For Planned Parenthood, June is the cruelest month.
Last year, on June 24, at the end of a blockbuster Supreme Court term, the high court issued its landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That ruling overturned Roe v. Wade and clarified once and for all that the Constitution did not, in fact, ever confer a right to abortion.
As the foundation of Planned Parenthood’s vast $4.2 billion abortion empire began to shake, the solution seemed to be profiteering off a boom economy for “gender-affirming care.”
After all, who wouldn’t want in on a $4 billion to $7 billion enterprise while the getting’s good—even if that means ramrodding manipulable teens through the process at lightning speed?
Planned Parenthood isn’t just looking to destroy preborn lives. In diversifying, it has begun to target vulnerable adolescents, too. What’s more, Planned Parenthood’s “safety protocols” leave quite a bit to be desired.
The Washington Free Beacon reported Oct. 4 that a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Jersey gave a full course of cross-sex hormones to a teen with autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and impulse control issues—after nothing more than a 30-minute consult.
This young man with special needs not only lacked the capacity to consent meaningfully to life-altering drugs, but the Planned Parenthood clinic didn’t require a letter from a therapist or even a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria before calling in the prescription to a local pharmacy.
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The young man’s parents filed a complaint against the clinic with New Jersey’s State Board of Medical Examiners and its Board of Nursing.
Planned Parenthood appears more than willing to ignore a growing body of evidence that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones have serious, life-altering side effects, many of which worsen underlying mental health conditions so often present in transgender-identifying teens. Neither puberty blockers nor cross-sex hormones has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat gender dysphoria.
Planned Parenthood’s pivot to transgender medicine is not entirely new. As far back as fiscal year 2015, the organization identified provision of “hormone treatments for transgender patients” in its annual report.
At the time, Planned Parenthood had 26 centers in 10 states that provided these interventions. Now, most of the organization’s nearly 600 centers dispense cross-sex hormones, and Planned Parenthood touts its status as one of the largest purveyors of cross-sex hormones in the United States. In some markets, demand for the drugs has topped requests for abortions.
Although Planned Parenthood’s annual report for 2021-2022 shows a boom economy for baby killing, much of the data was collected before the impact of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was fully realized.
According to a report from the Society of Family Planning, the number of legal abortions in the United States decreased just over 6% in the first six months after the Dobbs decision. What’s more, the Nation reports that the “rage giving”—a windfall of donations to abortion access groups following the ruling over a year ago—didn’t last. Individual and foundation giving has dropped off, too.
And Planned Parenthood’s national office recently announced layoffs—to the tune of about 100 employees. Alexis McGill Johnson, the organization’s president and CEO, was quick to paint the layoffs not as indicia of financial instability but rather a shifting of priorities because battles over abortion access now largely play out in the states.
But in those states, changes in the ideological makeup of the courts have resulted in more than a few losses for abortion advocates. And Planned Parenthood’s newest “gender-affirming” game plan may face legal hurdles, too.
The organization’s provision of “gender-affirming” care likely will be affected by the fact that at least 22 states have enacted their own bans on the exact same medical procedures. In part due to the fact that the number of children on cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers in America doubled between 2017 and 2021, concerned state legislators have worked quickly to ban the use of these drugs and “gender-affirming” surgical interventions for anyone under 18.
The lawmakers’ concern is well-founded.
A new study conducted in England reveals that the majority of children who are put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones experienced erratic and fluctuating mental health impacts; the mental health of over a third “reliably deteriorated.” Scientific studies reveal that the young adult brain doesn’t reach full development until age 25.
England’s National Health Service has banned the use of puberty blockers and hormone drugs by minors, following a growing consensus of European medical experts who have backed off gender-transition procedures for children.
France, Sweden, Finland, and Norway also have put restrictions on the use of puberty blockers and hormone drugs for children, making the United States an outlier in allowing them. No matter to Planned Parenthood, which is pushing the drugs as fast as it can.
Planned Parenthood’s present modus operandi? “If you can’t kill ’em, trans ’em.”
LifeNews Note: Sarah Parshall Perry is a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. This article originally appeared at The Daily Signal.
