Spain’s National Court Strips Planned Parenthood Affiliate of ‘Public Service’ Designation

The National Court of Spain has stripped the Family Planning Federation – a division of the International Planned Parenthood Federation – of its designation as a “public service organization.”

The organization has been embroiled in scandal since May 2016 when it was revealed it had been receiving illegal funding over the past seven years, reports ACl Prensa, whose original article was translated and adapted by Catholic News Agency (CNA).

The National Court reportedly allowed the group’s continued designation as a “public service organization” when it promised to make some reforms, but on November 25, the Court permanently revoked Family Planning Federation’s (FPF) status as a public group, stripping it of numerous tax, economic, administrative, and legal benefits.

According to the report, Polonia Castellanos, president of the Christian Lawyers Association (CLA) – which worked to have the abortion provider’s designation removed – said, “An organization which has systematically failed to comply with the law cannot be granted that status.”

Castellanos requested that FPF be refused “the more than €400,000 they receive with the money coming out of our pockets,” and observed the organization is funded by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, also under investigation due to allegations of profiteering from the sale of body parts of aborted babies.

CLA filed a complaint arguing that FPF “had not declared income from ads they ran in a pharmaceutical magazine, prohibited under Spanish law, nor were they penalized for such advertising,” says the report.

“Such illegal conduct is incompatible with the advancement of the public interest, in this case, protecting the public’s health,” stated the Interior Ministry upon removing the group’s public service designation, adding that FPF’s actions involve “betraying the confidence that society places in that entity which claims to benefit the community in exchange for receiving important advantages.”

In addition to its ruling stripping the abortion provider of its public service designation, Spain’s National Court also required FPF to pay court costs for its litigation.

Luis Losada Pescador, director of Spain’s CitizenGo campaigns, said the National Court’s ruling is “really good news from the Spanish perspective because justice is being done.”

“An organization that hides income and dodges penalties is not serving the public interest,” he continued. “From the international point of view, this comes when the FBI may be starting an investigation into the largest abortion multinational in the world with great influence in Latin America through its subsidiaries.”

Pescador added that the decision of Spain’s National Court “is very important because it opens the door to penalties against the American parent company.”

Within days after his inauguration as U.S. president, Donald Trump reinstated the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibits non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive U.S. funds – including International Planned Parenthood – from providing or promoting abortions, as a method of family planning, overseas.

The policy also bans these organizations from advocating for the passage of pro-abortion laws in other countries.

Trump has updated the policy by directing the Secretary of State to implement a plan that expands the policy across all global health assistance funding, an action that assures U.S. taxpayer dollars will not be supporting organizations that promote or participate in the management of a coercive abortion program. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), for example, is one such organization, with its long history of supporting China’s one-child population control program, an agenda that has included forced abortions.

The U.S. Congress, however, has yet to pass legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. Trump said he would sign such a measure if Planned Parenthood continues to provide abortions.