Planned Parenthood’s "Legal Separation"

If you thought Enron’s "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_purpose_entity" of special purpose vehicles (SPV) was deceptive, check out Planned Parenthood’s "legal separation." It’s even flimsier than Enron accounting.

Enron’s game was motivated by profit, as is Planned Parenthood’s public funding ruse. This is particularly true given that abortion represents 30-40% of Planned Parenthood sales. Of course, Planned Parenthood’s motive is also supercharged by its relentless ideological desire to cut, slice, chemical burn, dismember and vacuum babies – now killing at a rate of over 300,000 a year.

Although certainly unintentional, Planned Parenthood’s recent lawsuit against the state of Texas highlights the "legal separation" charade and its importance to Planned Parenthood’s publicly funded business model, offering us another insight into the awful business of abortion.

The lawsuit, about which you may have heard, is a response to Texas’ restricting Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from participation in the Texas Women’s Health Program (WHP). Specifically, "http://www.lifenews.com/2012/02/24/texas-defunds-planned-parenthood-despite-obama-admin-attacks/"June 2011, the Legislature renewed the program with the provision that no participant in WHP could be affiliated with an abortion business (the Affiliate Rule).

In response, Planned Parenthood first whistled for President Obama who on cue reported for duty, withheld the federal portion of WHP and thereby deliberately sacrificed women’s health (real health) at the altar of abortion. Unfazed, Governor Perry met the HYPERLINK "http://www.lifenews.com/2012/04/16/texas-fully-funds-womens-health-program-without-planned-parenthood/"ObamaHYPERLINK "http://www.lifenews.com/2012/04/16/texas-fully-funds-womens-health-program-without-planned-parenthood/"-engineeredHYPERLINK "http://www.lifenews.com/2012/04/16/texas-fully-funds-womens-health-program-without-planned-parenthood/" HYPERLINK "http://www.lifenews.com/2012/04/16/texas-fully-funds-womens-health-program-without-planned-parenthood/"shortfall with state funds. The President messed with Texas and his pro-abortion zealotry was again laid bare. With its executive branch bullets spent, Planned Parenthood’s next step was thHYPERLINK "http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2012/04/11/planned_parenthood_sues_texas.html"is month’sHYPERLINK "http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2012/04/11/planned_parenthood_sues_texas.html" HYPERLINK "http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2012/04/11/planned_parenthood_sues_texas.html"lawsuit. The suit asks for a declaratory judgment that the Affiliate Rule is void and for a permanent injunction.

The entire architecture of Planned Parenthood’s filing rests on the assertion that the Plaintiffs (Planned Parenthood of Austin, Hidalgo County, Lubbock, San Antonio, etc…) are "legally separated" from Planned Parenthood’s abortion business and, thus, just innocent bystanders whose rights have been violated by Texas’ new Affiliate Rule. According to the narrative, because they are "legally and financially separate affiliates", the Plaintiffs have been unfairly and unconstitutionally harmed.

Since the case rests on the purported separation of the Plaintiffs and Planned Parenthood’s abortion business, let’s take a closer look. Consider the following few tests of separateness – physical connection, joint versus separate marketing, connection of activities and, finally, financial linkage.

First, is there any physical or locational difference between the Plaintiffs and the abortion business? Consider one of the Plaintiffs, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Inc. This Plaintiff is located at 4600 Gulf Freeway, Houston, Texas 77023. Houston-area Planned Parenthood performs its abortions through the Planned Parenthood Center for Choice Ambulatory Surgical Center, which is also located at 4600 Gulf Freeway, Houston, TX 77023. The two are in the same building and share the same signage and parking lot, enabling combined operations.

Second, consider marketing. Are the Plaintiffs and the abortion business marketed differently? Not a chance, it’s all just "Planned Parenthood". Hoping to neutralize this obvious criticism, the Planned Parenthood filing preemptively confessed that the Plaintiffs and the abortion business "all use the registered service mark ‘Planned Parenthood.’"

Third, is there any connection between the Plaintiffs’ activities and abortion? It seems so, given that Planned Parenthood abortion activities and the Plaintiffs’ contraception activities are highly correlated, at 87% HYPERLINK "http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/03/damning_statistical_analysis_of_planned_parenthoods_business.html"positive HYPERLINK "http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/03/damning_statistical_analysis_of_planned_parenthoods_business.html"correlation. This should surprise no one – a mass distribution of contraception of the Planned Parenthood sort will only increase sexual activity. Contraception fails in predictable percentages, meaning unintended pregnancies and abortions will increase. Study after study has demonstrated these facts. The statistics show that the Plaintiffs’ activities and the abortion business fit together hand-in-glove, that Planned Parenthood is just a contraception-unintended pregnancy-abortion funnel.

Finally a question of great interest to Texas legislators – is there any connection between the Plaintiffs’ receipt of public funding and abortion? Planned Parenthood’s own data shows that, not only is there a connection, there is a 99% HYPERLINK "http://www.faith.org.uk/Publications/Magazines/Mar12/Mar12PlannedParenthoodAndTheDemandForAbortion.html"positive HYPERLINK "http://www.faith.org.uk/Publications/Magazines/Mar12/Mar12PlannedParenthoodAndTheDemandForAbortion.html"correlation between its receipt of public funds and the number of abortions committed. Planned Parenthood’s abortion business is highly related to its public funding. Planned Parenthood’s public funding and its abortion business are statistically one and the same, completely connected.

So the Plaintiffs and the Planned Parenthood aborting entities co-locate, market under the same name brand and have significantly intertwined and co-dependent activities. Additionally, the Planned Parenthood abortion business reaps a direct and near-perfectly correlated benefit from the Plaintiffs’ receipt of public funds. Given the lack of real separation between the Plaintiffs and Planned Parenthood’s abortion business, it seems Texas legislators had a very good reason for their new "Affiliate Rule."

Unlike even Enron and its SPVs, which had a modicum of separate substance, there is no real separation between the Plaintiffs and Planned Parenthood’s abortion practice. Yet, in a typically complete absence of critical thinking, when reporting the new lawsuit Planned Parenthood’s media enablers just repeated HYPERLINK "http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/planned-parenthood-sues-after-texas-excludes-group-from-states-womens-health-program/2012/04/11/gIQAmclWAT_story.html"Planned Parenthood’s HYPERLINK "http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/planned-parenthood-sues-after-texas-excludes-group-from-states-womens-health-program/2012/04/11/gIQAmclWAT_story.html"claims.

No matter. The facts show that Planned Parenthood’s basis for the Texas lawsuit is fabricated. The architecture of the lawsuit collapses upon its substance-less "legal and financial separation" foundation, the foundation upon which the claims of damage and constitutional violation are predicated.

This collapse leaves Planned Parenthood with only the weak and desperate assertion that the Texas legislature may not craft a new law that differs from an old law, that difference in this case being a tighter definition of the word "affiliate." Nice try, but legislatures revise, clarify and make new laws all the time – it’s what they do.

Texas made it simple – affiliate with abortions, do not participate in WHP. Planned Parenthood is no fan of simple truth, as we have seen; but no amount of Enron-style deception will circumvent the Affiliate Rule. This, of course, is why Planned Parenthood is now in court.

Planned Parenthood has no case, but has once again highlighted the deceptions upon which its awful business model is built. "Legal separation" now joins other pro-abortion nonsense, including such myths as Planned Parenthood provides mammograms, abortions are only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s business, Title X has nothing to do with abortion and contraception reduces unintended pregnancies.