Will more cash for Planned Parenthood be President Obama’s legacy?

During Barack Obama’s eight years in office, he has granted abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood just about everything they wished for. Under his presidency, taxpayer dollars funneled to Planned Parenthood’s coffers increased substantially, despite the fact that their focus is primarily abortion. Since 2008, Planned Parenthood has, according to their own records, aborted 2,298,031 preborn babies.

In 2008, Planned Parenthood received $363.2 million in government grants and committed 324,008 abortions. President Obama increased Planned Parenthood’s funding by almost 26 percent his first year in office, giving the abortion giant $487.4 million dollars. By 2011, tax dollars to Planned Parenthood increased another 10 percent to $542.4 million. Then, in 2014, tax funding rose an additional 2 percent to $553.7 million. Overall, from 2008 through Planned Parenthood’s 2014-2015 fiscal year, tax dollars to the abortion business rose by almost 35 percent — at a time when many Americans were suffering from economic stagnation. Planned Parenthood poured millions of dollars into electing Obama as president, as well as the campaigns of others in Congress who support them. And this 2016 election year, they’ve pledged to spend at least $20 million to elect Hillary Clinton.

It should come as no surprise that the most pro-abortion president the nation has elected so far received a Planned Parenthood wish list early on, via their Transition team. According to Change.org, Obama’s Presidential Transition Project brought together hundreds of people to lay out the agenda and priorities for the Obama Administration, and was tasked with reviewing hundreds of programs in the federal government.

Planned Parenthood wasted little time in submitting their agenda to the Team.

In an online document submitted by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund to the Obama/Biden Transition Project, the nation’s largest provider of abortions laid out their radical agenda… and the administration complied:

• Restore affordable birth control

Under the Affordable Care Act, otherwise dubbed ObamaCare, the administration not only reduced the cost of birth control; it imposed, with few exceptions, a “contraceptive mandate” which has forced insurance companies to cover (with free of out-of-pocket charge to all women) at least one method from each of the 18 FDA-approved contraception categories.

• Repeal the Global Gag Rule and restore UNFPA Funding

In early 2009, President Obama signed an executive order reversing the Mexico-City Policy, a ban that prohibited funding to groups that provide abortion. The policy, dubbed the “Global Gag Rule” by abortion rights groups, was originally initiated by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, canceled by President Bill Clinton, and reinstated in 2001 by President George W. Bush.

Since Obama’s reversal of the ban, the United States has given the UNFPA over $169,402,000 (as of fiscal year 2015).

• Reverse the HHS refusal rule

Obama also moved swiftly to rescind the HHS Refusal Rule, otherwise known as the Conscience Law. For years, federal laws prohibited discrimination against health care professionals who refuse to perform abortions or sterilizations, or to provide referrals for them on religious or moral grounds. According to the Washington Post, the conscience law enacted by the Bush administration was implemented during his final days in office and “would have cut off federal funding for thousands of entities, including state and local governments, hospitals, health plans and clinics, if they did not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists or other employees who refused to participate in care they felt violated their personal, moral or religious beliefs. It also would have required all those entities to formally detail how they were complying.”

In 2011, the Obama administration gutted most of the regulation. Despite his claim that the regulations still contain conscience protections, pro-lifers point out the the Administration is clearly ignoring complaints.

• End Failing Abstinence-Only Programs -and Invest in Comprehensive Sex Education that Protects Young People’s Health and Safety

This promise has been gradual over the years. But, according to a report in the New York Times, in Obama’s proposed federal budget for 2017, he has removed all funding for abstinence-only education, by cutting a $10 million per year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services that supports such programs.

And, as Live Action News has previously reported, a new rule proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services could prevent states from blocking Title X funding to abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood. As has been the case with this administration, the move could mean millions more in taxpayer dollars for the nation’s abortion market.

• Increase Funding to $1 Billion Dollars for International Family Planning

In 2008, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) along with their US counterpart (PPFA) issued a similar document to the Obama Administration. In that request they petitioned the president to increase federal spending on international family planning by ONE BILLION dollars, writing:

Current funding is $461 million for USAID’s overseas family planning program…We urge you to include $1 billion for international family planning programs in your first budget submitted to Congress.

The one billion dollar request may have been a little too high even for Obama, but that did not stop him from increasing international dollars for their cause, with Guttmacher calling it a “record high amount”:

In FY 2010, funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s family planning and reproductive health program would be increased to $543 million—$48 million above the current level. In addition, the administration would contribute $50 million to the United Nations Population Fund. All told, at $593 million, the administration is recommending a record high amount for the U.S. global reproductive health effort.

In addition, figures published by the Congressional Research Service, reveal how drastic the increases were. The report states:

• FY2013—In February 2012, President Obama requested a total of $642.7 million in international family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) funding, including $39 million for UNFPA.
• FY2012—In December 2011, President Obama signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, which directs that not less than $575 million should be made available for FP/RH activities. It also states that $35 million shall be made available for UNFPA.
• FY2011—FY2011 appropriations for international family planning and reproductive health are included in the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, which directs that not less than $575 million should be made available for international FP/RH activities. It also allocated $40 million for UNFPA.

In reality, the appropriated dollars were much higher than originally requested, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The chart to the left shows that by 2010, Obama had allocated $715 million to their cause. From 2008 to 2009 federal tax dollars spent on international family planning increased by nearly 34 percent. In the years following 2009, US contributions were not as high, but government dollars ranged from $600 million to nearly $640 million.

Tragically, as the president’s second term slowly grinds to an end, Obama’s legacy may end up being about how (with few exceptions) he granted an organization founded in eugenics, steeped in questionable practices, and driven by abortion, their every wish.