WISCONSIN
Wis. Allows Planned Parenthood to Get Millions in Taxpayer Funds
By: Brian Sikma | August 03, 2015
Each year, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin receives millions of dollars in federal Title X funds, and pro-life lawmakers have so far been unsuccessful in convincing their colleagues to end the practice. New videos revealing Planned Parenthood affiliates in other states admitting to dismembering unborn children and selling human fetal body parts have sparked a renewed public debate about the propriety of supporting such a controversial organization with taxpayer money.
Led by Republicans, the U.S. Senate is slated to vote on a measure that would ban Title X family planning dollars from going to Planned Parenthood. Title X is a program that funds family planning services, but recipients are barred from using money from Title X to directly provide abortions. There is no prohibition, however, on recipients using the money to pay for the overhead costs associated with maintaining an abortion clinic.
In Wisconsin, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, $3.19 million in Title X funds were awarded in fiscal year 2010. A 2014 report by the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), a pro-abortion group, noted that Planned Parenthood is the exclusive recipient of Title X funds in Wisconsin.
Planned Parenthood’s exclusive benefit from Title X funds spent in Wisconsin is also confirmed by the federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Population Affairs (OPA). An OPA report from June 2015 lists Planned Parenthood as the only recipient of Title X funding. A query of the OPA’s website for Title X providers in Wisconsin reveals 10 Planned Parenthood clinics receiving funding, with an additional 9 non-Planned Parenthood clinics also receiving some Title X funds.
The non-Planned Parenthood clinics that appear in the website query, according to NFPRHA, receive their Title X money from Planned Parenthood, which takes in all of the federal Title X money for Wisconsin, and spends and distributes it as it sees fit.
A federal HHS report from last year claims that $3.5 million in Title X funds will be spent in Wisconsin during fiscal year 2015.
While pro-life advocates in Congress debate how to go about denying Title X funds to Planned Parenthood with a supporter of pro-choice policies in the White House, lawmakers here could work with Gov. Scott Walker (R) to end the practice in Wisconsin.
Kansas and Texas have both successfully redirected Title X funds to family planning services that are not affiliated with an abortion provider like Planned Parenthood. Both states used a tiered approach that required state agencies to apply for Title X funds from the federal government, and then distribute those funds based on tiered priorities. County health centers and public clinics received first priority with curtained licensed clinic facilities the second priority for the funds. Planned Parenthood and abortion-providing organizations were placed in a third priority tier that ensures they are not specifically banned from receiving the funds, but in both states the Title X funds were completely allocated under the formula before any funds were available for organizations in the third tier.
State Rep. Andre Jacque (R) is circulating legislation that would establish a similarly tiered system in Wisconsin and, ultimately, allow Gov. Walker and legislative Republicans to deny Planned Parenthood Title X funds regardless of what happens at the federal level.
The tiered approach has withstood legal scrutiny, with a federal district court in Kansas preventing the law from going into effect, only to have its decision reversed, and the law upheld, by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kansas’ redirection of Title X funds resulted in Planned Parenthood shutting down one of its clinics in the state.
On the presidential campaign trail, Gov. Scott Walker announced his opposition to Title X funds going to Planned Parenthood, and his campaign launched an online petition urging Congress to deny taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood.
The petition on the Walker campaign website declares:
“The recent videos of Planned Parenthood doctors are disturbing and disgusting. When I first became Governor of Wisconsin, I defunded Planned Parenthood in my first budget and I just signed into law a prohibition on late term abortions. We need to defund Planned Parenthood across the country to ensure that no taxpayer money goes to fund these kind of vile acts. That’s why I’m calling on Congress to immediately take up legislation defunding this controversial organization.”
Whether or not state lawmakers will act to deny taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood using proven strategies from Kansas and Texas remains to be seen.