Rand Paul and Bobby Jindal should expand Planned Parenthood funding, not eliminate it
Kentucky Senator and Presidential Candidate Rand Paul
A series of videos surreptitiously recorded of Planned Parenthood executives have sparked a national controversy and debate on ending the funding for said organization. Among the leaders of this movement are Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Governor and Presidential candidate Bobby Jindal (R-LA), and Governor Mike Pence (R-IN). But based on statistical data, these three men may be wise to increase funding for Planned Parenthood, rather than eliminate it.
The videos themselves are relatively easy to debunk. In the first video, published by the Center for Medical Progress – headed by anti-abortion activist David Daleiden– the Planned Parenthood official, Deborah Nucatola, specifically mentions multiple times that the $30-$100 fees are specifically to cover storage and transportation costs.
“This is not something with any revenue stream that affiliates are looking at,” she says.
The second video released thus far – Daleiden says that he has much more video content and will be releasing more videos over the next few months – reiterates the Planned Parenthood position that they are not selling fetal tissue and organs for profit. The Center for Medical Progress insists that the video shows Dr. Mary Gatter, the President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Directors’ Council, “haggling” over the price, but Gatter never appears to actually negotiate prices, despite provocation by Daleiden. Further, Daleiden asserts that Gatter admits to surreptitiously altering the abortion procedure without consent of the patient to maximize the usable tissue/organs, but in fact, Gatter specifically says in the video that the decision of how to proceed is left to the patient and the doctor, and the she would have to consult with her doctor advisors on whether they can legally ask for certain procedures as long as there is no risk to the patient.
Regardless of the actual content of the videos or the veracity of the claims leveled against Planned Parenthood, the political backlash from the right has been swift. The day the first video was released, Congress canceled a vote on a bill that would mint a breast cancer awareness coin because some of the benefits would go to the Susan G Komen Foundation, which supports Planned Parenthood women’s health programs, namely mammogram assistance. All of the Republican presidential candidates have come out in support of defunding Planned Parenthood. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA), and Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) have all called for investigations into Planned Parenthood in their respective states (Indiana’s investigation is already complete and found no violations). House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is charging an investigation in Congress. But what are they really fighting?
In fact, it is already illegal for Planned Parenthood to use federal funds for abortions, whether that be through Medicaid or the federal government’s Title X Family Planning Program (exceptions are made for cases involving rape, incest, or life endangerment in the Hyde Amendment). Medicaid can cover abortion costs, but the coverage must come from the state portion of the Medicaid funding, and is only provided for elective abortions in 17 states. Another 32 states (plus the District of Columbia) allow using Medicaid to pay for abortions for low income women following the federal government’s Hyde Amendment exceptions (South Dakota provides funding for abortion only for life endangerment situations). Further, Planned Parenthood claims that only 3 percent of the health services they provide are abortions. The majority of Planned Parenthood services are pregnancy prevention, sexual education, sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, and breast cancer screenings. So what exactly are they attempting to defund, and why?
In vitro fertilization creates a number of unused fertilized embryos as part of the normal process. On average, 24 fertilized embryos are created for each IVF procedure, when only 2-4 will actually be implanted into the patient. This means that more than 20 embryos are unused for every IVF procedure. These embryos can either be frozen and stored for later use, or discarded. Statistics in the United States indicate that hundreds of thousands of these embryos have been destroyed, while several hundred thousand more are still in freezing, unused. In the UK, it is estimated that more than 1.7 million embryos were discarded over a two decade span. And while there are certainly some incredibly sincere pro-life activists – those that ardently believe that life begins at conception – that protest IVF procedures and facilities, there is no national or political movement to defund these operations.
If Republican politicians are worried about child welfare, then they have enough to worry about with children that make it to birth. Child poverty exceeded 21% in 2013, higher than any time over the last several decades. While Paul, Jindal, and Pence are railing against the “evil” practice of abortion, they seem to have far less interest in caring for children currently living in their states; Kentucky’s child poverty rate is higher than the national average, as is Louisiana’s, while Indiana’s is comparable to the national average. Certainly they can’t make the argument that all they care about is the welfare of the child.
And if the goal is to prevent teen pregnancy, then Senator Paul and Governor Jindal also have some work to do. The national teen birth rate dropped to an all-time low of 26.5 per 1,000 females in 2013, but the home states of these politicians reflect an alarming disparity among regions in the country. In that same year, the teen birth rate in Kentucky was an astounding 39.5, while Louisiana experienced an equally disturbing rate of 39.2. Governor Pence’s Indiana is slightly better, but still higher than the national average at 30.3. This reflects the overall trend of southern, conservative states experiencing much higher than average teen birth rates.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
While the teen birth rate exceeds the national average in nearly all southern, conservative states, these same states lag behind in sex education, often teaching abstinence only and not requiring a medically accurate curriculum.
The Huffington Post
And naturally, these states also tend to have higher rates of STDs and STIs.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Given that the majority of services that Planned Parenthood provides are in the areas of sexual education, contraceptives, and STD/STI prevention and detection, it seems clear that Senator Paul and Governors Jindal and Pence could do more good for their states by expanding Planned Parenthood funding, not cutting it.