According to a July 18, 2025 article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Planned Parenthood, the abortion and now hormone therapy giant, is facing choppy waters financially. Good.

Planned Parenthood has suffered a number of losses in the political realm in recent years. First, of course, there was the Dobbs decision in June of 2022 that returned the question of the legality of abortion to the states. As of this date, fourteen states have passed some sort of restrictions on abortion, from near total bans to 15 week bans. This year, in March, President Trump withheld Title X grants from nine or more PP affiliates while the administration investigates their compliance with Trump’s DEI policies. Title X is what funds reproductive services, such a contraceptive and reproductive and sexual health services. In June, the SCOTUS ruled that patients do not have the right to sue their states for denying state Medicaid funding to PP, so states can feel more free to deny such funding now that they are no longer under the cloud of possible legal suits. Finally, in July, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill passed and was signed into law. The bill includes a one year moritorium on PP receiving federal funds. This is being challenged in the courts, but I’m confident PP will lose. Congress controls the purse of federal spending, and this was a law duly passed by Congress and signed by the president. Does every American citizen have grounds to sue because their favorite institution or business didn’t get a piece of the pie? I don’t think so.

But the loss of federal money is not the only reason PP is in financial straights. It seems they’re losing ground with their donors. Why? According to the WSJ, there are at least a couple of reasons. PP has in recent years expanded on their “mission”. They used to focus on reproductive issues for women exclusively. Recently, they’ve widened their net to include a number of left-wing positions, including defunding the police, support for BLM, gun control, packing the Supreme Court and, of course, the LGBTQ+ agenda, in particular trans rights.

As far a trans rights goes, PP is all in. As such, some complain that women have been relugated to a back seat, as PP no longer identifies itself, according to WSJ, as “the leading healthcare provider for women.” Women aren’t even mentioned on it’s website (except for the t-shirts they sell that say, “Stand for Black Women”). Instead, PP talks about “pregnant people” and “menstruating people” and “chestfeeders”. Former PP medical director, Dr. Bhavik Kumar, testified before Congress that “men can have pregnancies, especially transmen.” Especially transmen? Call me further confused! One comment to the WSJ article reads: “I was a longtime donor to Planned Parenthood. Getting fundraising appeals that didn’t use the word ‘woman’ but referred to us as ‘pregnant people’, menstruators, and chestfeeders was so off mission that I talked to my local chapter head. She looked at me glassy-eyed, and said ‘our staff all believes in inclusion.’ When your inclusion means erasing women, and you’re supposedly a feminist org, you’ve completely lost the plot. I know a lot of other women also quit supporting them for this reason.” Supporting an organization that goes to bat for left-wing causes and organizations, and that erases women in the process, is not on everyone’s financial planning portfolio.

PP doesn’t necessarily like to emphasize the “services” they offer to those seeking to gender transition, so they list these services under “other services.” In 2019, “other services” included almost 18,000 cases. By 2023, it had risen to nearly 78,000. I was somewhat surprised that the WSJ wrote of PP: “With trans-identified minors, Planned Parenthood follows an ‘informed consent’ model, which, according to its patient guidelines, enables patients to get a same-day prescription for cross-sex hormones after a 30-minute in-person or remote consultation with a staff member. No professional diagnosis is required.” And, according to other sources, no mental health evaluation. Why was I surprised that the WSJ would publish such a negative critique of PP? Because the WSJ is a supporter of PP. How do I know that? First, because it describes the Guttmacher Institute as “a healthcare policy and advocacy organization” and not as what it is, which is the research arm for PP. Second, it repeats the lie that, if PP locations should shut down, then women, especially rural women, will have no where to go for their healthcare, especially their reproductive healthcare, prenatal care, and cancer and STD screenings. First, PP does very little in terms of cancer and STD screenings, and almost no prenatal care services. Second, public free or low-cost health clinics around the country outnumber PP locations by something like 15:1 (even the “AI Overview” says so!). In Tennessee, in Davidson County (Nashville) alone, there are thirty free or low-cost clinics, compared to one PP. In Knox County (Knoxville, duh!), there are ten, compared to one PP. In Shelby County (Memphis) there are 29, compared to two PPs (though the list includes nearby clinics in AR and MS). There are only four PP locations in Tennessee, none are in rural counties.

Consider, as well, that PP is the largest provider of sex ed materials in the country. In one of their resources, Kids-Ask, they suggest that parents respond to their 3-5 year old’s question, “Is that a boy or a girl?” with the following: “Only an individual can define their gender identity. Gender identity is separate from what body parts a person has. It can be rude to point at people in public. If you want to ask me something in public, you can ask me quietly.” Yes, the concept of “gender identity” is def at the 3-5 age level. Perhaps good ol’ Mom or Dad could go into a description of all 56 gender identities Facebook offers as options (of course, with the added option of coming up with your own!). If your child points out the person they are asking about, and the reasons your child is confused are obvious so that you don’t know if they’re a boy or a girl, you can always just say, “I don’t know,” and leave it at that. More than that, what a horrible thing to say to a very young child! You’re telling them that gender identity (ie: whether you’re a boy or a girl to them) has nothing to do with your body parts. Needless to say, this could potentially traumatize a child who goes home that evening and wonders if he or she is, in fact, a he or a she. They’ll sure sleep well that night, free of any nightmares. NOT!

PP is now the second largest provider of hormone therapy for gender transitioning, including for minors (according to Lila Rose, the DHS says PP is now first in that catagory). The fact is, a lot of people, including a lot of people who support abortion “rights,” do not support providing hormone therapy to minors. Also, PP is earning a reputation for not necessarily following all the laws when it comes to providing hormons to minors or, at least, employing unethical practices. I wrote about this way back in February of 2021 in a review of an article by Abigail Shrier, ex-reproductive health assistant and author of “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters”. In her article, Ms. Shrier writes about the revelations of a former PP employee who exposed her affiliate’s practice of providing young girls with hormone therapy after little investigation into her health.

I wrote in that post: “The former ‘reproductive health assistant’ had the responsibility of collecting the medical history and medication list of the women and girls who came into the clinic. What she learned in her year and a half working at the clinic is that ‘Planned Parenthood is now one of the largest providers in the United States of cross-sex hormones like testosterone to females seeking medical gender transition.’ You read that right. Planned Parenthood is now in the business of providing testosterone or estrogen treatments to girls who identify as boys. When I say ‘girls,’ I mean girls. This former Planned Parenthood employee reveals that teenaged girls, sometimes as young as 13, are coming in to this Planned Parenthood clinic, after having self-diagnosed themselves with gender dysphoria and having self-identified themselves as trans-gendered, requesting hormone therapy and, after being asked a handful of questions that never probe terribly deep into their backgrounds and never seeing or speaking with a doctor, are receiving hormone therapy for the purpose of transitioning. What is more, Ms. Shrier writes, ‘According to the employee, based on her recollection, 1-2 new biologically female teen patients seeking testosterone would arrive per day.‘” The fact is, a lot of people don’t want to support these practices with their dollars.

The word is also that PP is not well-managed, at least financially. There is the national organization and 48 local affiliates. The national organization, some accuse, is top-heavy. Too many managers making too much money with too vague job descriptions. The national president and chief executive, Alexis McGill Johnson, makes $900,000 per year. She describes herself as a “champion for social and racial justice.” Notice, she doesn’t describe herself as a “champion of women and reproductive rights.” There is often tension between the national office and the affiliates because money that goes to the national office doesn’t always translate into benefits for the affiliates, who are often left struggling financially. It’s no secret that many PP locations have closed around the country, and others have left the PP network. PP won’t say how many, but it’s in the hundreds. Donors who thought their donations were going to support or defend “reproductive rights” learned that their donations were going to support the organization itself and for social advocacy and political lobbying, one donor writing, “I understood that PP needed some funds to run the organization and that lobbying and advocacy (or, at least, public relations) were part of the organizations functioning, but I never thought most of my donations went to those purposes.”

Planned Parenthood is in a struggle for survival. Hopefully, they’ll lose.

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