Musk urged to abolish Planned Parenthood funding as report reveals abortion clinic horror stories

Conservatives are urging Elon Musk to take his Department of Government Efficiency team through Planned Parenthood amid shocking claims about the organization.

The New York Times recently reported about what a sorry state many clinics are, lacking money and in some cases staff trained poorly, with botched abortions and IUD insertions gone awry. 

While Republicans have always opposed Planned Parenthood for performing abortions, many are now asking Musk to be the vessel for cutting funds.

Only four per cent of the organization’s services are abortions, compared to 51 per cent for STI testing and treatment and 24 per cent for contraception, according to its latest annual report.

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s organization Advancing American Freedom praised Musk’s work ‘eliminating waste, fraud and abuse’ but said Planned Parenthood could be a triumph.  

‘We truly believe that the opportunity to defund Planned Parenthood may be yours and President Trump’s greatest moment,’ they said in a statement.

Planned Parenthood’s most recent 2022-23 annual report showed $699.3 million in government revenue, but most of that was reimbursements from Medicaid.

The almost $700 million was 34 per cent of its funding (a much lower percentage than a decade ago), with 47 per cent coming from private donations and 18 per cent from patient fees.

Government funding rose 43 per cent since 2010, but that was because more Medicaid-eligible patients used its services. Private donations also jumped 44 per cent that year after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v Wade.

The report didn’t break down how much of the government funding was from direct federal government grants – which DOGE could target.

However, a 2015 Congressional Budget Office report put that year’s figure at $60 million a year through the National Family Planning Program, of an estimated $450 million in total government funding.

The same report, which was in response to a bill aiming to strip federal finding from Planned Parenthood and cut it off from Medicaid, found taxpayers would be $130 million worse off if the bill passed.

This was because patients using Medicaid-eligible services would just go elsewhere, resulting in minimal savings, and births would increase due to fewer abortions – forcing the government to spend more on Medicaid. 

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life activist, said the Times report should spur DOGE into action. 

‘Planned Parenthood needs to be defunded immediately. They have received hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every single year and apparently they best they can do is give terrible care to the people they serve and fail to uphold even the bare minimum standard of care,’ she told Fox News. 

‘It’s no wonder turnover at Planned Parenthood is upwards of 50 percent. We can do better for women and defunding Planned Parenthood is a great place to start.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House and Planned Parenthood for comment. 

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has taken an axe to government departments with an edict to do whatever it takes to root out waste and fraud.

DOGE revealed Tuesday that Trump has saved taxpayers a staggering $55 billion in less than a month. 

The bulk of the savings were reportedly found through a combination of detecting and deleting fraud, canceling contracts and leases, and selling assets.

DOGE has vowed to provide updates on savings figures twice a week, promising additional information and improvements with time.

To date, savings have mostly been made in the US Agency For International Development (USAID), the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) targets, programs and training days across the entirety of federal government accounted for a huge saving, and was among the first tasks DOGE conducted after Trump returned to the White House. 

Elon Musk and DOGE’s efforts to reduce government waste have sparked outage among Democrats and government workers, who are protesting in the streets.

Critics maintain Musk is an unelected oligarch who should not be trusted to access data from the federal government. 

On Monday, the White House clarified in court papers that Musk’s title was ‘senior adviser to the president’ and that he is ‘not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator.’ 

‘In his role as senior adviser to the president, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisers,’ the court filing noted, adding that he had ‘no actual or formal authority’ to make government decisions by himself.

Trump has endorsed Musk’s work as a result of his election mandate to cut government spending and reduce the federal workforce.

‘We got elected to, among other things, find all of this fraud, abuse, all of this horrible stuff going on,’ he said in the Oval Office last week.