Kerby Anderson

We often hear the campaign slogan “Defund Planned Parenthood.” But we don’t always hear why government should defund this organization. Alexandra DeSanctis has put together four arguments for defunding Planned Parenthood because she is concerned that pro-life politicians need to learn how to articulate them.

The first argument is that Planned Parenthood performs the most abortions in the US, even as our abortion rate steadily drops. Organizations like the Guttmacher Institute report that the number of abortions performed in America has been dropping since the 1990s while the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood facilities has doubled.

Second, Planned Parenthood offers very few necessary health-care services. The past president tried to argue they were providing all sorts of tests and screenings. As I mentioned in an earlier commentary, the current president makes it clear that abortion is their service and doesn’t even try that hard to talk about other services.

A third argument is the fact that there are better health-care options than Planned Parenthood. Just look at the numbers. Planned Parenthood claims to have about 600 clinics nationwide. Meanwhile, there are more than 13,500 federally qualified health-care centers. In fact, rural health clinics in the US outnumber Planned Parenthood locations 20 to 1.

Finally, Planned Parenthood is a progressive political action group much more than it is a nonpartisan health-care organization. Just look at how much money the organization doles out to elect politicians who favor abortion providers. When a state government passes a law that restricts abortion in any way, Planned Parenthood is one of the first groups to file a lawsuit.

If pro-life politicians want to be effective in this message war, they need to remember these four important arguments for defunding Planned Parenthood.