PP Minnesota Growing at Taxpayer Expense

NRL News
Page 14
June 2010
Volume 37
Issue 6

New St. Paul location will be Midwest’s largest abortion center
Planned Parenthood Minnesota Growing at Taxpayer Expense

By Bill Poehler

Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS) announced plans in May to build the Midwest’s largest abortion center in St. Paul. The new abortion facility will be several times larger than Planned Parenthood’s existing St. Paul clinic, which is the organization’s only abortion center in Minnesota.

PPMNS’s 46,000-square-foot building project is part of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s national strategy of building massive abortion centers in major urban areas. Its 78,000-square-foot Houston center, for example, which opened in May, is being called the largest abortion center in the Western Hemisphere. Similarly colossal centers have opened in Chicago and elsewhere.

The new St. Paul abortion center will be built in the Midway neighborhood, home to Hamline University, Concordia University, growing ethnic populations, and the future Central Corridor light-rail line. It will be less than two miles from the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses.

While PPMNS will use $16 million in private donations to finance the building project, its day-to-day operations will continue to rely heavily on taxpayer funds. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation’s largest abortion business, raked in a record $1.038 billion in revenues in 2007 (latest figures), including a staggering $349 million in taxpayer dollars in the form of federal and state government grants and contracts. Planned Parenthood Minnesota, which includes 25 Minnesota “feeder” clinics to send women to St. Paul for abortions, received $5.26 million from federal, state and local governments in 2008.

Planned Parenthood Minnesota is also funded by every state taxpayer. This is a result of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s 1995 Doe v. Gomez decision, in which the court “found” a right to taxpayer-funded abortion in the state Constitution. Since the ruling, state abortionists have been reimbursed with $15.6 million for 50,000 abortions, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

Taxpayer funding has opened up a new revenue stream for Planned Parenthood, which has aggressively marketed these abortions to students, minority groups, and low-income women. Planned Parenthood has received $1.57 million for 6,113 taxpayer-funded abortions performed at its St. Paul center since 1995.

PPMNS increased its taxpayer-funded abortions in Minnesota by 140% between 2000 and 2008—even though the total number of abortions performed in the state decreased nearly every year during this period. Already Minnesota’s largest abortionist, PPMNS expects to greatly expand its business under the new Obama health care law.

“We’re not surprised to see Planned Parenthood position itself to receive millions more taxpayer dollars under President Obama’s new health care mandates,” said Scott Fischbach, executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). “Obama’s intent has always been to pour much more public money into Planned Parenthood, and the Minnesota affiliate is poised to build an enormous receptacle for that money.”

The new health care law offers it even more. Not only does the law subsidize health plans that cover abortion, it also opens the door to direct federal funding of abortions at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). The law appropriates $11 billion over five years to approximately 1,250 different FQHCs, and there are no restrictions in the law to prevent that money from paying for abortions, according to legal experts including Columbus School of Law Prof. Robert A. Destro, an authority on abortion funding. It is unknown how many Planned Parenthood clinics qualify as FQHCs, but the new mega abortion centers are believed to be designed to qualify.

Statistics show that the more money Planned Parenthood takes in, the more abortions it performs.

“Planned Parenthood is all about money, and its new St. Paul abortion center is being positioned to take in many more millions of taxpayer dollars for abortions,” Fischbach said. “It is a tragedy to see Planned Parenthood Minnesota driving up its revenues at the expense of innocent unborn children and their mothers.”