Federal government business grants

As news comes out that the RU-486 abortion pill is not as popular as abortion enthusiasts had hoped, Planned Parenthood of New York City comes up with a new marketing scheme: a limited-time offer of free abortions. In a city still reeling from more than 6,000 deaths at the hands of terrorists, Planned Parenthood reveals its shameless determination to maintain the number of abortions, even in a time of national crisis.

A nonprofit that charges for its services, Planned Parenthood is notorious for collecting money from numerous sources and garnering huge sums. Corporate grants, fees, individual donations, government funding, marketing its own brand of condoms and even supplying tissue and organs from aborted babies to scientists provides Planned Parenthood affiliates with handsome revenues. In 1998, Planned Parenthood of New York City alone reported $89,975,411 on its federal Form 990, with $75 million coming from a one-time gift. While the nonprofit status allows the Planned Parenthood Federation of America to get government funding and discount prices on drugs, its reported surplus of $125.8 million for 1999 would make most businesses jealous.

With a mission to "terminate" pregnancies, Planned Parenthood is not known for being charitable. In the wake of the most horrific attacks on Americans in history, Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood, used the tragedy to claim victim status for abortionists. In a message sent Sept. 21 to "Responsible Choice Activists," Feldt patronizingly compared the multiple hijackings, knifings, plane crashes, fires and building collapses to what "[w]e at Planned Parenthood have lived and worked for many years with." What she doesn't say is that abortion proponents include in their lists of "violence against clinics" peaceful sit-ins and life chains (where people silently line streets -- usually not even near an abortion clinic -- with signs proclaiming "Abortion kills children").

So this was unique news that a Planned Parenthood affiliate would, for a short time, offer its grisly services for free, including "medical and surgical abortion services." But as those who know marketing understand, free samples are not aid to the suffering; they are used to entice new clients.

This publicity ploy joins Planned Parenthood's other tasteless campaigns, such as colored condoms packaged to appear like lollipops. Or "Joe Sperm," a sunglass-wearing cartoon character that marched in an Oregon parade, accompanied by people dressed as sperm chasing others dressed as eggs. Joe Sperm ads appeared on Eugene city buses.

Bill Sheppard, executive director of Planned Parenthood in Southwestern Oregon, boasted of the Joe Sperm campaign as part of a birth-control program. "The beauty of this program for Oregon," he said in the Sept. 19, 2000, issue of the Eugene Register-Guard, "is that the federal government will match our state funding on a 9-to-1 basis. Right now, Oregon's putting in $1.5 million, and the federal government is adding $13.5 million."

Why would the federal government fund ads that do for adolescent sexual activity what Joe Camel did for cigarettes -- entice kids to engage in an adults-only activity? Activity that, even with a cool condom, can result in pregnancies, thereby creating potential abortion clients? Part of the answer lies in Title X of the Public Health Service Act, which specifies that public funding "may not be used in programs in which abortion is a method of family planning." Federal funds cannot be used for abortion directly; however, those funds can fund abortion indirectly by going to organizations that commit them. Groups that profit from abortion, after all, do not have a clear incentive to prevent pregnancies. It is estimated that about $50 million from Title X goes to agencies that perform abortions.

These funds can be used to gain access to additional customers and legitimacy as government-funded family planning providers. But this distortion of the law can be corrected. Rep. Dave Vitter (R-La.) has introduced an amendment that would limit Title X funds only to family-planning programs that do not commit abortions. Agencies that provide chemical or surgical abortions would be disqualified from Title X grants or contracts.

In the past, attempts to find solutions to the problem of funding abortion through Title X were labeled as "censorship" because they dealt with counseling, advocating or referring patients to have abortions. The Vitter amendment, instead, is directed at the act of providing chemical or surgical abortions. It would not deny family-planning services to anyone. In every community where an abortion provider is taking Title X funds there are public and private agencies that provide services without committing abortions.

The Vitter amendment won't infuse Planned Parenthood with dignity. But it will save some of our tax dollars from subsidizing abortion profiteers.

Wendy Wright is director of communications for the Concerned Women of America, the nation's largest public-policy women's organization, in Washington.