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Planned Parenthood’s Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, and Waco Affiliates to Merge

Jul 19, 2013

By Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL Director of Education & Research

Editor’s note. As noted in “Planned Parenthood exaggerates impact of abortion clinic regulations to raise money,” NRL News Today has kept close track of PPFA clinic closings for a long time. Here is just one example, from April, 2012.

Ken Lambrecht, current head of PP North Texas

Ken Lambrecht, current head of PP North Texas

What is Planned Parenthood’s immediate response to the Texas state legislature’s totally appropriate decision to route taxpayer-funded family planning dollars away from the abortion industry? To merge three of its large Texas affiliates into one gigantic conglomerate (which would be its 8th largest affiliate) covering several of Texas’ biggest cities and nearly the entire northeast quadrant of the state, and, according to reports, increase its political influence.

Combining Planned Parenthood of Central Texas (the area near Waco), Planned Parenthood of North Texas (including the Dallas/Ft. Worth area), and Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region (based in Austin), the new affiliate, called Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, will have 26 clinics and expects to provide health care “services” to more than 120,000 women. The merger becomes effective August 31st.

The New York Times reports that the merger creates a mega-organization with a $29 million budget (4/19/12).

Though each of original smaller affiliates is connected to Planned Parenthood clinics which provide abortions, there is no mention of abortion in statements or promotional materials put out on behalf of the new group (www.plannedparenthood.org/north-texas/planned-parenthood-greater-texas-39165.htm). However, the Times reports that four of the clinics in the new organization will provide abortions and says that the new group will “perform an estimated 8,500 abortion a year.”

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, a Texas native, notes that the “strategic merger” providing “an opportunity to pull together three very strong operations into one” will also “help us on the advocacy side,” according to the Times. The Texas Tribune says that what Planned Parenthood wants from the merger is “an organization that has deeper pockets–and even more political influence” (4/18/12).

“In all areas of Texas that are involved,” said Felicia Goodman, Director for Community Affairs for Planned Parenthood’s Waco affiliate, “it just means that Planned Parenthood’s going to be bigger and better and stronger,” according to KXXV.

Ken Lambrecht, current head of PP North Texas, who will be the CEO of the new organization, told The Texas Tribune that “By defunding family planning, the governor and socially conservative lawmakers are not only hurting the women Planned Parenthood serves. They’re hurting women across the state.”

Texas’ state Medicaid director says otherwise. In an interview with public radio station KERA that ran April 16, Billy Milwee that while the state will not fund Planned Parenthood and some women will have to find new providers, “the services will continue,” and the state will help women find them. (http://keranews.org/post/women-s-health-program-continue-november-1-sans-federal-funds)

Catherine Frazier, a spokesperson for pro-life Governor Rick Perry, went further. She told the Tribune that Planned Parenthood’s “sense of entitlement to our tax dollars” was misguided. “If you are in the business of providing or promoting abortions,” Frazier told the Tribune, “then Governor Perry doesn’t think we should be in the business of funding your efforts” (4/18/12).

The actions by Planned Parenthood’s Texas affiliates is part of a larger effort by Planned Parenthood affiliates all across the country to prune bloated middle management, close unprofitable centers, build giant new abortion megaclinics, and have larger, more aggressive affiliates gobble up smaller, weaker ones in order to become a leaner, and inevitably meaner organization. Both the number of abortions and the size of revenues have risen pretty steadily at Planned Parenthood the past twenty years, even while abortions have been dropping as a whole nationwide.

This latest merger marks at least the 15th merger of Planned Parenthood affiliates in the past five years, and it may not be the last Texas sees. While Lambrecht says that Texas’ size makes it unlikely that all of Planned Parenthood’s six state affiliates would join together at some point, he admitted to the New York Times that future mergers would not surprise him.

Melaney Linton, who heads Planned Parenthood’s Gulf Coast affiliate, itself the result of 2005 merger joining clinics from Houston, southeast Texas, and Louisiana, told the Times that while there had never been any serious conversations about her group joining with the others, “who knows” what the future might hold.

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“If we can reduce administrative costs and improve economies of scale, then we can provide more health care services to more women and families” Linton told the Times.

Whether more women will receive real “health care services” is unknown, but given Planned Parenthood’s record, these mergers certainly mean more abortions and more abortion advocacy.

For more background on PPFA’s merger mania, see www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/NewsOnline/Jan2011/AbortionEmpire.html and www.nrlc.org/news/2008/NRL03/Mergers.html

Categories: PPFA