Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast is an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America based in Houston, Texas which provides reproductive health services including information about abortion procedures.

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast settled a civil suit with the United States government after it was accused of breaking the False Claims Act in 2013 after it allegedly inappropriately billed the Texas Medicaid program for services that were never completed, unnecessary, and were not covered by the Medicaid program. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast paid $4.3 million, but pursuant to the settlement agreement, liability was not determined. ¹

The U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives, which was formed to investigate allegations against Planned Parenthood by the social-conservative group Center for Medical Progress, referred Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast to the Texas Attorney General for criminal prosecution in 2016. The organization was accused of selling aborted fetal tissue, which is a violation of both federal and state law. PPGC denies wrongdoing. ²

Background

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC) is an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the leading  reproductive health and abortion provider in the United States. ³ Based in Houston, Texas, PPGC provides reproductive health services including information about abortion procedures for the city of Houston, Texas, and state of Louisiana ⁴

Founded in 1936 as the Maternal Health Center, it was renamed to Planned Parenthood Center of Houston after the American Birth Control League became Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. Its name changed to Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas in 1979 after multiple Planned Parenthood centers opened across Houston and the surrounding communities.  ⁵

Planned Parenthood of Louisiana was established in 1984, which also expanded quickly and became Planned Parenthood of Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta (PPLAMD) in 1991. Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas assumed management of PPLAMD in 2005, and the two affiliates merged officially in 2010 to become Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which currently manages six centers in the Greater Houston area and two in Louisiana. ⁶

Funding

Texas’ Department of State Health Services announced in 2015 that it would not renew Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s approximately $600,000 per year grant, federally funded through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ⁷ Despite this, PPGC made $19,885,885 in revenue for 2015, $6,940,788 of which came in the form of contributions and grants. ⁸

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast also made $19,582,746 in 2016, $7,401,383 of which were from contributions and grants. ⁹ PPGC received $9,378,385 in contributions and grants in 2017, which added to its total revenue of $24,050,440 for that year. ¹⁰

Controversy

Medicaid Billing

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast was sued by former employee Karen Reynolds under the False Claims Act in 2013. Reynolds, who worked at a PPGC clinic in Lufkin, Texas from 1999 to 2009, brought forward the suit after being fired from the organization. She claimed that management policy at PPGC emphasized increasing revenue by exaggerating the number of patient visits and services performed during those visits, and that management directed clinic workers to alter patient records so that the information matched the falsified data. Reynolds alleged that Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast submitted fraudulent billing information in excess of $30 million from 2003 to 2009. ¹¹

The United States government joined Reynolds in the suit, and the case was investigated by the Texas Attorney General’s Civil Medicaid Fraud Division and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin McClendon. According to the findings of the investigation, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast inappropriately billed the Texas Medicaid program for services that were “never actually rendered, not medically necessary, and were not covered by the Medicaid program,” which meant they were not entitled to reimbursement. ¹²

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast settled the suit by paying $4.3 million, but pursuant to the settlement agreement, PPGC denied any wrongdoing. ¹³

Undercover Video Allegations

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a social-conservative investigative group that is dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances, released a series of undercover videos in 2015 that alleged that Planned Parenthood is profiting from selling the body parts of aborted babies. ¹⁴ Planned Parenthood abortionists allegedly altered procedures to obtain intact organs to sell to biotech firms for higher prices and violated the privacy of clients by sharing medical information with biotech firms. ¹⁵

The video which implicates Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast contains an interview between investigators posing as potential fetal tissue buyers with PPGC’s Director of Research, Melissa Farrell, who admitted in the video that PPGC gets “requests a lot for fetal tissue.” ¹⁶

Farrell admitted in the video that accounting gimmicks were able to hide the sale of baby parts and detailed that PPGC used “per consent” on their budgeting form for fetal tissue sales, instead of “per specimen.” ¹⁷

Later in the video, Farrell admits that abortionists at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast can change abortion procedures to “get the best specimens.” ¹⁸ She also says that the sale of higher quality fetal tissue could be framed in a contract as “additional time, cost, administrative burden,” due to the higher price. ¹⁹

The U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives found and unveiled significant and extensive evidence in 2017 which showed that Planned Parenthood profited illegally from the transfer of fetal tissue to other groups for research purposes. ²⁰ Planned Parenthood has denied wrongdoing, alleging among other things that the videos were deceptively edited. In a ruling upholding Texas’s decision to terminate Medicaid funding of Planned Parenthood affiliates, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit noted a review of the Center for Medical Progress footage found “that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited.” ²¹

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17. David. “Planned Parenthood Houston Admits Accounting Gimmicks Hide Baby Parts Sales, Invoices Charge Thousands of Dollars.” The Center for Medical Progress, February 3, 2016. http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2016/02/planned-parenthood-houston-admits-accounting-gimmicks-hide-baby-parts-sales-invoices-charge-thousands-of-dollars/.
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