nationally shown to consistently support sex slavery. This makes the continuing support of either organization repugnant to free citizens everywhere, long before we come to the abortion issue.
Mollie here makes the case against federal funding for PP as an abortion issue, and, though it may surprise some, abortion is a majority-against issue at the federal level, not some narrow complaint of the fringe as the opposition media and our elite academe would paint it. Failure to assay these battles would be a failure of leadership.
Mollie: The issue of funding cycles is a dangerous one to GOP leadership, and they know it. All politicians outside of the Bachmann/Tea Party populist funding model give at least the appearance of being bought men. Corruption comes just as easily in areas of legitimate federal interest, such as defense and law enforcement, as in areas of federal dalliance, like midnight basketball and welfare.
Jan '11
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Why? Because you don't agree with the "small battle" (millions of babies aborted every year)?
Jul '10
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Robert E. Lee: I don't understand the reluctance to fund abortions. The results are most likely to be one less drain on taxpayer dollars. I do understand that there is a political aspect to Planned Parenthood, but why is this organization allowed to make political donations if it gets public funds? Wouldn't that money be better spent paying for itself and using less public money?
Thank you for representing the classic populous-as-expense philosophy prevalent in the civic planning community and other statist strongholds. For a counter-argument, you might consider the work of the late Julian Simon, who makes the case that human capital is a society's most important asset. Also, keep in mind that, in our most economically mobile of societies, births at all social rungs may, and often do, lead to prosperous citizens. Despite Obama's best efforts.
If every organization that received public funds were disallowed from making political contributions, it would be a denial of the rights of the individuals who make the actual contributions from their personal funds. Drilling down on the FEC filings data, what we call PP donations is the sum of individual donations from PP employees.
Jun '10
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Thank you for your answer. I'm checking out Mr. Simon. I did not know that Planned Parenthood's donations came from it's employees. I guess I thought it came from some corporate slush fund. Makes me wonder what else I don't know about campaign contributions.
Jul '10
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Robert E. Lee
Thank you for your answer. I'm checking out Mr. Simon. I did not know that Planned Parenthood's donations came from it's employees. I guess I thought it came from some corporate slush fund. Makes me wonder what else I don't know about campaign contributions. · Apr 11 at 3:55pm
I do not know that they didn't, but that is the usual form of direct contributions and usually where cited numbers come from. It does not preclude donations in other forms, such as "independent" publicity campaigns that support or denounce a candidate.
Julian Simon was the Maryland economist who famously wagered with declinist Paul Ehrlich that the real price of metals would fall, not rise, over the ensuing decade. Simon won all of those bets.
Still in print, and in the collections of better public libraries, Simon's the Ultimate Resource 2 explores his theory that the greatest resource in any society is the transformative power of the human minds working on its behalf. A strongly pro-life stand in the purest sense of the word, where all citizens are potential assets rather than Ehrlich's debits.
Jul '10
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
Robert: Some days answers just fall in my lap. Much better info on PP donations from James Taranto's consistently excellent Best of the Web for Thursday:
OpenSecrets.org reported that Planned Parenthood's political action committee "donated more than $148,000 to federal candidates--almost all Democrats--during the 2010 election cycle" and "spent more than $443,000 overall." Planned Parenthood made an additional $905,796 in "independent expenditures" during the 2010 cycle--exercising its right to free speech pursuant to last year's Citizens United decision.
The biggest beneficiaries of Planned Parenthood money, according to OpenSecrets.org, were Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Barbara Boxer of California. According to the Hill, both were also among "a defiant group of Senate women," all Democrats, who "said Friday they'll oppose any spending bill that would affect reproductive health funding":
Mar '11
Re: What the Planned Parenthood Battle Tells Us
KC Mulville
Why? Because you don't agree with the "small battle" (millions of babies aborted every year)? · Apr 11 at 11:33am
Make this into a battle about abortion if you must. You will blunt your message unless that is your only real concern. I do not consider abortion to be the murder of humans - I know I am likely in the minority here. But my greatest concern is that the essential struggle for severely limiting government, including government funding and promotion of abortion, cannot be won if abortion becomes a rallying cry. It may be your rallying cry, but it is nothing but a distraction for many people, and it will give ammunition and talking points for your opponents.
You must keep your message consistent and on point. Planned Parenthood has no business receiving government money, but there are thousands of other organizations who deserve the same fate - survival or failure on their own resources.
Like it or not, you have to convince a lot of people who profoundly disagree you with you on abortion to join your cause. Include them or fail.