Planned Parenthood won some big political battles in 2015, but the massive women’s health and abortion provider has quietly been contracting its services around the country and relying more heavily on government funds.
The group operated fewer health centers and performed fewer services during its fiscal year ending June 30 compared with the year prior, according to an annual report released in late December. And now 43 percent of its revenue comes from government reimbursements, compared with 41 percent previously.
The report comes at the end of perhaps the most difficult public relations year Planned Parenthood has ever experienced, as a series of undercover videos prompted a heated Republican-led quest in Congress to ban the group from receiving taxpayer funding. States followed suit, with six starting investigations into the group and seven trying to block its public funding.
The group, which didn’t respond to a request for comment on its latest report, has largely blamed the recent decline in its clinics and services on stricter new regulations on abortion clinics passed by conservative states. It says recent political attacks just reflect its importance to women across the U.S.
“We are at a critical moment in our history,” wrote Planned Parenthood Chairwoman Jill Lafer and President Cecile Richards. “Over the past several months, we have been tested in every way imaginable — and have emerged stronger than ever. No one would bother attacking Planned Parenthood if we didn’t matter.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi mocked Republicans for their anti-Planned Parenthood efforts in a year-end video titled “House GOP’s Top 10 Moments of Obstruction, Dysfunction and Distraction in 2015” that her office released Thursday.
Included as number six on the list was a moment in September when Richards called out House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz for presenting her with data that he first said came from her group, but later admitted was culled from an anti-abortion organization.
Despite Republicans’ best efforts, however, Planned Parenthood finished the year with something of a bang. The group successfully rebuffed GOP attempts to block its federal funds, with Congress agreeing to a year-end funding bill that doesn’t include any changes to current policy. And several federal judges have said states can’t block Planned Parenthood’s funding, including one appeals judge in Utah Thursday.
At the same time, Planned Parenthood’s services and centers are on the decline. The group has reduced the number of its clinics from about 700 to 661 over the last two fiscal years and performed nearly 11 percent fewer health services, it reported. Pregnancy tests and treatments for urinary tract infections were the only health services the group offered more of last year, although its adoption referrals were up as well.
Abortions at Planned Parenthood centers were also slightly down in the latest fiscal year, falling 3,600 to 323,999 from the year before.
And as it has fought the defunding effort in Congress, prompted by a series of undercover videos from abortion foe David Daleiden showing some officials discussing compensation for aborted fetal tissue, Planned Parenthood has been raising fewer private donations and relying more heavily on the public purse.
The group raised 27 percent of its revenue from private donations last year, compared with 30 percent the year before. Over the same period, government payments increased by three percentage points.
While conservatives have always disliked that Planned Parenthood gets taxpayer dollars by offering medical services to poor women, they dramatically amped up their quest to block the funds this year after the Daleiden videos surfaced.
No one has proven that Planned Parenthood broke any laws — and the group maintains its innocence — yet the videos put the group on the defensive since they featured some of its top officials discussing compensation for supplying the tissue to a fake medical tissue company.
Besides pushing hard for the defunding measure to be included in the year-end spending bill, House Republicans have formed a special committee to investigate the laws and public policy surrounding the acquisition of fetal tissue over the next year. As the committee seeks to keep attention on the issue in 2016, Planned Parenthood is likely to face continued attacks from the Right.
Nearly every leading Republican contender for the White House has said the group’s federal funds should be blocked. And the House is scheduled to vote next week on a separate bill defunding Planned Parenthood, although that will certainly be vetoed by President Obama.
