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Dear Daniel:
Thank you for contacting me regarding federal funding for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, I appreciate hearing from you and having the benefit of your views.
On April 14, 2011, I joined a bipartisan majority of my colleagues to pass H.R. 1473, the Continuing Resolution which will fund the federal government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011. In association with this bill, I supported a separate resolution, H.Con.Res. 36, which would prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPA) and its affiliates.
This particular resolution has garnered much attention because it has been distorted and miscast as a women's health funding issue, when in fact it is an issue of the federal government subsidizing the organization providing the highest number of abortion services in the nation. It is important to me that women are able to access critical cancer screenings, HIV and STD testing, as well as other necessary health services provided by both PPA and other hospitals and health clinics. These types of non-abortion services are vital to women and to our healthcare system. There are a number of other local health clinics that offer the same services as PPA while not providing abortions. I am fully supportive of these very vital hospitals and clinics.
Unfortunately, PPA has complicated the issue by mingling these critical health services together with a disturbingly prolific abortion practice. PPA is the single leading provider of abortions in the United States, performing over 330,000 abortions in 2009. PPA's public relations image campaign leads people to believe that abortion is a minimal aspect of what they do. But the facts reveal that since 1990, the number of abortions performed annually across the U.S. has declined by 25 percent, while the number performed at PPA clinics annually has doubled over the same time period. During this timeframe, PPA has gone from performing only 8 percent of abortions annually to more than one out of every four. PPA's federal government funding has doubled since 1998, and every year the number of abortions they provide increases. The claims they make in an effort to buy public approval and legitimacy, such as the idea that "more funding for PPA actually prevents abortions," are factually inaccurate.
There has been a long-standing, bipartisan tradition of withholding federal taxpayer dollars from being used to pay for abortion services. However, approximately one third of PPA's operating budget comes from government funding, and another third comes from the fees they collect for performing abortions. This entanglement of federal dollars and abortion services under the same roof jeopardizes our longstanding tradition, by the federal government's propping up an organization that has made abortion so central to its mission and day-to-day activity.
Again, thank you for taking the time to contact my office. Please know that I will continue to work for my fellow Missourians in the legislative matters I am able to address.
It is a privilege to represent you and I hope that you will not hesitate to contact me regarding any matter where I might be of assistance. Please visit my website, where you can find more information on current issues, share further thoughts with me via email and subscribe to my e-newsletter for updates on issues you care about. Sincerely,  Todd Akin |
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