Planned Parenthood announced this week that it will spend $45 million on the 2020 elections, largely on Democratic candidates’ campaigns. This will be the abortion provider’s biggest electoral expenditure yet, and it should reveal something about what Planned Parenthood stands for and what it aims to accomplish.
Throughout its history, Planned Parenthood has struggled with its public identity. Often, it seemed the organization was split down the middle, with one side pulling it toward a healthcare-only focus and the other urging it to put abortion first. When Planned Parenthood’s board ousted President Leana Wen last summer, it became clear the organization made up its mind: It would do away with Wen’s healthcare strategy and focus solely on abortion.
These recent political donations are the fiscal embodiment of this new strategy. They’ve solidified Planned Parenthood’s status not as a healthcare provider but as a political organization with one goal: to service abortions and profit from them.
Planned Parenthood is still trying to disguise its political intentions behind nonexistent healthcare priorities. But the organization has a new strategy for dealing with criticism: blame the pro-life movement.
“Planned Parenthood is not ‘political,’” Alexis McGill Johnson, the organization’s new acting president, wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post last year. “It has been politicized — and not by us.”
Conservatives, supported by the Trump administration, left Planned Parenthood with no choice but to accept the politicization of abortion and abandon its healthcare priorities, McGill Johnson claimed. “Providing healthcare is meaningless if people cannot access it,” she argued. And by “healthcare,” she means abortion. Vaccinations, well-women exams, and other basic services would still be available at Planned Parenthood clinics even if the government defunded it entirely and the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Planned Parenthood’s supporters have argued that asking the organization to step out of politics is like asking it to roll over and accept defeat. But no one is asking Planned Parenthood to become apolitical. After all, the pro-life movement has several explicitly political advocacy groups, such as the Susan B. Anthony List. And abortion is, unfortunately, a political issue. It is a cultural issue, too, but one that ultimately depends on the courts and the laws, and, thus, politics.
All we’re asking for is honesty. Johnson can try to argue that Planned Parenthood isn’t political, but it is. And the $45 million check it just wrote to the Democratic Party proves as much.
The organization needs to be upfront about its intentions, too. Planned Parenthood would like to do much more than just preserve access to abortion; it would also like to expand it, and it would, if given the chance. Already, Planned Parenthood has successfully convinced the Democratic Party to abandon the traditional “safe, legal, and rare” standard for a vague guideline defined by immediate and unrestricted access.
Planned Parenthood is putting tens of millions of dollars toward the political battle, but, culturally, it’s losing. Last year, 48% of the public said they’d support legislation to withhold taxpayer funds from Planned Parenthood, and more than 61% support strict abortion restrictions.
Planned Parenthood has spent years hiding behind excuses and lies, but clearly the public sees it for what it is. It’s time Planned Parenthood owned up to it.
