The $12.5 million fundraising campaign that was responsible for building the new Planned Parenthood abortion facility in a historically African-American neighborhood in Portland has come to a close.
The new abortion center has come under fire because it has Planned Parenthood preying on black residents of the large Oregon city.
The financial campaign to build the center ultimately raised the full amount Planned Parenthood needed to build it and the Portland Business Journal indicates approximately $9 million came from private donors and another $2 million came from an endowment. Spirit Mountain Community Fund pledged $50,000 toward the expansion project, and The Oregon Community Foundation awarded PPCW a $75,000 grant toward the new facility.
But $1.5 million for the project came from tax credits — which has pro-life advocates upset further.
As one pro-life blogger complained, the news of the tax-funded portion of the fundraising campaign “proves that taxpayer support of Planned Parenthood must stop now. This abortion clinic mega center received a million and a half in tax credits to build their new mega center in Portland , which is strategically placed in a black neighborhood.”
The 42,000-square-foot Elizabeth Flanagan Regional Service Center, named for a former PPCW board member, now houses the administrative staff for the abortion business and a mega abortion facility.
The building of the abortion business upset residents because it is located at Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Beech Street.
Despite boycotts of contractors, builders and plumbers, Planned Parenthood was able to complete the new abortion facility.
The abortion business also received a grant from the federal Housing and Urban Development department to help it build the new center. HUD’s Indian Community Block Grant program gave $50,000 to Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette’s regional service center.
Gayle Atteberry, the director of Oregon Right to Life, told LifeNews.com earlier this year that Planned Parenthood officials have been telling state and local residents that much of its mission centers on non-abortion activities.
But she points to the organization’s 2007-2008 national annual report as revealing its “commitment to its abortion business.”
“Despite its humanitarian-sounding talk and non-profit status, Planned Parenthood is a business focused on making money,” Atteberry said. “Tragically, a significant portion of their booming clinic business is ending the lives of unborn babies.”
Atteberry says the annual report shows abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics around the nation increased 5.3% over the previous year, totaling 305,310 abortions, approximately 25% of all abortions done in the United States.
“Abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics have nearly doubled in the past 10 years, while at the same time total abortions have dropped nearly every year,” she added.
Atteberry noted that Planned Parenthood’s national income, including federal grants, grew last year to over one billion dollars. Planned Parenthood in Oregon contracts with the Oregon Health Plan for abortions performed. [related]
Thanks to efforts from Oregon Right to Life and crisis pregnancy centers, abortions in Oregon are down to their lowest levels since 1998, having decreased 20 percent between then and 2004, the latest year from which state data is available.
The Oregon Department of Human Services reported 14,344 abortions in 1998, but that number decreased to 11,443 abortions in 2004.
