Power

Anti-Choice Crusade Tests ACOG’s Donations to Blackburn

Republicans' prevailing views on abortion haven’t stopped the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists from contributing to their campaigns for U.S. Congress.

Any contribution to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the leader of the congressional crusade to undermine access to abortion care and halt fetal tissue research, may appear misplaced. An ACOG spokesperson, however, stressed that its PAC is broader than any one issue. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the leader of the congressional crusade to undermine access to abortion care and halt fetal tissue research, received campaign funds from an unlikely donor: the political advocacy arm of the nation’s leading professional association for obstetricians and gynecologists.

Publicly available campaign finance records obtained through the Federal Election Commission reveal that the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) donated $2,000 to Blackburn early in the two-year 2016 federal election cycle. ACOG made the contribution through its political action committee (PAC), Ob-GynPAC, on June 30, 2015—several months before the U.S. House of Representatives voted in October to establish the so-called Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives.

ACOG is the 501(c)(6) affiliate of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the membership association for 57,000 such providers across the country.

ACOG supports access to abortion care based on public health and medical evidence. Any contribution to Blackburn may, at first, appear misplaced. Blackburn, a longtime abortion rights foe, has emerged in recent months as the House’s most outspoken critic of an illicit market in “baby body parts” that according to all other accounts—three prior congressional committees, 13 states, and a Texas grand jury—doesn’t exist.

An ACOG spokesperson, however, stressed that Ob-GynPAC is broader than any one issue.

“The PAC often supports candidates and elected officials whom they disagree with on one issue or another because they work with the PAC on another priority,” the spokesperson told Rewire in an email.

ACOG priorities overlap with some traditionally in the GOP camp: medical liability and Medicare payment reform, health information technology, and Affordable Care Act’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, a yet-to-be-constituted oversight panel to control Medicare costs. Medical groups generally oppose the advisory board, while anti-choice advocates have framed it as a “death panel.”

“Ob-GynPAC’s goal is to achieve real solutions to the issues facing ACOG members, which happens through bipartisan cooperation,” the spokesperson said.

The vast majority of congressional Republicans outright reject public health and medical evidence on abortion and oppose abortion rights, with the measured exception of retiring Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY), who voted in 2015 against defunding Planned Parenthood even as he supports restrictions such as the Hyde Amendment. Hanna received $5,000 from ACOG in the 2016 federal election cycle.

Republicans’ prevailing views on abortion haven’t stopped ACOG from contributing to their campaigns for the House and U.S. Senate.

ACOG split $390,500 almost evenly between Republican and Democratic candidates in the 2016 cycle, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Notable exceptions include Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), the author of misleading legislation to ban sex- and race-selective abortion care, and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), perhaps the most abortion-obsessed lawmaker in Congress. Franks and Smith have not received any money since ACOG became operational in 2010, according to Center for Responsive Politics’ data.

The $2,000 contribution to Blackburn marks a retrenchment, as ACOG first gave a $3,500 campaign contribution in the 2012 election cycle. Blackburn received another $4,000 from ACOG in the 2014 cycle.

Some of Blackburn’s top campaign contributors are from the medical field. The American Medical Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and the American College of Radiology each gave Blackburn $10,000 in the 2016 federal election cycle, according to Center for Responsive Politics data.

Across the aisle, ACOG donated $7,500 each in the 2016 cycle to Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Diana DeGette (D-CO), two of Blackburn’s adversaries on the select panel. Campaign finance records show that Schakowsky, the panel’s top Democrat, received the last $2,500 of that contribution from ACOG on March 31 of this year—several weeks after Republicans drew comparisons between fetal tissue research and Nazi experimentation at the panel’s first hearing.

ACOG defended both abortion care and fetal tissue research in a March 1 letter to Blackburn and Schakowsky and later that month, reiterated support for “life-saving research” in a statement and joint letter with others from the medical, scientific, and academic communities.

Neither the panel, nor the investigation, have ACOG’s support, the group’s spokesperson told Rewire.

In July, 30 progressive and reproductive health-care groups signed a letter in a bid for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to disband the panel.