Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Planned Parenthood funding feud coming to a head

Planned Parenthood

Leah Hogsten / The Salt Lake Tribune via AP

In this Aug. 25, 2015, file photo, the Planned Parenthood Action Council holds a community rally in Salt Lake City.

Want to support Planned Parenthood of Southern Nevada?

• Attend the organization’s 8th annual Corks and Forks Gala, scheduled for March 30 at The Joint at the Hard Rock. Elaine Wynn, who recently made a $1 million donation to Planned Parenthood, will be honored during the event.

• To RSVP, contact Whitney Phillips at [email protected] or 303-359-8519

• For ticket and sponsorship information, contact Alexandra Silver at [email protected]

During protests in several cities, supporters of Planned Parenthood have turned out to oppose congressional Republicans who want to cut off its federal funding.

But the rallies also have drawn counterprotesters contending that the public’s dollars shouldn’t go to the organization because it provides abortions.

The dueling protests are a larger-scale version of a long-running battle between Republicans and Democrats on the funding issue, which is expected to come to a head soon. As part of a broader effort to repeal essential elements of the Affordable Care Act, Congressional Republicans are gearing up for a vote to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.

In the divisive conflict, people like Adrienne Mansanares are on the front line. She’s the chief experience officer for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, a regional office that serves Southern Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Adrienne Mansanares

Adrienne Mansanares

Mansanares connected with The Sunday by phone to discuss the implications of losing Medicaid funding, misconceptions about Planned Parenthood, how Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., might play into the issue and other topics.

How would losing Medicaid reimbursements affect Planned Parenthood clinics in the Rocky Mountain region?

It’s about a third of our budget — about $10 million out of a $32 million budget. So that’s about 30 percent of our patients.

What services would be affected?

Nationally, abortion is about 3 percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood. But the largest services are birth control, family planning — like counseling services — life-saving breast exams and other cancer exams, and STI (sexually transmitted infection) tests.

What’s one of the biggest misconceptions or fabrications you see driving opposition to Planned Parenthood?

The religious argument is that one abortion is too many and no public dollars should ever go to support that. Now, let’s be real clear: We don’t receive any public funding for our abortion care. That is walled off. We are highly regulated, we have a deep level of compliance and we’re audited to make sure that no public dollars ever come in to subsidize that. That’s all private dollars or philanthropy donors.

Has the organization ever considered eliminating abortion services, given that they’re such a political problem?

Absolutely not. We know that abortion care is part of reproductive and sexual health care. And reproductive health care is a fancy way of saying women’s health. Women’s health is about reproductive care, it’s about pregnancy care, so we would never abandon abortion care.

How can someone reading this get involved and support Planned Parenthood?

One upcoming way in Las Vegas is to attend our Corks and Forks event. And, of course, we rely heavily on volunteers. We have a staff of about 450 folks regionally across our four states, and about 600 volunteers. We rely on donations. About a quarter of our budget is philanthropy.

What are some of the volunteer opportunities available?

We have folks who believe so deeply in our abortion-care services and our patients that they come in as a clinic escort. And so those are folks who will meet a patient at the door after they’ve just been ramrodded by “antis” who are throwing little doll parts and waving those disgusting signs and screaming horrible things. We have clinic escorts who are critical to help support those patients as they come in.

We love having volunteer activists — folks who are making phone calls, going on visits to our elected officials, maybe coming in to help with a march. We love when supporters call their senators.

Speaking of senators, what’s your message to Heller?

I think he should understand the great deal of support that Nevadans have for Planned Parenthood. And I think he should be cautious about how he votes. Our public affairs team was able, during the last election cycle, to bring in a tremendous amount of volunteers from all over Nevada to defeat Rep. (Joe) Heck in his run for the Senate. He’d voted nine times to defund Planned Parenthood.