Is it really conceivable that Planned Parenthood could crash, bringing the entire abortion industry down with it? I answer that question today.
Backdrop: “If Planned Parenthood collapses, the abortion industry collapses, Part I.”
As powerful and wealthy as Planned Parenthood appears, its position is tenuous, upheld only by political friends and courts. In contraceptive terms, Planned Parenthood has no Plan B.
Planned Parenthood would hardly have noticed losing taxpayer funding 50 years ago, in 1964. This was when it reported its first government subsidy – chump change of $8,500. Planned Parenthood’s annual income at the time was $6.2 million, 70% of which came from donors, and 30% from clinics.
By 1970, Planned Parenthood’s annual income had jumped to $26.4 million, thanks in large part to taxpayers, who contributed 43% of the total. It was during this period that Planned Parenthood began multiplying clinics. According to Jim Sedlak of American Life League:
In 1962, the year before it received its first taxpayer funds, Planned Parenthood operated fewer than 200 clinics. By 1973, that number had exploded to 700. This, of course, meant that Planned Parenthood’s influence in our nation grew greatly because of government largesse.
In FY2013, 45% of Planned Parenthood’s whopping $1.21 billion income came from taxpayers, to the tune of $540.6 million. Today only 26% of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue is derived from donations, and 25% from clinics.
How dependent is Planned Parenthood’s nationwide chain on government funding? As Sedlak pointed out, Planned Parenthood was only able to build its conglomerate with taxpayer help.
And only last week Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin claimed it had to close its fifth clinic since 2013 all due to a mere $1 million loss in state funding.
One should expect a certain amount of fudging on Planned Parenthood’s part; it has been known to conveniently blame clinic closures on government defunding when they were themselves to blame.
But it must also be true that Planned Parenthood is only able to sustain its massive infrastructure with government help. And that is where its potential downfall lies.
“I have always said that if all state and federal tax-funding were cut off from Planned Parenthood, their abortion empire would collapse like dominos,” wrote Operation Rescue’s Cheryl Sullenger via email. “I doubt if more than a handful of clinics of any affiliation could survive without an artificial influx of money from outside sources.”
Sedlak agreed: “Planned Parenthood is set up for destruction if Americans ever get the guts to elect politicians who care.”
Planned Parenthood made the decision long ago to tie its future to the whims of government. Its leaders apparently never considered the organization might some day become anathema, with a segment of the population and politicians calling for it to be defunded.
Whatever murmuring may have been heard before only became real noise beginning in 2007, when Live Action launched its investigations against Planned Parenthood, first revealing the organization would accept donations specifically to abort black babies, then that it would cover up underage rape, then that it would aid and abet sex traffickers, then that it would commit sex-selective abortions, and most recently that it would encourage minors to engage in violent BDSM.
Add to that charges around the country of Medicaid fraud, failure to report child sexual abuse, substandard clinics, and perverted doctors, and you begin to see momentum that has blossomed into a bill to defund Planned Parenthood and a congressional investigation of the organization.
If not for President Barack Obama, Planned Parenthood might already be going the way of Enron. It is only he who kept Planned Parenthood from being defunded on the federal level in 2011 and in several more states than it already has.
Planned Parenthood knows this. It knows it is only one presidential election away from seeing its political fortunes turn to dust.
Losing the Senate in 2014 would be an advance blow, hence Planned Parenthood’s plan to spend a whopping $18 million this election cycle, in large part attacking the “Extreme Six” Republican Senate candidates who could swing the majority, setting up for a Republican trifecta in 2016.
Planned Parenthood’s situation is all the more dire when considering it could lose its tax-exempt status if convicted of Medicaid fraud, cases of which are beginning to snowball; or lose the windfall profits it is anticipating if Obamacare is overturned or if the contraceptive mandate and abortion funding are repealed; or lose its lucrative contraceptive pill trade (for which it has been known to double- and triple-bill taxpayers) if it is made available over-the-counter.
Added to the recent slew of pro-life laws, the fragility of the abortion industry becomes clear when also considering its eggs are increasingly in one basket, and that basket is wearing thin. From the STOPP Report, September 24:
STOPP’s 2013 Survey of Planned Parenthood facilities shows the abortion giant suffered the eighth straight year of decline in both total facilities and affiliates. Planned Parenthood reported running a total of 695 clinic facilities as of December 30, 2013 – the lowest number reported since 1973. Planned Parenthood’s number of affiliates decreased from 74 in 2012 to 71 in 2013, continuing the trend of massive consolidation in management since the high point of 191 Planned Parenthood affiliates in 1978.
We have continued to see a hefty stream of closures in 2014. Planned Parenthood most frequently cited pressure from legislation, be it defunding efforts or laws tightening clinic standards, as the main reason for facility closures during 2013. In states where legislative pressure was not felt, it most frequently reported facility closures due to a dwindling customer base and efforts to consolidate facilities nearer to its core demographic. In 2013, 79% of the facilities closed were contraceptive-only facilities.
It is clear that Planned Parenthood is preparing for even more facility closures as it implements its community organizer model and online birth control counseling. As it does so, it is focusing more and more on its lucrative abortion business.
Because it has to. Planned Parenthood is driven to take over the abortion industry by greed and survival, needing a financial stream aside from the government funding model it has grown dependent on, and also banking on government funding of abortion.
And the abortion lobby is helpless to stop what insiders surely must see as a coming train wreck.
Reprinted with permission from JillStanek.com.