What the push to defund Planned Parenthood is really about

For 80 years Planned Parenthood has offered basic reproductive health care, information about family planning and contraception to women who had no other options. But because a small percentage of Planned Parenthood’s business involves terminating pregnancies — without using federal dollars, a fact that’s often misreported — it’s become a lightning rod for some social conservatives, who simply cannot stand that anyone, anywhere, provides abortion services.

So it’s the frequent target of campaigns in and out of the U.S. Congress to strip its funding; the organization receives about $500 million a year in state and federal dollars. Its foes are seemingly insensible, were they successful, to the health-care disaster they’d inflict on American women.

Some 2.7 million American men and women visit Planned Parenthood each year. About 6.7 million American women use some kind of publicly funded program to obtain contraception. Thirty-six percent of those women — 2.4 million — rely on Planned Parenthood.

In Michigan, Planned Parenthood serves 70,000 patients annually, for its range of reproductive health services.

Neither American taxpayers nor lawmakers need to take Planned Parenthood’s compliance with national and state standards on faith. The organization, rightfully, is audited annually. Its financial reports are public. They’re required to prove, each year, that no federal funds are spent on abortion services. On the state level, Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan is audited financially and programmatically by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The organization’s surgical abortion centers are subject to the federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, and the state department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.

Now, the organization is under a sophisticated, concerted attack unparalleled in its history, aided and abetted by presidential politics.

First came a series of carefully edited videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials violating federal law with regard to the sale of fetal tissue, which does not allow such material to be sold for profit. The full version of the videos, of course, show no such thing. Some comments made by Planned Parenthood officials are, without question, distasteful, and have prompted an apology for tone by Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards. But for the thousands of folks exposed only to the selectively edited tape the mistaken impression that the organization is willfully violating federal law will be hard to counteract.

Then Planned Parenthood was hacked, the names and e-mail addresses of its employees posted on a public website, with threats that more, allegedly damning, information would be released.

“This is not outrage over what’s happening in Planned Parenthood in the context of lawful and appropriate tissue donation, this is a political attack,” said Lori Carpentier, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan. “Their ferocity and aggressiveness have increased, and the people who get caught in the crossfire are the people who depend on us for their care.”

So let’s talk about some relatively unattractive facts that don’t normally get discussed: Yes, it’s true that embryonic stem cells (one of many types of stem cells used in medical research) are obtained from aborted or nonviable fetuses. And it’s true that Planned Parenthood provides such material — but only with the patient’s authorization, and for federally approved fees that cover storage and transportation, not for profit. It’s also true that stem cell research has saved lives, and offers promising new therapies that have the potential to cure diseases once thought chronic or fatal.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican presidential hopeful, is leading the Congressional charge to defund Planned Parenthood, using the videos as fuel.

“I don’t know what they’re hoping for, but I can predict what will happen,” Carpentier said. “If they’re successful ... this activity will increase abortion, full stop.”

And if he’s successful, make no mistake: It won’t stop there.

Abortion services make up just 3% of Planned Parenthood’s work. So the idea that defunding the organization is really about abortion doesn’t figure. But here’s something else we don’t often discuss: Many groups that oppose abortion also object to contraception. If curtailing access to contraception is the end goal, defunding Planned Parenthood would represent a significant step.

This should concern all of us.

Americans are ambivalent about abortion, although the majority of us identify as pro-choice, and don’t want to see landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade overturned.

We’re not ambivalent at all about contraception. Most American women take for granted the ability to control whether, when and how often they become pregnant. That a long, hard fight was waged to win this battle — and the recent provenance of the victory — eludes many. It’s a fact of modern life, but in the long view of history, it’s a tenuous win, and one that is under attack.