72 Members of Congress Call for Investigation of Planned Parenthood

National   |   STOPP International   |   Mar 7, 2013   |   1:26PM   |   Washington, DC

Seventy-two members of the U.S. Congress have signed a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting updated detailed information about government grants to Planned Parenthood.

Leading the effort to uncover information about government money being funneled to Planned Parenthood are Representative Pete Olson of Texas and Representative Diane Black of Tennessee. The request asks for more information following a GAO report compiled and released in 2010 at the request of 31 members of Congress that raised more questions than it answered. While Planned Parenthood’s annual reports show it took in $2.3 billion from government grants and programs from 2002 to 2008, the Planned Parenthood audits relied upon by the GAO in compiling the expenditure report could only account for expenditures of $657.1 million during the same time period.

“[The difference is] not pocket change,” STOPP national director Rita Diller noted in her Washington Times article, “Planned Parenthood’s missing millions,” in June of 2010. “Why the discrepancy?”

Following the 2010 GAO report, Diller called on Planned Parenthood to come clean and let taxpayers know how it was spending their hard-earned money. Clarification, of course, was never provided by the abortion giant.

The recent congressional request to the GAO is for current information detailing which organizations “are providing optimal health services and best using taxpayer dollars.” It requests updated information provided in the 2010 report, and requests additionally the inclusion of family planning services provided by Community Health Centers and Federally Qualified Health Centers, including a comprehensive list of the services and the number of individuals served in each category.

Specifically, members of Congress are trying to find out the amount of federal funding received by several organizations including Planned Parenthood; when and how the funds were disbursed; the agency, grant, or program that was the source of the funding; and how many health services were provided, along with the number of individuals served.

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When STOPP inquired on Capitol Hill why the 2010 GAO report did not account for the expenditure of all—or even most—of the federal funds received by the abortion giant from 2002 to 2008, we were told that Planned Parenthood did not release the information because it was not required by law to do so. That is why the GAO had to rely on audited reports that were publicly available to ascertain how Planned Parenthood had spent the funds.

Will Planned Parenthood come clean this time around and give its financial records to the Government Accountability Office? Or will it continue to receive billions of dollars of taxpayer money with no real accountability for how those funds are spent? Given its past history, it will be nothing short of a miracle if Planned Parenthood lays all its cards on the table.