GOP to comb Planned Parenthood's finances

By: Times-Dispatch Staff | The Associated Press
Published: September 28, 2011

WASHINGTON --

A Republican-led House panel has asked the Planned Parenthood Federation of America to hand over more than a decade's worth of documents in a probe of whether the organization improperly spends public money on abortions.

Democrats and Planned Parenthood supporters say the 90-year-old group is audited regularly and publicly and that the probe is the latest Republican run at shutting it down.

At issue is whether taxpayers are unwittingly underwriting elective abortions, in violation of federal law. Absolutely not, says Planned Parenthood. But congressional Republicans are not so sure.

Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest provider of abortions and an array of other health services, is at the center of the fight. Republicans portray the organization as focused on performing abortions, and charge that taxpayer funds for family planning and other health care services indirectly subsidized that role.

They've launched multiple efforts to bar federal money from the group as long as it provides abortions. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America — the formal name of the organization — says taxpayer money is strictly separated.

"The committee has questions about the policies in place and actions undertaken by PPFA and its affiliates relating to its use of federal funding and its compliance with federal restrictions on the funding of abortions," Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee, wrote in a Sept. 15 letter to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.

Due by the end of the month: internal audits of how much Planned Parenthood received and spent in government money from 1998 to 2010. Stearns also requests any state audits of PPFA for the last 20 years that have not been made public, as well as a description for how "segregation between family planning and abortion services is accomplished."

"The American taxpayer does not want to be in the business of abortion, and this investigation is an important first step toward ending public funding of the nation's largest abortion provider," said Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, which earlier this year presented its own study on Planned Parenthood to Stearns' committee.