By Jim Sedlak
Planned Parenthood says it is a healthcare organization. It is not; it’s a business.
Undeniable facts back up that statement. Planned Parenthood sells birth control pills for $18 while paying drug companies less than $2 for the pills. It pays $4.50 for an emergency contraceptive kit and sells the kit for $33. Planned Parenthood continually begs for more and more taxpayer money while pocketing over $1 billion in profits since 1999. Also since 1999, Planned Parenthood’s total assets have grown from $697 million to $1.78 billion.
Despite these facts, many still refuse to believe that PP is all about the money. But now, there has been a new development that erases any doubt. Surprisingly, the controversy this time is about the Zika virus. Zika is known to cause serious birth defects among pregnant women who are infected. It is so serious that some are calling for the Olympic games to be postponed. Medical professionals are clamoring for funds to prevent Zika from being spread and to find a cure.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a funding bill that would have provided $1.1 billion to fight Zika in the U.S. and other countries by focusing on vaccines, mosquito control and noncontroversial prevention, health, and treatment. Unfortunately, the bill failed to pass in the U.S. Senate. Congressional sources told STOPP that the White House and Democratic leaders in the Senate focused most of their opposition to the bill on the fact that it does not direct grants to Planned Parenthood.
Incredibly, the debate centers particularly on the seven Planned Parenthood clinics that make up its Profamilias affiliate in Puerto Rico. Because funds are provided to hospitals, community health centers, state health departments, and Medicaid, Profamilias is not eligible for these funds. Although this is true, data from Puerto Rico show that everywhere Profamilias has a clinic, there is another type of facility that is eligible for the funding. Despite that, at Planned Parenthood’s behest, the funds allocated in the House-passed bill are being held back in the Senate on grounds that its clinics do not receive a financial benefit.
According to a CNN News report after the bill failed in the Senate, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s executive vice president Dawn Laguens said, “We are the front line of defense when it comes to battling Zika.” Laguens also claimed that the legislation “does not give money to the providers best suited to help the Zika virus, like Profamilias in Puerto Rico.”
PolitiFact examined a claim that the Zika bill “limits access to birth control services needed to help curb the spread of the virus” and rated it as only half true. According to the fact-checking site, the bill “provided funds that would potentially help clinics and hospitals in nearly every municipality on the island. There would be some pockets without services, but it is unclear that Profamilias would be positioned to fill those gaps.”
So there you have it. Unless Planned Parenthood can get its money, it is okay with stopping the women in Puerto Rico from getting real healthcare. The irony that it is Planned Parenthood inflicting harm on Puerto Rican women is not lost on those who remember the 1950’s trials of the original birth control pill—paid for by PP founder, Margaret Sanger—that also harmed women on that island.
More and more people across the United States and around the world are beginning to understand that Planned Parenthood is all about money. It is not about women’s healthcare.