The bigger spender tends to win in politics, but a recent exception to this money-in-politics rule can be found in Alabama’s move to almost entirely ban abortion.
A key step in the state’s trek toward its new anti-abortion law came in November, when Alabama voters approved an anti-abortion “Amendment 2” to the state’s constitution.
The new law in Alabama, where Republicans control the legislature and the governor’s mansion, makes performing abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony. It includes an exception for when a mother’s health is at serious risk, but has no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. It stands out as the country’s most restrictive amid other new limits on abortion enacted in several states.
In the fundraising and spending to sway voters on the amendment, political action committees opposing the measure lost on Election Day even while enjoying a roughly 100-to-1 money advantage, according to disclosures compiled by FollowTheMoney.org, a website run by the nonpartisan National Institute on Money in Politics.
The PACs against Amendment 2 attracted about $758,000 in contributions, the disclosures show. The donations came from Planned Parenthood branches, groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and individuals, and the PACs involved were Alabama For Healthy Families and Alabama Students Voting No On Amendment 2. A separate disclosure shows Alabama For Healthy Families spent $931,000 on ads. One ad from the PAC said the amendment “would open the door to ban abortion, including in cases of rape.”
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Meanwhile, a PAC supporting the anti-abortion amendment — Alliance For A Pro-Life Alabama — received only about $8,000, according to FollowTheMoney.org’s data.
It makes sense that a big money advantage wasn’t enough for the PACs supporting abortion rights to get a win in this conservative state, according to Bill Stewart, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama.
“That is very logical because the people who are sympathetic toward abortion have their work cut out for them, because they know that most Alabamians simply do not like the idea of terminating a pregnancy through abortion,” he told MarketWatch.
You don’t need to spend a lot of money to advocate for an anti-abortion measure in Alabama, because “the sentiment is already strongly against abortion,” Stewart also said. “You’d have to spend a lot more money if you were trying to liberalize abortion laws.”
Some 59% of Alabama voters backed “Amendment 2,” changing the state’s constitution to say it recognizes unborn children’s rights and doesn’t protect the right to abortion. The new anti-abortion law’s backers then repeatedly cited the amendment while advocating for their measure this year, saying that they were, for example, “putting statute to Amendment 2.”
The amendment “was a harbinger of things to come,” said Barbara Ann Luttrell, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Southeast, which works in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. When asked about losing despite a financial edge, she said the 41% voting “No” on Amendment 2 represented the second-best result on the progressive side on that Election Day in Alabama, meaning that result outperformed nearly all other progressive issues or candidates on the ballot there. “That may not sound like much,” but Alabama is “one of the most vehemently anti-woman states,” she told MarketWatch in an email. She also said the amendment was “written in a way that was intentionally confusing and misleading.”
To be sure, the push for Amendment 2 got boosts from forces beyond just the Alliance For A Pro-Life Alabama, with top Republicans endorsing the measure and a group called Alabama Citizens for Life putting out a radio ad in support of it. Many people throughout the state “just wanted to volunteer help, time and a lot of different things,” said Cole Wagner, the Alliance For A Pro-Life Alabama’s executive director. The other side “could have spent $2 million, $3 million, $4 million and it’s not going to change the beliefs that we hold true. My faith has a lot to do with the reason that I support pro-life efforts,” he said.
While the near-total ban is due to take effect in November, it’s facing legal challenges — with a lawsuit filed Friday by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU — and might end up before the Supreme Court. The law’s backers hope to go before the newly majority conservative high court, in order to overturn 1973’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
The "Institute" is the educational and research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, a "pro-life" organization, but we believe the report to be reliable and more importantly, that it can be verified.
The report said that their research "strongly suggests that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates are engaged in a pattern of practices designed to maximize their bottom-line revenues through billings to complex, well-funded federal and state programs that are understaffed and rely on the integrity of the provider for program compliance."
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The report highlighted that numerous federal and state audits have documented that improper practices by Planned Parenthood and state family planning agencies have already resulted in losses to the American taxpayer of nearly $132.4 million, in Title XIX-Medicaid and other healthcare funding programs, and due to the "superficial" (examination of only a small subsection of a provider's billings), the total amount of waste is likely many times the documented $132.4 million in over-billings.
In March, 2016, more than 120 Members of Congress asked the Comptroller General of the United States to request the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a comprehensive audit of the receipt and use of federal taxpayer dollars – more than $553 million in FY 2015 – by Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its related entities. That request was accepted and is currently underway.
Members of congress have also asked for similar requests from the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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The report, highlighting the investigations by the HHS, alleges that numerous PPFA facilities were guilty of overcharging the US government, and their respective states, of approximately $124 Million for "services rendered" during the period of 2016-2019 from the investigations of 33 of the more than 600 PPFA facilities around the country.
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PROFIT. NO MATTER WHAT. | 2017 Report on Publicly Available Audits of Planned Parenthood Affiliates and State Family Planning Programs
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In addition to the fraud HHS discovered, their report also reports that there has already been one settled Medicaid fraud lawsuit against PPFA's "PP Gulf Coast" (Texas) affiliate which agreed to reimburse the federal government and the state of Texas $4.3 million, and currently five additional whistle-blower lawsuits underway against PPFA facilities that were initiated by former PPFA employees, which if proven true, will result in an additional $212 Million in penalties and fines against PPFA's facilities for basically charging the US government for services they either did not provide, or for over-charging the government for services they did provide. Read more (here).
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More details to possibly use:
Numerous False Claims Act whistleblower lawsuits around the country have alleged waste, abuse, and potential fraud by Planned Parenthood affiliates.
By law, such cases must initially be filed under seal and may not be made public while federal authorities decide whether to join the case. Six such lawsuits against Planned Parenthood affiliates have been made public at this time,
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, formerly known as Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, Inc., settled the lawsuit by agreeing to reimburse $4.3 million or more to the federal and State of Texas governments to settle claims that the U.S. Department of Justice called Medicaid fraud.
Total,