Planned Parenthood has published on its website a statement of support signed by what they say are over 250 celebrities (I counted 239). The statement reads:

I’M FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Because I’m for freedom. And Americans are losing more of our freedom to decide how we live our own lives.

Because I’m for health care. And 1 in 4 people in the U.S. have been to a Planned Parenthood health center for care: birth control, cancer screenings, wellness exams, STI testing and treatment, abortion, gender affirming care, and more.

Because I’m for you and me – not the government – deciding what care we need and where we can go to get it.

Let’s be very clear about something: no one is talking about shutting down Planned Parenthood. What the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are considering is defunding Planned Parenthood of government funds. This is a no-brainer. Abortion and hormonal treatment for those wanting to transition from male to female or vice verse are two of the most contentious political and social issues our country is struggling with. And, let’s be honest, despite its claim that PP provides all kinds of health care services, they make their money from abortion and hormone treatments. It is absurd that PP gets any federal money, much less the millions they receive every year. As well, PP donates millions of dollars to political campaigns. Why is it legal that an organization that receives federal money is allowed to donate to policial campaigns? That doesn’t make sense. The IRS will threaten a church with losing it’s tax-exempt status if a priest or minister so much as preaches on a political matter. But PP can donate millions to political campaigns?

In their 2023-24 Annual Report, PP reported that they received $792.2 million from the federal government in the form of grants, contracts and Medicaid reimbursements. That was an increase of almost $93 million from the previous year, representing over 40% of PP’s budget. What’s interesting is that they reported a 13% increase in revenue from the previous year, but only a 2% increase in the number of patients they saw. What’s up with that? Is PP overcharging its patients, or is this evidence that the great majority of their income is from the lucrative services of abortion and hormone treatments?

In March, the Trump administration informed nine PP state affiliates that it was temporarily withholding millions of dollars in Title X money in order to investigate possible violations of federal civil rights laws, including promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and providing services to undocumented immigrants. At least twenty PP centers across a variety of states have or are planning to close in the face of lost federal funding. Good. If the celebrities on PP’s statement of support are so keen about abortion and horomone therapy, they’re welcome to make up what PP lost in Title X funding with their private donations.

Planned Parenthood claims they are facing a financial crisis. How is an organization that receives almost $800 million in government grants and Medicaid reimbursements, as well as nearly $1 billion in private donations, and had an excess of total revenue over total expenses of almost $205 million in 2022, facing a financial crisis? Because their leadership makes salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and because a lot of their money is going to political campaigns to keep abortion legal. The more abortion is restricted across the states, the less income PP makes, because they’re not making much money off of their other services. Abortion is the big money-maker for PP. According to their 2024 Annual Report, PP performed over 402,000 abortions, an all-time high. PP calls itself “pro-choice,” but the choice they almost always offer is abortion. In 2021-22, 97.1% of PP’s “pregnancy resolution services” were abortions. The percentage of pre-natal services (1.6%), miscarriage care (0.9%), and adoption referrals (0.4%) pale in comparison. PP performs nearly 230 abortions for every adoption referral. On their website, PP highlights their birth control services, STI testing, and cancer screening, but these services have declined significantly in recent years. Cancer screeing and prevention services dropped 71%, including a 72% drop in breast exams and a 74% drop in pap tests. Prenatal services have dropped by 80% since they peaked in 2009. Contraceptive services dropped 39%. All in all, total services provided by PP are down 17% since 2010. PP saw a high of 5 million patients in 900 centers annually in the 1990s. Today, the number of patients they see averages 2.1 million each year in 600 centers. Yet, every year the amount of federal funding they received increased. PP warns that if they didn’t exist healthcare services to low-income women would be drastically reduced, so that some would have no access to such services. But the number of low-income clinics that are not affiliated with PP outnumber PP centers 15 to 1. Clearly, there are plenty of other options for low-income women. The American taxpayer doesn’t need to be financially supporting the country’s largest abortion provider.

Hormone treatments for those wishing to transition is another money-maker for PP, whose services in this area have exploded in recent years. PP has faced accusations of exploiting minors who come to their centers looking to transition, providing little in the way of counseling and being very quick to begin their transition. However, twenty-seven states have banned or restricted “gender-affirming care” for minors, further cutting in to PP’s income.

The financial crisis PP is facing has impacted the quality of their services, as well. According to the ultra-liberal New York Times, PP is facing a crisis of morale and substandard care. The Times reports: “Patients and employees said that clinics are operating like ‘a conveyor belt’ for patients, leading to botched IUD placements and abortions, patients prepped for the wrong procedures, and other errors, according to legal filings, complaints and interviews. Planned Parenthood has been accused of improperly implanting a birth control device and causing nerve damage; inserting an IUD in a woman who was four months pregnant; and failing to upload sexually transmitted infection test results into charts, leading patients to wrongly believe that their results were negative.” The Times reports that centers are not adequately staffed and staff are not adquately trained.

Getting back to all those celebrities signing on to the PP statment on its website: what is it about celebrities that convinces them that people care about what they think? Haven’t the last few national elections disabused them of this? So many celebrities came out for Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign. She even paid a few of them for their endorsements. (Okay, technically the Harris campaign made contributions to their organizations or charities, but c’mon!) I read over the list of celebrities endorsing PP. Of the 239 I counted, I recognized 42. That’s less than 20%. And even some of those I recognized haven’t been much in the limelight of late. What has Annasophia Robb done lately? I have to ask myself: Who are these people? I honestly have no idea. Either the definition of “celebrity” has become far more expansive than when I was younger, or I’ve become an old fogey. Maybe it’s a bit of both, honestly. Even still, the fact that Harry Styles, Megan Thee Stallion, Melissa McCarthy, Sheryl Crow, and George Lopez support PP will not, I suspect, convert many people to support PP. People who regard the one in the womb as expendable already support PP. People who recognize the one in the womb as a unique life that merits our respect will not be persuaded to abandon that position because Christina Ricci and Alan Cumming support PP.

So what’s the point of the celebrity statement in support of PP? I guess it’s to convince people that PP sits with the cool kids in the cafeteria. Color me unimpressed.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.