By Ray Kerrison, Reprinted from Human Events
July 1994 – Planned Parenthood (PP), the single biggest abortion factory in America, has launched a $10-million campaign to persuade Congress to pass legislation that the nation has consistently and overwhelmingly rejected.
That legislation is to give abortion mandatory coverage in any national health reform plan. In other words, PP wants taxpayers to fund the cost of unrestricted abortions to any female – a proposition that has been routinely rejected out of hand by voters in flocks of polls in the last year.
For example: In March last year, a CBS News/New York Times poll reported that 72% oppose making abortion a part of any basic health plan. Last October, a Louis Harris poll found 62% opposed abortion coverage. Two months ago, in a Washington Post poll, 68% said they were “concerned” about the inclusion of abortion. But that doesn’t stop PP. It is now trying to hoodwink the nation through a massive media propaganda campaign. In a full-page ad in the New York Times on April 5 it demanded that members of Congress “not turn your back on the women of America!”
It blared, “What if Congress passed a health care plan that covered only half the country? That’s exactly what will happen if Congress turns its back on the special health care needs of America’s women.”
Nineteen women members of Congress joined PP in this pitch for “Equal health care for women.”
Ad Dodges Use of The Word Abortion
Notice the deception. PP used hundreds of words to convey its message, but the word “abortion” was mentioned only once – by Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat. The euphemism for abortion-on-demand used over and over by PP and the other congresswomen was “reproductive health services.”
It is amazing how even the most radical abortion advocates cannot quite bring themselves to utter “abortion.” It’s as if they recognize its taint, so they dress it up in polite but empty packages like “reproductive health services.”
Only PP and its feminist backers would think to designate baby killing as a “health service.”
Money, not health or an interest in women, is at the heart of PP’s big new legislative drive.
PP is a big-bucks outfit. In 1992 – the latest year for which an annual report is available – its budget hit a nifty $446 million. Now here’s something to really make you mad. Of that sum, $142.3 million came from you, the taxpayer, in grants from federal, state and local government.
PP pays its administrators top dollar. Its president, Pamela J. Maraldo, takes in $225,000 a year. Some local directors pull $100,000. Now they’ve got $10 million to fund a new abortion drive.
And why not? PP stands to reap a fortune if unrestricted abortion is included in a health reform plan. It already operates the biggest abortion clinic network in the country. It has more than 100 clinics and performs 132,000 abortions a year. Its gross from abortions alone is estimated at about $33 million a year.
With 1.5 million abortions annually throughout the whole country, at an average cost of $300 each, the industry rakes in about $450 million. PP would stand to profit handsomely if a government health plan covers abortion as it does an appendectomy.
Indeed, that possibility has begun to alarm independent abortion providers so much that they have hired a lobbyist to counter PP, claiming PP is a major threat to their businesses. One spokesman said PP was a bigger menace than Randall Terry, former head of Operation Rescue!
Jim Sedlak, who monitors PP for pro-life groups, said recently, “It’s our view that Pamela Maraldo was brought in to restructure PP’s finances so that it is not so dependent on government grants or so vulnerable to its contraceptive services. PP admits that it loses 43% of its contraception clients every year, so it must hustle to replace them.
“Maraldo plans to market the Planned Parenthood logo aggressively by selling it for a fee to corporations to put on their products – like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. They want direct marketing for the contraceptive products, maybe through a catalog.”
Even Chafee Bill Helps Planned Parenthood
So the potential for big money is really behind PP’s drive to get abortion covered in a new health scheme. Sadly, almost every plan advanced so far includes such a clause. The Clinton plan, of course, favors everything. But the Republican bill proposed by Sen. John Chafee (RI) and Rep. Bill Thomas (CA) includes abortion, as does the Democratic bill floated by Rep. Jim Cooper (TN) and Sen. John Breaux (LA) and the “single payer” bill advanced by Rep. Jim McDermott (WA) and Sen. Paul Wellstone (MN).
The people clearly don’t want it, but their “politically correct” representatives in Washington, D.C., may well defy them. And out of it may come a tax bill of $450 million a year to pay for all those abortions.
There is no free lunch and there is no free abortion. Nobody appreciates that better than Planned Parenthood. They’re banking on it. 
