by Eric Scheidler
CHICAGO, Aug. 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Planned Parenthood provides over 330,000 abortions every year and brings in about a billion dollars annually, but is still fighting to protect its government subsidies - amounting to hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars sent to its clinics every year.
If today’s current crop of the super wealthy can’t find anything better to do with their money than support organizations that are being heavily funded by taxpayers, maybe President Obama is right when he says billionaires need to pay more taxes. Or perhaps organizations that receive five-figure and even seven-figure private donations shouldn’t be demanding handouts from taxpayers.
America’s largest abortion provider has been crying “foul” ever since the movement to defund Planned Parenthood began sweeping the country. Voter-approved measures have stripped Planned Parenthood of state taxpayer monies in Kansas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas, New Hampshire, and most recently, North Carolina. In Washington, DC, when the House of Representatives voted to slash funding to Planned Parenthood via a measure in the federal budget bill, the initiative did not pass in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
An August 8, 2011, Crain’s Chicago Business feature titled, “The women keeping threats to Planned Parenthood at bay,” profiled the group’s support by three big donors. Helen Zell, labeled by Crain’s along with her husband Sam as a “billionaire philanthropist,” advocates publicly funded abortion, birth control and sex education.
The 69-year-old has pledged $600,000 over three years to Planned Parenthood’s near north side operation, and she has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Chicago’s ACLU to promote abortion. Crain’s quotes her as saying, “I want to get the most bang for my buck.” Along with Zell, Illinois Planned Parenthood is receiving big money from Democratic fundraiser Laura Tucker and also from one of Planned Parenthood’s pro bono lawyers, Fay Clayton, who has given $50,000 to the Aurora abortion site.
With this kind of support from private donors one must ask why Planned Parenthood insists they deserve taxpayer funding as well. If donors are ready to step up and fill the gap, why are they fighting tooth and claw for every dollar, claiming that their centers will close down without this funding?
Even people on the ‘pro-choice’ side have got to be wondering why an organization that can hit up the likes of Helen Zell for a million bucks needs any taxpayer funding.
Note: Eric Scheidler is the executive director of the Pro-Life Action League
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