Q&A: A look at Planned Parenthood and the defunding debate

KANSAS CITY, Mo. Controversy, thy name is Planned Parenthood.

At Planned Parenthood centers across the country, demonstrators on both sides of the abortion debate face off with regularity.

A full-time security officer watches the lobby of the Overland Park, Kan., health center to keep the peace.

Debate over whether the federal government should provide funding for the group heated up over the summer with the release of secretly recorded videos showing Planned Parenthood employees talking about providing tissue and organs from aborted fetuses to medical researchers the latest tactic in the abortion wars.

Laura McQuade, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, called the videos, recorded by the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress, a “coordinated attack on women’s rights.”

On the heels of the video releases, anti-abortion Republicans in Congress are threatening to shut down the government this month if the federal government doesn’t pull federal funding of Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood receives more than $500 million of its $1.3 billion annual budget from federal and state programs.

On Friday the House of Representatives passed two abortion-related bills one aimed at cutting federal funds to Planned Parenthood, the other at punishing doctors who don’t give medical care to infants surviving abortion attempts.

From all the controversy you might think that abortion services are the only ones that Planned Parenthood provides or that Americans don’t support Planned Parenthood’s work.

But that’s not the whole story.

Q: What is Planned Parenthood?

A: With approximately 700 health centers across the United States, Planned Parenthood is one of the nation’s largest providers of women’s health care and family planning. It provides services to men and teens, too.

About 2.7 million women and men visit Planned Parenthood health centers across the country every year.

Q: What does it do?

A: Preventing pregnancy is the group’s historical focus. Eighty percent of clients receive services to prevent unintended pregnancy, according to the group. For instance, you can get free condoms at any of its health centers.

But here’s what else Planned Parenthood provides in the United States every year: Nearly 400,000 Pap tests, nearly 500,000 breast exams, and about 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including 700,000 HIV tests.

It offers the HPV vaccine against cervical cancer, gives men referrals for free or low-cost vasectomies and participates in research projects concerning women’s health.

It also offers sex education to schools and community groups.

Q: What about abortions?

A: In its most recent annual report from 2013-14, Planned Parenthood said it performed 328,000 abortions.

In 2011, its latest count, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 730,000 abortions were performed that year in the United States. But since then, that number has been estimated to be closer to 1 million.

In that 2013-14 annual report, Planned Parenthood said that abortion services accounted for 3 percent of nearly 10.6 million services it provided.

Republicans in Congress who want to eliminate federal funding of the group and abortion opponents, however, say that abortions make up 94 percent of Planned Parenthood’s pregnancy services even 94 percent of all of its services.

But no one can say for sure what the percentage is, not even Planned Parenthood, according to FactCheck.org, a nonprofit project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

Q: Who are its clients?

A: Planned Parenthood says that 84 percent of its clients in the United States are 20 years old and older. Many are low to moderate income. Everyone receives services whether they can afford to pay or not.

According to the organization, it is often the only source of family planning, or any other medical services for that matter, for many women it serves.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated this month that the proposed Planned Parenthood bills in Congress would cut off as many as 630,000 people from health care services while saving taxpayers about $235 million.

Q: Where does it get its funding?

A: Planned Parenthood uses state, federal, sometimes local, and nongovernment funds. The most recent data for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2014 show that the organization received $528.4 million in government money, local and federal, for its $1.3 billion annual budget.

The majority, or 75 percent, of federal funding for Planned Parenthood comes through Medicaid, which operates with federal and state money. The rest of it flows from Title X, a federal family planning program that primarily serves lower-income residents.

If Congress ever shut off the federal spigot, states could continue to fund the group.

Q: Can federal funds be used for abortions?

A: Yes and no.

Title X does not allow federal funds to be used for abortions. Medicaid, however, allows government money to be spent on abortions in very limited cases.

The 1977 Hyde Amendment said that federal Medicaid money could only be used to pay for abortions in cases of rape, incest or to protect the mother’s life.

Some states, though, expanded the circumstances under which they would provide funding for “medically necessary” abortions.

Q: What does the public think about Planned Parenthood?

A: The American public’s opinion of the group has dropped slightly as of late.

According to a Monmouth University poll released last month after the videos were released 37 percent of Americans view Planned Parenthood favorably. That number was 55 percent three years ago.

But 47 percent of registered voters opposed efforts to cut off federal funding, while 42 percent favored defunding the group.

Q: What are the chances of Congress defunding Planned Parenthood?

A: Not good. Despite the recent efforts of congressional Republicans, Democrats in the Senate have enough votes to block the effort. And last week the White House said President Barack Obama would veto a defunding bill if it reached his desk.

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