An editorial by Jordan B. Rickards, www.RickardsReview.com:

This past week, a shutdown of the federal government was narrowly avoided when Republicans and Democrats reconciled their differences and, cognizant of the massive, unsustainable deficits we are running, heroically cut a whopping one percent out of a budget that has nearly doubled since Bill Clinton left office.  The hang-up, however, was not so much on the amount to be cut, but where to cut, and central to this was whether the private abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood would continue to receive $363 million annually in taxpayer money.  Predictably, Republicans caved on the issue, fearful as they were of a government shutdown, and along with it, the possibility that once the federal government ceased operations, everyone would realize how little we actually need it.

Planned Parenthood and its supporters argue that this money is required to provide non-abortion services in the form of free mammograms, free condoms, and free pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease testing.  But as has been recently revealed, Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms, and simply uses that argument as a ruse to distract away from their entirely sex-centered business.

The remaining justifications — free condoms, free pregnancy tests, and free STD tests — boil down to nothing more than another welfare program.  Worse, it’s an entirely unnecessary welfare program, because nobody needs to engage in sexual activity, unless we define “need” so expansively as to mean “anything that requires any amount of discipline to resist.” As it is, we already have programs that pay for other people’s housing, food, school, education, medical care, cell phones, cable television, and in the case of addicts, drug needles.  Now we’re being asked to pay for someone else’s sex life, in so doing tacitly we’re acknowledging a new government entitlement to promiscuity.

Even if one accepts, for the sake of argument, that taxpayers should finance sexual welfare (shall we call it “sex-fare?”), what remains unanswered is why this funding must be given to Planned Parenthood, and not to real hospitals which are actually regulated.  The obvious answer is that Planned Parenthood uses its vast wealth to support pro-abortion politicians, so pro-abortion politicians give Planned Parenthood more of our money in order that Planned Parenthood will have more to give back to them.

This thinly veiled public money laundering aside, one is hard-pressed to think of a less worthy organization to be entrusted with the healthcare of women and young girls.  Consider that according to their own publication, Planned Parenthood, the wealthiest corporation in the abortion industry, “opposes laws that make it a crime for people not to tell sexual partners they have HIV” because this interferes with “a larger right to sexual pleasure.” They also oppose laws that require them to notify parents before their children have an abortion, because heaven forbid the parent actually put a stop to it. They oppose informed consent laws that compel them to provide a sonogram of the fetus about to be aborted to a woman or young girl considering the procedure, so that the woman or young girl can make an informed decision whether to proceed.

And they oppose laws that require them to report when a young girl has been raped.  Time and again, they have even been shown to be willing to aid sex traffickers, because they’ll do just about anything to maximize the number of potential abortions.  At their core, they’re no different than any other business.  All they care about is the bottom line.

Make no mistake about it, abortion is big business.  Planned Parenthood is a global corporation whose United States branch alone reports approximately $1 billion in assets, and another $1 billion in annual revenues.  That doesn’t including assets and income from the over one hundred international Planned Parenthood affiliates.

And by far and away, their greatest source of income is abortions.  They perform over 300,000 per year in America alone, accounting for an estimated $400 million in revenue.  It should come as no surprise then that, according to their own report, they perform 340 abortions for every one adoption referral, and 47 abortions for every one prenatal care client.  So don’t let them fool you into thinking they’re a balanced source of client care and can be trusted to give objective advice to their clients.  Just like crack dealers push crack, Planned Parenthood pushes abortions.  Consequences be damned.

If you want to know what’s really going on here, ask yourself why Planned Parenthood wants government money in the first place.  If all of it is going to be used for charitable purposes, and none for abortions, what does Planned Parenthood have to gain by it?  The answer is two-fold.  First, that money adds to general revenue, offsetting the cost of their operations so that they have more money to advertise and perform abortions, and to lobby and buy politicians who fight against pro-life policies.

Just as importantly, they get a new clientele which becomes accustomed to visiting Planned Parenthood clinics for all things health-related, thereby maximizing the number of women and young girls who walk through their doors, and who would then be more inclined to return when it’s time for Planned Parenthood’s principal moneymaker, abortion.

The irony is that Planned Parenthood fancies (or at least markets) itself as a champion of women’s rights.  In truth, it is a champion at nothing more than exploiting women and young girls for profit.  It’s Planned Parenthood which preys on women and young girls when they are at their weakest and most desperate.  It’s Planned Parenthood which tries to separate young girls from their parents and the value structures of their homes, all in the name of making a buck.  It’s Planned Parenthood which claims to stand for a woman’s right to choose, but only if that choice is for an abortion.  It’s Planned Parenthood which claims to believe in a woman’s right to her body, but also seeks to destroy as many of those bodies as possible at the very beginning of their existence.

Amazingly, many on the left argue that refusing this money to Planned Parenthood would actually increase the number of abortions, because fewer free condoms would result in more unwanted pregnancies, and more unwanted pregnancies would result in more abortions.  Nonsense.  Planned Parenthood performs an abortion every 90 seconds.  Don’t tell me the best way to reduce abortions is to subsidize their largest provider.  If that would reduce abortions, Planned Parenthood would have nothing to do with it.

Giving taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood to provide “health services” for women is like giving money to the tobacco industry for anti-smoking initiatives, or to Anheuser Busch representatives to teach alcoholics anonymous classes. It makes no sense to give people money to solve a problem, when they have a vested interest in aggravating that same problem.

But to the pro-abortion crowd, this debate is not about making sense.  It’s about making dollars and cents.

www.RickardsReview.com