U.S. taxpayers give Planned Parenthood cash to fund all abortions

American taxpayers gave Planned Parenthood $1.3 billion over a three-year period, enough money for every abortion the company provided, including half-a-billion dollars that went to divisions later referred for investigation of their unborn-baby body-parts trade.

That's according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, whose report for 2013-2015 covered federal money going to federally qualified health centers, which provide a variety of health services. The recipients include International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International, which provide abortions around the world, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which provide abortions in America.

Federal obligations to the four organizations or groups totaled more than $26 billion during that time. And while the report confirmed that a significant portion of the funds went to the health centers, which act as "part of the nation's safety net" for uninsured and the underserved, still hundreds of millions of dollars was sent directly to the abortion industry.

The American Center for Law and Justice said the U.S. Government Accountability Office report "confirms Planned Parenthood received enough federal funds to effectively pay for every abortion they performed in the U.S. from 2013–2015, and that millions in federal funds allocated to Planned Parenthood’s international affiliate, International Planned Parenthood Federation, were directly available to fund abortions abroad."

"Additionally, federal funds may have aided in the illegal sale of fetal tissue in California."

The ACLJ report said the GAO report "confirms what we have been saying all along: It is time to hold Planned Parenthood and its allies accountable and end their federal funding."

"Providing for women's healthcare is vitally important, but Planned Parenthood is not the only option; there are better alternatives that will use these dollars for actual women’s healthcare rather than abortions. The evidence is all right there in black and white."

For example, the report notes PPFA received $1.3 billion in federal taxes during those years, while it was doing nearly a million abortions.

Some $544 million, "over 40 percent of all the money PPFA received, went to four PPFA affiliates that were referred to the Justice Department for allegations of illegally selling fetal tissue," ACLJ said.

And globally, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International expended over $121 million in federal funds.

"It is all but certain that much of this money directly funded abortions abroad – as at the time there was no federal limitation on direct taxpayer funding for abortions internationally," the report said.

Since then, President Trump has reinstated a ban on U.S. funding of abortions abroad.

"At the ACLJ, we have defended Crisis Pregnancy Centers as a pro-life alternative to Planned Parenthood that actually cares about women’s health. We have fought for decades to expose and defund Planned Parenthood, and we won't give up. This latest GAO report vindicates our reporting and our position: it is time to fund a better healthcare safety net for our country and our families," the organization said.

WND reported over the weekend a plan that would allow the president to remove some of the funding for the abortion industry, even though it was included in Congress' recently approved omnibus spending bill.

The Family Research Council said abortion funding could be addressed through budget reconciliation, which requires only 51 votes in the Senate, not 60.

Also, the organization noted that back in 1988, President Reagan's HHS "announced an expanded interpretation of abortion funding prohibition regarding Title X funds, determining that no organization which encouraged or promoted abortion would receive federal funds."

"The left denounced this approach as a 'gag rule' and a potential First Amendment violation. This led to the case, several years later, of Rust v. Sullivan before the Supreme Court – which ultimately vindicated Reagan's rule," FRC said.

And that could happen again.

The GAO report was in response to a request from dozens of members of Congress for information about the spending. It noted that there are nearly 10,000 health centers not affiliated with Planned Parenthood, and they provided some 100 million visits, mostly medical appointments.

U.S. law says no federal tax money should go toward abortion directly, but Planned Parenthood is able to use the money for running its offices, and its other income then is listed as paying the costs of abortion.

"Funding [Planned Parenthood] with federal taxpayer dollars has empowered tragic and potentially illegal abortion practices," ACLJ said. "There is no reason to provide federal taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood; [health centers] provide ten times more comprehensive health services in the U.S. than PPFA without performing a single abortion."

Further, ACLJ said, Planned Parenthood "uses deceptive reporting to hide from scrutiny how these federal dollars directly support their abortion practice."

"Every abortion requires testing, screenings, and consultations. Yet, PPFA lists each of these services separately and reports them in other categories like 'other women's health services,' even if the ultimate result … was to terminate."

The four divisions that were referred by Congress for possible criminal investigation of the body-parts trade received a total of $544 million.

"Given the $1.3 billion in fungible federal funds received by PPFA from 2013-2015 and the 980,036 abortions performed by PPFA in that same period … the American taxpayers provided enough funding to effectively cover every single abortion."

Also during that time period, when Barack Obama was in the White House, "the U.S. government gave tens of millions in federal taxpayer dollars to IPPF and MSI."

"By law, these federal funds could have been directly used to fund or promote abortions."