July 10, 2008

Tennessee Republican Legislators Make Progress in Defunding Planned Parenthood

In the spring of 2007, a few pro-life legislators tried but failed to stop the Bredesen administration from continuing to subsidize abortion-provider Planned Parenthood with more than $1 million in taxpayer dollars in the state budget. This year, they may have partially succeeded.

Planned Parenthood is the McDonalds of abortion - millions of babies slaughtered. It's a moral shame that even one dime of taxpayer money goes to them. Now, thanks to some smart legislating by pro-life Republicans, the $1.5 million the state used to give to Planned Parenthood for various women's health services (though not abortion, wink wink) may no longer flow into their bank account.

As a matter of law this fiscal year, funds for women's health services previously given to Planned Parenthood now must be offered first to local public health departments across the state. Such agencies are routinely strapped for cash, so they'll likely grab for the money. And they don't do abortions.

The result: The state continues to fund those health services for women, but without subsidizing America's largest abortion factory. (Planned Parenthood operates just three clinics in Tennessee; while there are local public health departments in every county and major city, so the result also is that the funded services may be provided closer to the people who need them.)

That's the good news. The bad news is that, as long as the state House is controlled by pro-abortion Democrats like House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh and the members who continue to elect him, this tactic probably won't work again in future years. So if you have a Democrat state rep who claims to be pro-life but who votes for Naifeh for Speaker - someone like, say, Democrat Rep. Nathan Vaughn of Kingsport - the only way to ensure that their pro-life stance results in real pro-life policy changes is to replace them with an equally pro-life Republican who promises not to vote for Naifeh for Speaker.

Incidentally, the Virginia legislature ended taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood this year, the first state to do so.

In fiscal year 2006-07 Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide received a total of $336.7 million in taxpayer funding, 10 percent more than the previous year, and 33 percent of the organization's total income for the year. The organization reported a $114.8 million profit in FY 2006-07.

The organization served 3.14 million clients in calendar year 2006, killed 289,750 babies, and referred only 2,410 clients to adoption agencies - that's 0.07 percent of clients referred to adoption agencies, 9.2 percent given abortions.

The number of clients served was up by 79176 over 2005; the number of killed babies up by 24,807, and the number of clients referred to adoption agencies was up by ... 3.

To put the math in stark terms: For every 1,000 women who came to its clinics in 2006, Planned Parenthood killed 92 babies and saved through adoption ... less than one.

Update: Over at Tiny Cat Pants, "Aunt B" is disagreeing that Planned Parenthood is America's largest abortion factory because out of 1.3 million babies killed Planned Parenthood killed only 289,750 of them. We'll not take the time now to discuss in depth how abortion kills roughly the equivalent of the population of the metropolitan Memphis region every year - and how Planned Parenthood's share is like wiping out half of the city of Nashville every year. Nor will we spend time now wondering if the future scientist who was going to cure breast cancer some day, or the next da Vinci or Einstein was instead aborted last year. Or the next MLK Jr., or the next Oprah, or the next Obama - abortion kills half of all African-American babies, which was after all the primary intent of Planned Parenthood's racist founder.

But let's not go there right now. Let's focus on numbers with Aunt B, and clarify: Planned Parenthood is America's single largest abortion factory. No other single provider kills as many babies annually as they do.

Aunt B also subtly implies that Republicans cut off funding for women's healthcare services. No. They. Did. Not. They merely shifted the money to health services providers that don't do abortions - but which DO provide the healthcare services at more locations across the state.

The only significant difference between the taxpayer-funded public health services and Planned Parenthood isn't cost - both provide services for free or nearly free to people who can't afford to pay. And it isn't services - public health departments in 95 counties and all major cities certainly provide people with much more convenient access to health services than Planned Parenthood's three clinics in Tennessee.

So... what's the only significant difference? It is this: Planned Parenthood kills unborn babies, the public health departments do not.

And yet, whenever someone proposes taking tax dollars away from Planned Parenthood because of abortion, people like Aunt B will bray loudly that the money doesn't pay for abortions but only pays for other health services. Well, if that's true, then shifting the money to other health services providers that don't do abortions changes nothing and should not bother Aunt B and other pro-abortionists one bit.

On the other hand, if those tax dollars really were helping to subsidize abortion, then it is perfectly understandable why Aunt B and others who are pro-abortion think it's awful that Planned Parenthood won't be getting the money anymore. But if that money really wasn't subsidizing abortions, then moving it to health services providers that don't do abortions shouldn't bother people like Aunt B one bit.