By Judy Keen
USA Today
Legislators in several states are trying to do what social conservatives in Congress failed to do last month: cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
The effort in Congress to end the flow of federal dollars to the organization brought the federal government to the brink of a shutdown. Now state legislatures — last year’s elections gave Republicans control of both chambers in 26 states — are taking aim at Planned Parenthood.
Federal law prohibits federal funding of abortions. Planned Parenthood gets government contracts and grants to provide family planning and health services.
Taxpayer dollars that go to Planned Parenthood don’t fund abortions directly, says President Carol Tobias of the National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion, but the money “is building their infrastructure. It is helping to attract clients.”
Planned Parenthood’s budget is about $1.1 billion a year, about a third of it from government funding. It serves about 3 million patients annually. Click here to continue reading.
