It’s Time For Congress To Defund Planned Parenthood

For more than 50 years, despite voters’ moral and economic objections to funding the baby-killing industry, Planned Parenthood has benefited from the flow of American tax dollars. The 119th Congress, in conjunction with the Trump administration, has a chance to rectify that by defunding the abortion behemoth once and for all.

The last time a GOP trifecta had a chance to help eliminate taxpayers’ roles in the abortion industry’s schemes failed when Republican Sen. John McCain voted against the majority of his party’s plans to undo the fallout caused by Obamacare in 2017.

Eight years later, the GOP once again controls the House, Senate, and the White House, which means they are adequately equipped to remedy Republicans’ previous mistake and ensure Planned Parenthood is no longer a multi-million dollar benefactor of tax dollar disbursements.

Most members of the red party claim they are pro-life, so they shouldn’t have a problem voting to dismantle the flow of federal funds to the industry responsible for killing countless unborn babies on moral grounds.

Modern science, medicine, many states, and even pro-abortion biologists have all acknowledged that life starts the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg. For decades, the GOP was and is the only party that has dared to affirm that unborn babies are endowed with the same natural right to life that extrauterine humans are and deserve protection. This commitment (albeit sometimes more performative than productive) repeatedly earns Republicans the votes of countless conservative Americans who stake their support for candidates on how they view life in the womb.

Even outside of preserving the lives of future generations and ensuring the end of overwhelmingly unpopular taxpayer-funded abortions, however, there are plenty of good reasons why Planned Parenthood and its abortionist allies are undeserving of subsidization by the U.S. government.

Misconduct And Mistreatment Abound

In addition to ending unborn lives or botching their attempts to do so, Planned Parenthood has a history of allegedly flouting federal law and wasting tax dollars, dispensing castrating drugs to confused minors, reportedly trafficking baby body parts, enabling abusers, allegedly performing unlicensed procedures and violating health and safety standards, opposing free speech, and conducting procedures that have resulted in mothers’ deaths.

Pro-abortion groups and corporate media claim that federal funds currently allocated to abortion businesses don’t technically fund ending unborn lives because that would violate the Hyde Amendment. But this is untrue because Hyde does not apply to abortions for women pregnant due to rape or for women suffering from a life-thretening condition where a physician deems abortion necessary.

Even if it was true, however, there’s no doubt that cash like the approximately $699.3 million Planned Parenthood alone received from the government between 2022, around the same time as the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, and 2023 helped keep the abortion giant afloat. That funding also undoubtedly gave Planned Parenthood the financial leeway to spend its hundreds of millions in donation dollars on radical abortion activism such as ballot measure battles seeking to enshrine unpopular abortion through birth in state constitutions.

Planned Parenthood and its pro-abortion allies have also said that cutting its federal funding will increase direct spending and keep its facilities from offering preventative care like cancer screenings. Yet, Planned Parenthood cancer screenings and other preventative procedures dropped by 70 percent between 2010 and 2023, according to an analysis from the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Meanwhile, approximately 97 percent of the abortion giant’s “pregnancy resolution services” between 2021-2022 were abortions, not prenatal oversight or adoptions. In addition, while Planned Parenthood was racking up hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, abortions executed by its facilities likely became one of the leading causes of death in the U.S.

Planned Parenthood wants to pretend its 600 or so facilities are filling a vacuum in women’s health that isn’t and can’t be accomplished by anyone else. There are more than 2,600 pro-life pregnancy centers scattered across U.S. states, however, that not only protect and save the lives of babies and women, but also provide cheap or free prenatal care, screenings, pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, parenting education programs, and physical resources like diapers, wipes, formula, and clothing to parents in need.

By all accounts, Planned Parenthood is not only outnumbered but also outperformed by pregnancy centers that receive far less federal funding than it does annually.

Stars Aligning

Mere weeks into President Donald Trump’s second term, the White House has already signaled an openness to eradicating the flow of tax dollars to the abortion giant. Just before the 2024 Election Day, Vice President J.D. Vance declared that the Trump administration’s “view is we don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions.”

“That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around. It will remain a consistent view,” he said.

Trump acted on that view when he signed an executive memo aimed at keeping Americans’ tax dollars from landing in the pockets of abortionists overseas. Now, it’s the homeland’s turn.

In his quest to “help end federal overspending” per the president’s orders, Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk recently pledged to “take aim” at “nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.” Unless Congress acts to eliminate future funding for the abortion industry, however, any budget cuts Musk accomplishes will be virtually undone.

While it’s true that Trump could put a dent in Planned Parenthood’s benefactor status by redirecting Title X funding, as he did in his first administration, codifying cutting off funds from America’s abortion giants is still necessary. Congress could address much of that nearly $700 million through budget reconciliation, which would only require a simple majority, something the GOP possesses, to pass.

There’s no good reason why Republicans, most of whom are self-professed pro-lifers, should keep funding the abortion industry. If anything, the GOP should feel emboldened by the Trump administration’s zeal for pulling taxpayer money from undeserving causes to keep Planned Parenthood from harming women and babies on Americans’ dime.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.