The Planned Parenthood abortion business aggressively upped its lobbying expenditures to barrage Congress with messages supporting its federal taxpayer funding, according to a new report.
Roll Call magazine indicates its federal lobbying more than tripled during the first three months of this year as the abortion business twisted arms while pro-life groups worked overtime to expose practices like covering up for sexual traffickers and misleading lawmakers about it supposedly doing mammograms for women.
The new numbers indicate, for the first quarter of 2011, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America spent $400,000 on lobbying, which was a 260 percent jump from the same quarter last year, when it spent $111,000. The magazine shows most of the money was spent in house on various communications and campaigns, but it paid the lobbying firm Glover Park Group $60,000 for assistance.
“Planned Parenthood lobbies Congress on a wide range of legislation regarding women’s health,” Planned Parenthood Spokesman Tait Sye told Roll Call. “The first 100 days of this Congress certainly saw an increase in anti-women’s health legislation that does nothing to address the economy or create jobs.”
The lobbying report Planned Parenthood submitted shows the organization not only lobbied to keep its own tens of millions of dollars in federal funding under Title X, but it actively opposed various pro-life bills — including the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, the Sanctity of Human Life Act, the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act and the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act.
As has been reported before, Sye told Roll Call that Planned Parenthood experienced a 500 percent increase in donations during February and March — when the campaign to de-fund the organization was at its zenith.
A previous report from the Center for Responsive Politics showed Planned Parenthood spending more than $1 million on pro-abortion candidates last year — all Democrats.
“The organization’s political action committee, for example, donated more than $148,000 to federal candidates — almost all Democrats — during the 2010 election cycle. The PAC spent more than $443,000 overall,” the Center noted. “Planned Parenthood also recorded $905,796 in independent expenditures during the 2010 cycle — money spent in support of, or in opposition to, federal political candidates, largely through advertisements. The top beneficiaries of this money were Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.).”
Meanwhile, the Center indicates Planned Parenthood maintains a well-funded lobbying effort in the nation’s capital and “Planned Parenthood, more so than any other abortion rights organization,” has the money to fight for its abortion business interests, with the Center adding “the organization’s overall political efforts typically exceed those of any single group that opposes abortion rights.”
“In 2010, Planned Parenthood and a California affiliate together spent more than $700,000 on federal lobbying efforts,” the Center found. “By comparison, all other organizations that primarily advocate for abortion rights collectively spent $247,280 on federal lobbying efforts during the same period, according to the Center’s research.”
Jim Hoft, a writer at the conservative Human Events magazine and Gateway Pundit blog, said the expenditures help explain the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans on funding the abortion business.
“Republicans voted to strip the abortion group from receiving $363 million in taxpayer funds but Senate Democrats put it back in the budget. After all, it’s money for their reelection,” he noted.
