Planned Parenthood donors dropping out over organization’s ‘mission creep’

As Planned Parenthood fights to maintain access to taxpayer dollars, some of its donors are upset about the organization’s “mission creep,” Planned Parenthood’s deliberate departure from the reasons those donors began supporting the organization in the first place.

Key Takeaways:

• A recent article from the Wall Street Journal caused a stir among Planned Parenthood supporters, revealing that the organization’s “mission creep” is disappointing its donors.
• This “mission creep” isn’t new; it’s been happening since the 1960s, when the organization began to move toward abortion, away from a primary emphasis on birth control.
• The adoption of gender ideology and a move toward providing “gender affirming care” has upset donors who believe Planned Parenthood has abandoned women.

The Context:

Planned Parenthood only serves an estimated 2% of American women of reproductive age, and the organization’s services, clients, and donors have plummeted over the years while abortions soared to record highs.

Its latest report revealed over 400,000 abortions in a single year, while receiving nearly $800M from taxpayers. Planned Parenthood (PP) is responsible for over 7.5M abortions since 2000, and has seen a 291% increase in taxpayer funding (nearly $203M v $792M) since that time.

The Big Picture:

Planned Parenthood’s “mission creep” isn’t new. It has strategically strayed from its original mission for decades. Here’s a list of its varied “missions” over the years:

➡️ Contraception and Sterilization (1942) – founded by Margaret Sanger, a proponent of eugenics and population control.

➡️ Abortions and Abortion Referrals (1962-1970) – began moving away from birth control, referring for and committing abortions, thanks to its president, eugenicist leader Alan F. Guttmacher, who took office in 1962. In 1970, it opened its first abortion facility.

➡️ Abortion under Medicaid (1978) – elected Faye Wattleton, its first Black female president, who promised to be more aggressive on ‘abortion rights’ and vowed to restore abortion access “to the poor” under Medicaid. She grew PP’s budget from $90 million (1978) to $384 million (1990).

➡️ Radical Promotion of Abortion (1990s) – leadership became cult-like in promoting abortion, rejecting president Pamela J. Maraldo’s “reinvention plan” to focus on “health care.”

➡️ Increasing Abortions and Political Power (2008) – President Cecile Richards’ goal was to make Planned Parenthood into “the largest kick-butt political organization.” Under her tenure, political support and abortions increased.

➡️ Advocating for Actual Healthcare (2019) – selected Dr. Leana Wen as president, but she was later ousted when attempting to move away from abortion advocacy toward providing legitimate health care. Her critics called this “mission creep.”

 ❓Varied Political Activism (TODAY) – the organization has “political activist” Alexis McGill-Johnson at the helm, where in the words of the Wall Street Journal, “a different kind of mission creep set in.”

The Details:

Live Action News has documented the organization’s increasing “mission creep” away from focusing primarily on abortion and instead turning towards sexualizing children through its involvement in sex-ed program creation and distribution, and in ensuring the inclusion of sexually explicit materials in schools, online, in videos, and in apps for minors. Through these avenues of collaboration with other groups, Planned Parenthood is promoting LGBTQIA+ and transgender ideology to school-age children.

Live Action’s undercover investigation even exposed Planned Parenthood’s willingness to provide cross-sex hormones to minors upon their first visit:

 

In its recent article, “What is Planned Parenthood Fighting for?” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) claimed Planned Parenthood is “tethering itself to causes like democracy reform… and gun control — actions that have alienated some donors, according to former employees.”

WSJ added that Planned Parenthood is offering young people “decidedly liberationist advice, including graphic descriptions of sexual techniques,” along with posts that “celebrate Pansexual Pride Day and declare that ‘virginity is a social construct.’”

WSJ wrote that Planned Parenthood’s “pervasive language around ‘pregnant people’ is intended to be inclusive of transgender people, a cause that the organization connects to abortion rights under the umbrella of ‘bodily autonomy.’ As Planned Parenthood put it on Threads, ‘trans and nonbinary people are essential to the movement for sexual and reproductive health and rights—the fight for trans rights is our fight.’”

But it seems the organization’s “mission creep” toward gender ideology and “gender affirming care” has donors particularly disturbed.

Comments left beneath the WSJ article online paint an interesting picture.

Donors turned off by “progressive” ideology and advocacy

William wrote:

First, get rid of ideologues…. Next, get out of progressive advocacy. Then, return to providing health care.

Clark wrote:

PP’s mission in the beginning was a noble one. Provide health care assistance to women who needed it; however, it has outlived its purpose. The majority of Americans do not support gender affirmation (or whatever they call it). This group believes that men can reproduce? Fire the lot of them.

Donald wrote:

I have always believed that PP provided a vital service, now that it is in the Progressive activism business I see it as a disservice that needs to be reined in… It’s starting to sound like the NEA, just as NEA no longer cares about educating children I doubt PP has much interest in health services.

Sharon wrote:

I was a longtime donor to Planned Parenthood.

Getting fundraising appeals that didn’t use the word ‘woman’ but referred to us as ‘pregnant people’, menstruators, and chestfeeders was so off mission that I talked to my local chapter head. She looked at me glassy-eyed, and said ‘our staff all believes in inclusion.’

When your inclusion means erasing women, and you’re supposedly a feminist org, you’ve completely lost the plot. I know a lot of other women also quit supporting them for this reason.

 

Ellen stated:

This organization… spent much of their funding on strictly liberal causes totally divorced from the goal of legalizing and providing affordable abortions….

S Stroll wrote:

As long as Planned parenthood continues to dole out dangerous life altering drugs to vulnerable young people with no real screening or disclosures about what the drugs actually do to them, (what they call gender affirming care) they are on their own and I am unable to support them or work up any outrage about their funding being slashed.

They chose to throw women under the bus in the name of their woke gods.

Donors Discouraged by Promotion of Abortion over Birth Control

“Whatever their mission, I just don’t think taxpayers should be mandated to subsidize any of the Planed Parenthood operations. And I could be wrong, but it seems to me back in the 1950s and ’60s Planned Parenthood was all about birth control education and information,” wrote Charles. “Somewhere along the line they apparently morphed into supporting abortion, or treating abortion as if it were an after-the-fact method of birth control….”

Donors Thought Their Money Went to Help Poor Women

Amelia wrote:

When I donated to PP, I thought I was mostly donating to run women’s health clinics for poor women, the uninsured, and teens/young adults who needed an affordable option not part of their parents’ insurance….

I understood that PP needed some funds to run the organization and that lobbying and advocacy (or, at least, public relations) were part of the organizations functioning, but I never thought most of my donations went to those purposes and not to patient care. I am very disappointed to learn this.

Ann tweeted:

I used to donate to Planned Parenthood because I believe that no matter what your economic status you should have the right to use birth control[.] I do not believe [] abortion is birth control because that is not what it is, but I do believe in getting healthcare for women that don’t have access because of their economic status[.]

She added that she felt Planned Parenthood had taken people’s money and given it to the Democratic Party as a “laundering scheme for them.”

Donor Disappointed at Drift Away from Fight for Legal Abortion

Neal, apparently a supporter of Planned Parenthood for decades, wrote that he wondered “if PPFA has moved beyond ‘mission creep’ and… discarded the group’s original mission… without explaining, much less asking ‘permission’ of those who… believe in a woman’s right to choose….”

The Bottom Line:

Staffers claim the national organization is “bloated, with too many employees making too much money in undefined roles,” adding that it has “ghosted donors” and may have mismanaged philanthropic gifts.

“Meanwhile, many clinics are underfunded and operate at a deficit,” noted WSJ. “Some former executives said the national office’s outspoken progressive agenda can make it harder for affiliates to gain the support of local and state governments. Over the past two decades, clinics have closed or left the network. (Planned Parenthood would not provide specific numbers.)”

Previously, over the course of one year alone, Planned Parenthood lost 400,000 donors.

However, PP’s latest report for 2023-24 revealed the abortion corporation had lost another 73,000 “active individual contributors,” to a new low of 503,000 for 2023-24. This is a nearly 13% decrease from the 576,000 reported the prior year (2022-23) and 31% from the 727,000 reported in 2021-22.

In addition, private donations were down 31%, falling from $997.5M in 2022-23 to $684M for 2023-24.

But despite donor outrage, Planned Parenthood recorded over $684M in private revenue last year, because, according to a former senior executive, “outrage tends to fuel donations; the more restrictions on abortion, the more it benefits the national office.”

Editor’s Note, 8/15/25: This post has been updated to correct the donor loss.

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