California Planned Parenthood Upset Schwarzenegger Cutting Taxpayer Funds
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 27, 2009
Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) — Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, is upset that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing cutting its taxpayer funding. Because of the state’s financial woes, Schwarzenegger’s state budget proposes cutting $36 million in family planning funds Planned Parenthood receives.
Cecile Richards, president of the pro-abortion group, claimed the "budget cuts will jeopardize our ability to provide essential health care."
She said that, as a result of the economic downturn, more women are going to Planned Parenthood and that, in the last eight months, California’s Planned Parenthood health centers have seen an increase of nearly 70,000 people.
Although Richards claimed the new customers are not going there for abortions, she has already admitted that more abortions are being done at Planned Parenthood centers nationwide because of the slow economy.
Richards also attempted to divert attention away from Planned Parenthood’s abortion business by saying the money will not pay for abortions, even though her group does more than 350,000 abortions annually.
"Unfortunately, there has been an attempt to distort the facts about the impact these budget cuts will have and how funds are being used. Let me be clear: family planning money does not fund abortions," she claimed.
While Richards claims the family planning money will go to help women with primary medical care, Planned Parenthood’s own numbers show most pregnant women who go to its centers get abortions.
Planned Parenthood also says it helped just under 11,000 women in 2007 with prenatal care and pregnancy help services.
Yet, prenatal care and adoption referrals resulted for only 5 percent of the total services provided to women in 2007 while abortions accounted for 95 percent of the services that year, according to Planned Parenthood’s own figures.
The report also shows more government funding for Planned Parenthood equals more abortions.
According to Planned Parenthood’s latest report, abortions increased to 305,310 abortions, up from 289,750 in 2006. That is despite the total government grants and contracts received by PPFA affiliates from government sources including state, local and federal governments increasing from $337 million to $350 million.
Looking at Planned Parenthood data from 1997 to the present, the increase in government funding corresponds with an increase in the number of abortions.
In 1997, Planned Parenthood did about 160,000 abortions and received approximately $160 million in total taxpayer funding from various levels of government. Both the number of abortions and the amount of money received from government, supposedly for family planning to reduce abortions, has doubled since then.
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