Abortion providers don’t need taxpayer funding

WHILE abortion is legal, it’s also widely accepted that citizens who oppose abortion shouldn’t be required to indirectly subsidize it. Yet a new report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office shows over $1 billion in taxpayer funding went to abortion providers from 2013 to 2015. The report highlights the need for reform.

The GAO examined federal tax dollars spent from 2013 to 2015 by three abortion providers —Planned Parenthood Federation of American (PPFA), Marie Stopes International (MSI) and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). The report was requested by more than 120 members of Congress in 2016.

In addition to $1.2 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from 2013-2015, GAO reported PPFA spent $288 million in federal funds.

Supporters of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider (its Oklahoma locations do not provide abortions), argue that federal funding does not directly pay for abortions, but goes for other services. Yet every taxpayer dollar going to Planned Parenthood frees up other funds to be used for abortion. That makes every tax dollar that goes to Planned Parenthood and similar groups an indirect taxpayer subsidy of abortion. Most citizens understand this, and oppose allowing abortion providers to play accounting games to evade restrictions on government funding of abortion.

It also should not go unnoticed that some non-abortion health “services” provided by Planned Parenthood are minimal. Take the common claim that Planned Parenthood provides breast cancer screenings. As columnist Kathleen Parker wrote in 2015, those screenings are a simple manual breast exam “that any woman can do herself.”

Planned Parenthood’s defenders say a health care crisis will occur if no federal funding goes to the abortion provider. But that is nonsense.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, is among the sponsors of the Protect Funding for Women’s Health Care Act, which would redirect taxpayer funds from Planned Parenthood and its affiliates to other eligible women’s health care providers that don’t perform abortions. While Planned Parenthood runs about 700 centers nationwide, there are more than 9,100 community health centers, and their mission is focused on serving low-income patients.

What’s the main difference between those centers and Planned Parenthood? As Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., once noted, community centers “do everything that Planned Parenthood does, but they don’t get into abortions.”

This also is a case where good policy is politically popular. Polling conducted in 2017 for the Susan B. Anthony List, which opposes abortion, found strong public support for eliminating taxpayer funding of abortion providers. The poll, conducted in six states expected to be Senate battlegrounds this year, asked if citizens support or oppose “giving your tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.” The poll found 56 percent opposed giving tax money to Planned Parenthood with 47 percent strongly opposed. Just 28 percent expressed strong support.

The taxpayer funding now going to Planned Parenthood could be better spent — financially and ethically. Lankford and others calling for this change should boldly charge ahead.