A Billion Dollar Business

The current global economic downturn does not appear to have affected PPFA Planned Parenthood of America (which is part of IPPF the largest abortion provider in the world).

The November 1, 2009 issue of The Non Profit Times ranked the top 100 non-profits (Charities) as per their 2008 income. PPFA is Number 16 out of almost 1.2 million non profits with an income of over 1 Billion dollars in 2008 ($1,023,300,000) – This is perhaps the first year it crossed the billion dollar threshold.

So where did all their money come from? There are four basic sources of income:

Program services amounted to $374,700,000 or 36.6%, Government support amounted to $349,600,000 or 34.2%, Public support amounted to $241,200,000 or 23.6%, Investment income amounted to $37, 800,000, 3.7% and other $20,000,000, 1.9%

The program services refer to the revenue received for whatever “services” such as abortion, the organization may have provided to its clients. It is particularly worth noting – given the current debate over abortion coverage in Congress’s health care proposals – that PPFA received $350 million from the US government in 2008 alone! Nearly one-fourth of revenues came from contributions from individuals and corporations. Also noteworthy is the nearly $38 million earned on investments in a year when the funds of most charities, pensions, individuals, and others scored significant losses.

So how was the money spent and how much? For 2008, PPFA spent a total of $949,300,00, as follows:

Program services $787,800,000, 83.0%, Administration $115,400,000, 12.1% Fundraising$46,100,000, 4.9%

Despite this expenditure however, as of 2008 PPFA had total assets of over $1.2 billion dollars.


My thanks to Vincenzina Santoro Chief United Nations Representative – American Family Association of New York, for her article on Planned Parenthood of America PPFA. I both quote and extrapolate from that article and have also looked at the PPFA financial statements for 2008.

Fiasco at 'Human Rights' meeting

We reported last week in advance of a pro-abortion meeting at University College Galway. We now have a report from Liam Gibson who attended the meeting on behalf of the society for the protection of Unborn Children (SPUC)

Liam Reports;

Roughly 100 people turned-up, mostly of student age as you would expect but there were members of staff and graduates as well. Each of the he speakers made their presentation without interruption and received polite applause. Once the floor was opened for questions, however, it was clear that a substantial section (if not most) of those attending the meeting were pro-life. One after another, members of the audience denounced the speakers and also the human rights centre for organising such a biased event whilst pretending to be neutral. The chairman allowed people a bit of time to complain but since they weren't asking questions he moved on to the next person only to hear another pro-life argument. Out of about 10 members of the audience to speak only two were not solidly pro-life. One was actually one of the organisers and another person asked a largely irrelevant question which appeared to little to do with abortion or human rights.

When the chairman called an end to the questions, Prof Eamon O'Dwyer who had tried to speak, interrupted him. At first the chairman refused to allow him to say anything and became clearly irritable when Prof O'Dwyer persisted. Once given the opportunity Prof O'Dwer began by explaining that he had been member of NUI for 33 years and had been part of the university’s governing body. He said that such a 'charade' would not have taken place during his time. He spoke about the 1983 referendum which acknowledged the right to life of children before birth, of Ireland's maternal mortality record (recognised by the World Health Organisation as the best in the world) and spoke of his experience working as a doctor in Africa.

The speakers were not impressive, and showed little command of the material. They made points which would have easily been refuted had the event been organised as a debate. Even Christina Zampas, was not impressive despite the reputation of the CRR. The Irish speakers were disorganised and their presentations were little more than a long rambling complaint about how little progress they were able to make.

Only the African speaker would have made any impression on a general audience. She had previously worked for IPPF and recited the same old slogans and highly speculative figures about deaths due to self-induced
abortions. Since she believed she was speaking to a friendly audience
she spoke candidly about using WHO guidelines, the Maputo protocols
and the Millennium Development Goal number 5 (on maternal mortality)
to widen the scope of abortion in Africa. Predictably she referred to
illegal abortions as "unsafe," implying that legalising abortion makes
it safe. One member of the audience pointed out that the two things
where not the same, adding the abortion is never safe for the baby.

I was able to ask the speaker from the north why after years of trying they had failed to make any progress and had lost the battle for public support. I think the IFPA were probably asking the same question after the meeting. They were clearly frustrated by the lack of support they found at their own event.

A fuller report can be viewed on John Smeaton's Blog

How to lower maternal mortality rates

A paper published in The Lancet has confirmed what pro-lifers have been saying for years - maternal mortality rates can be significantly reduced through entirely ethical means. Experts have pointed out that providing cheap drugs to prevent haemorrhage and infection would cut deaths in childbirth by at least a third in developing countries, since blood loss and sepsis remain the leading causes of maternal death.

I spoke on this subject at the UN last year and noticed that it was discussed in a talk on feminism by a colleague at National Conference in September. Hopefully, studies like this will encourage aid agencies to put all their resources into the provision of vital medical care rather than allowing themselves to be hampered by the abortion lobby's twisted ideology.

Abortion against the mother's will

This is the second case I have come across recently of a woman being poisoned by a man trying to abort her baby without her consent. Fortunately, in spite of having her food spiked with RU-486, both the mother and the baby survived, though the baby was premature and low birth weight.

Cases where a man actively poisons a woman to try to cause an abortion are mercifully rare, but stories like this raise a much broader question about the number of women who are pushed into abortions by husbands and boyfriends who bully or emotionally blackmail them into accepting a decision. The Abortion Changes You website contains hundreds of stories written by women who have had abortions and so many of them speak of boyfriends demanding that they go through with an abortion or threatening to walk out if they refuse. The quotations are endless:

"he told me that I had to choose whose life meant more, his or the baby’s."
"His first reaction was, 'Get rid of it'."
"He said he wasn't ready to be a father."
"The boyfriend had other ideas and wanted me 'to get rid of it.'"

I wonder if it ever occurs to women who support abortion in the name of women's rights, that the people who benefit most from abortion are selfish men who won't take responsibility for their own actions?

The Irish Centre for Human Rights

The Irish Centre for Human Rights at University College Galway, in association with the Irish Family Planning Association (which is an associate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation), is hosting a conference on Thursday, 5 November. The subject of the conference is ‘Global and Local Perspectives on Abortion’, but it excludes the majority local pro-life perspective and only features pro-abortion speakers.

Dr. Séan Ó Domhnaill, director of the Life Institute, has written to the conference organisers requesting that a pro-life speaker be included in the list of those who will be addressing the gathering. ‘Perhaps you could, even at this late stage, show your openness to a real commitment to human rights by including a speaker who believes that all human life should be afforded protection’, he asked.

Dr. Ó Domhnaill has also queried whether the Centre, or the conference, is receiving tax-payer funding.