Is this true: Federal Dollars do not pay for abortions?

[PRmerger]

So I saw a meme on Facebook that said this (summarizing)

“With very few exceptions for rape victims and women whose pregnancies could kill them, no federal dollars are allocated for abortions. You’ve already done it, in 1976, you kept your precious tax dollars from funding abortions”.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7...UmCYUrY6ydkiavpQ92k03O9cviRgJFrGxjlNsFGpg=s85

True?

 

[tseleehw]

Even if it is true that federal money is not used by organizations like Planned Parenthood directly for abortions, that money subsidizes their other services which leaves more money available for abortion related services. Federal money is helping pay for abortions, one way or another.

 

[signit]

There was a thread on this recently:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=1037225

The full report:

lozierinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/plannedparenthood-profit-no-matter-what.pdf

They’re not supposed to. But, according to page 8 of the report, according to federal audits, they have billed for abortion services, and have “unbundled” abortion-related services (counseling, etc.) so as to bill for them.

 

[Richard_White]

Yes, it is called the Hyde Amendment, and it has been in place since 1976. It bars federal funds from going directly to abortions, except in the case of rape, incest, or grave danger to the mother’s health. Thanks be to God that at least it exists.

The specifics have changed over the years, but the current text is as follows:

Public Law 111-8
H.R. 1105, Division F, Title V, General Provisions

SEC. 507. (a) None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for any abortion.

(b) None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.

(c) The term `health benefits coverage’ means the package of services covered by a managed care provider or organization pursuant to a contract or other arrangement.

SEC. 508. (a) The limitations established in the preceding section shall not apply to an abortion–

(1) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest; or

(2) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed.

(b) Nothing in the preceding section shall be construed as prohibiting the expenditure by a State, locality, entity, or private person of State, local, or private funds (other than a State’s or locality’s contribution of Medicaid matching funds).

(c) Nothing in the preceding section shall be construed as restricting the ability of any managed care provider from offering abortion coverage or the ability of a State or locality to contract separately with such a provider for such coverage with State funds (other than a State’s or locality’s contribution of Medicaid matching funds).

Hillary Clinton and the 2016 Democratic party platform called for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment for the first time…

May God have mercy on the United States.

 

[Beryllos]

Even if it is true that federal money is not used by organizations like Planned Parenthood directly for abortions, that money subsidizes their other services which leaves more money available for abortion related services. Federal money is helping pay for abortions, one way or another.

Yes, Paul Ryan recently explained that federal money to Planned Parenthood is “fungible.” I had to look that up. It means that federal money and other Planned Parenthood funds are interchangeable. Federal money applied to non-abortion expenses frees up other Planned Parenthood money so that it can be used for abortion. Without the federal money, Planned Parenthood would have less other monies available to spend on abortion.

 

[Cathoholic]

Is this true: Federal Dollars do not pay for abortions?

No. It is not true at least in an indirect sense (and possibly in a direct sense too although we don’t know for sure).

---

The federal funding that the abortion institutions get from our US Federal Government are monies that are mutually interchangeable with other funds (or “fungible” as Conressman Paul Ryan tells us - you can see it here).

And according to Population Research Institute (pop.org), there has ALSO been evidence of a more direct funnelling of US monies for abortion (even though that is not supposed to occur), especially via the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) and to Planned Parenthood here in the US.

This evidence was presented to Congress which then stripped such UNFPA funding (under the Bush Administration). The Obama administration promptly (in 2009) restored US taxpayer payouts to UNFPA.

From an older post (for historical context) from the Population Research Institute . . .

For many years it’s been illegal to use U.S. funds for abortion. But for a long time, prolifers in Congress were powerless to enforce that law because they had no solid proof that the U.N. was up to its eyeballs in killing preborn babies.

So PRI sent specially-trained investigators to dozens of countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. We proved that the U.N. Population Fund was illegally bankrolling vast numbers of abortions with our tax dollars …

… we interviewed women victimized by U.N. abortionists. We recorded dates, times and places. We got the names of some of the abortion providers. Then we brought some of the victims to Washington, D.C. where they personally told their stories of U.N. abortion abuse to horrified pro-life Members of Congress.

Armed with this PRI research, Congressional pro-lifers swiftly shut down U.S. funding of the U.N. Population Fund!

In fact, U.N. and other abortion groups have been frozen out of a whopping $790 million of taxpayer funding, thanks to the research PRI has given to pro-lifers in Congress!

But now, with Obama in the White House, pro-abortionists in Washington are waging a fierce battle to pass the Freedom of Choice Act—legislation that is widely regarded as worse than Roe v. Wade. . . .

PRI also inflicts MAJOR damage on Planned Parenthood

. . . When pro-life Members of Congress needed proof that Planned Parenthood was illegally tapping the U.S. treasury to pay for wholesale abortion, Congressional pro-lifers turned to PRI for the facts they needed—and then Congress stripped Planned Parenthood of $195 million in annual U.S. funding! . . .

. . . . PRI is sounding the alarm and mobilizing pro-lifers against Planned Parenthood’s all-out attack on America’s tiniest minority—Alaska’s Eskimos

PRI is leading the educational fight against Planned Parenthood’s massive abortion assaults on America’s blacks and Hispanics . . . .

pop.org/content/help-stop-foca

This battle is still going on.

This from just a couple of days ago from LifeSiteNews (emphasis mine) . . .

Fri Jan 13, 2017 - 5:31 am EST

Nailed it: Paul Ryan’s perfect answer to why Planned Parenthood should be defunded

January 13, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan succinctly and calmly laid out the case for redirecting taxpayer dollars from abortion goliath Planned Parenthood to federal community health centers at a CNN townhall Thursday night.

Ryan, R-WI, explained what pro-lifers have long said about Planned Parenthood: giving it money that doesn’t specifically fund abortions still helps the abortion-centered organization, allowing it to spend taxpayer money on other things that strengthen its business model.

“First of all, I wanna make sure you get the care you need. We wanna make sure that all women get the kind of care they need, like preventative screening,” Ryan told a George Washington University graduate student who asked where women would go if Planned Parenthood lost its federal funding. "We believe that this can better be done by . . .

. . . .“Of course, taxpayer dollars don’t fund abortions, right now, right, because of the Hyde Amendment?” Tapper asked.

“Right, but they get a lot of money and, you know, **money’s fungible and it effectively floats these organizations which then use other money,” said Ryan. “You know, money’s fungible. **You don’t have this controversy by funding health centers.” . . .

lifesitenews.com/news/speaker-of-the-house-paul-ryan-explains-why-planned-parenthood-shouldnt-get

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) was introduced by Senator Obama in 2007 (after failed attempts by others too, before this) and went nowhere. Senator Hillary Clinton, and others (such as then Senator Boxer, Feinstein, etc) also have advocated for FOCA.

FOCA would invert laws outlawing direct taxpayer abortion funding to making US taxpayer support of abortion (transparently) not only legal but required some have argued.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Choice_Act

Barack Obama was an active advocate for FOCA.

From Wikipedia . . . .

. . . . on July 17, 2007, Obama declared, “The first thing I’d do, as president, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.”[4]

In a press conference on April 29, 2009, President Obama said that although he supports a woman’s right to choose, passage of the Freedom of Choice Act was “not highest legislative priority.”[5]

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[starshiptrooper]

If you give food stamps to a drug addict, you free up more of their money to buy drugs. Now apply that line of thought to the question at hand of you have your answer.

 

[AnnArbor]

If you give food stamps to a drug addict, you free up more of their money to buy drugs. Now apply that line of thought to the question at hand of you have your answer.

Wow. That’s a terrible analogy.

 

[Cathoholic]

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, criticized Barack Obama in 2009 for making his “first presidential decision to roll back the commonsense Mexico City Policy,” which she dismissed as an “abortion bailout."

“It’s unfortunate that President Obama has made subsidizing international abortion groups one of his first priorities, even as abortion numbers here at home are on the decline. America should respond to women’s needs in developing countries with real assistance that also upholds their dignity, not by promoting or paying for abortions,” Dannenfelser said. “I am disappointed by President Obama’s decision to bypass the will of American taxpayers and promote the radical agenda of Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby."

lifesitenews.com/news/trump-will-end-obama-funding-of-foreign-abortions-by-roe-anniversary-report

 

[Cathoholic]

From obamacareabortion.com/

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 1,036 of Obamacare plans sold in 2014 included abortion on demand. Unfortunately, it took many months and a government watchdog report to finally identify the abortion-covering plans for 2014.

For 2017 coverage, it was easier to find information about whether an Obamacare plan included abortion on demand due to new transparency requirements. However, what is still not transparent is that individuals purchasing plans that include abortion are required to pay a monthlyhidden abortion surcharge, the amount which remains unknown for each abortion-covering plan. Through the surcharge, a portion of each individual’s insurance premium goes into a separate fund used to pay for abortion on demand.

Our team has once again scoured the internet to get you information about abortion coverage. Click on your state to see what we have learned so far.*

*Please remember: The information available on this site is based on our research of plans and information as it becomes available to us. We have provided our findings and encourage you to contact us at info@obamacareabortion.com if you find additional or conflicting information about Obamacare insurance plans provided in your state.

Note: “Elective abortion” is used interchangeably throughout the website with “abortion on demand” or abortions for reasons other than rape, incest, or life of the mother. Because the language used by each insurance company to describe their abortion coverage policies varies, our research team did our best to clarify the abortion coverage and list plans accordingly.

And this from lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-u.s.-house-votes-to-permanently-ban-taxpayer-funding-of-abortion (bold mine)

. . . . The No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Act (HR 7), introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, makes permanent the so-called Hyde Amendment permanent. Thus far the amendment, which prohibits federal money from being used to fund abortions through Medicaid, has been subject to annual renewal. . . . .

. . . . . According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 1,036 of Obamacare plans sold in 2014 included abortion on demand. Other Obamacare plans lack transparency on their abortion funding.

Some Democrats took to the House floor to say that Obamacare doesn’t fund abortions, which Smith rebutted with GAO statistics. . . . .

 

[Theo520]

The federal Hyde Amendment restricts state Medicaid programs from using federal funds to cover abortions beyond the cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest. However, if a state chooses to, it can use its own funds to cover abortions in other circumstances.

Federal funds were used under Obama to support abortion services in foreign countries, but this was reversed by Trump.

 

[bluerose]

From Matt Walsh’s Facebook timeline (February 1, 2017)

---

I had an interesting exchange on Twitter this afternoon with a woman from Planned Parenthood’s board of directors. I asked her what percentage of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue comes from abortion. She told me 3 percent.

Now, this is a blatant, bald faced lie. The agents of the abortion industry are trained to lie on a whim. If history has taught us anything it’s that lies and murder always go hand in hand. Evil abhors the light of truth.

But what’s interesting about this lie is how completely it undermines everything else Planned Parenthood says. It so utterly destroys their own narrative that, if anything, they ought to be claiming that abortion accounts for MORE of its revenue than it actually does.
Here, I’ll show you what I mean: We know that Planned Parenthood performs around 330,000 abortions a year. We know that they don’t do abortions for free. We know that the average cost of an abortion is, conservatively, around 450 dollars.

Factoring it all together, by the most conservative estimate, Planned Parenthood earns about 150 million dollars a year, give or take, just from abortions. OK kids, time for a math quiz. If 150 million dollars represents “3 percent” of a company’s revenue, how much does that organization earn every year in total?

Answer: FIVE BILLION.

According to the lie that Planned Parenthood tells, they earn 5 billion dollars a year.
Well, that brings to mind two questions:

1. Why do they need 500 million dollars a year in tax funding if they pull in 5 billion a year?
2. Just how much are they charging their poor patients for all of these non-abortion services they always clamor on about? By their own claims, they bilk low income women of 5 billion a year – approximately 4.9 billion of which comes from non-abortion procedures. That would mean they’re charging exorbitant, unheard of, astronomical fees for their other alleged “health services.” That’s a scandal all its own. Not only should they be defunded but shutdown immediately and investigated for fraud!

You see, either Planned Parenthood is lying about the 3 percent figure or it’s lying about providing affordable health care to poor women. Both can’t be true. It’s mathematically impossible. Either this company has figured out a way to make 5 billion dollars by handing out birth control and conducting “cancer screening,” or it makes most of its money from abortion and just straight up lies with the “3 percent” shtick.

Which is it? They’re liars and killers either way, but which lie are they telling? And why are they lying to the country, and thus to women, about how they make their money and what their business actually entails? Why don’t they respect women enough to tell them the truth? How could anyone support an organization that refuses to be honest about these very basic things? They lie to women while demanding their undying loyalty? The arrogance is astounding.

Plus, you know, they kill babies. That’s still the most disgusting thing about them, even if they are a bunch of dirty, rotten, liars.