Four in Ten Children Are Born Out-Of-Wedlock

The Government Accountability Office, or the GAO, has agreed to investigate the use of federal funds by Planned Parenthood. The probe was announced by Representatives Diane Black (R–TN), Pete Olson (R–TX), my old congressman Chris Smith (R–NJ) and Senator David Vitter (R–LA).
The announcement comes just as Planned Parenthood, which received over half a billion dollars in tax dollars in one year alone, faces numerous accusations of fraud and claims of unsafe conditions at some of its abortion clinics.

Despite the organization’s prominence—performing roughly one of every four abortions in America—Planned Parenthood has enjoyed taxpayer funding to the tune of millions of dollars in annual surpluses. Planned Parenthood received over $542 million in taxpayer dollars during the year 2011 alone, while performing an astonishing record 333,964 abortions. In that year, like too many before it, Planned Parenthood saw a very excessive revenue stream, reporting excess revenues exceeding $87 million and net assets of more than $1.2 billion, despite an increasing amount of taxpayer dollars being allocated to them.

The announcement of the GAO’s investigation comes just a few weeks after Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast agreed to pay over $4 million to settle claims of Medicaid fraud. State audits of so-called “family planning” programs have indicated similar abuse and fraudulent practices by Planned Parenthood affiliates to the whopping tune of over $8 million across some 12 states. The successful abortion provider is also currently entangled in at least four whistleblower lawsuits claiming that Planned Parenthood in fact overbilled Medicaid programs frequently.

Planned Parenthood, even though they claim to care for women’s rights, has repeatedly shown an apparent willingness to ignore sex trafficking of minor girls and allegedly turned a blind eye to unsafe and unsanitary conditions in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and elsewhere.

Just last week, former nurses at a Planned Parenthood in Delaware testified before state lawmakers, making the claim that the clinic that performed dangerous “after hours” abortions had also failed to inform hundreds of women who tested positive for infections.

Even outside the walls of its clinics, Planned Parenthood’s legislative interests increasingly diverge from the views of most Americans. The organization has repeatedly opposed legal protections for infants born after botched abortions and opposes restrictions on late-term abortions, even though a majority of women support such policies.

Seventy-two Members of Congress who made the request for a GAO investigation asked the government watchdog agency to specify the amount, source, and expenditure of federal tax dollars by Planned Parenthood and five other organizations that provide or promote abortion here and abroad.

Earlier this year, lawmakers Black and Vitter introduced the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would have removed federal taxpayer support for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers under Title X family planning grants.