In 1961, in his Farewell Address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower predicted the fusion of the military establishment, a large armaments industry, and the political backing that such a cadre could command. He named it the “military-industrial complex” and warned that this powerful union, built on tax dollars and political influence, would drive perpetual conflict and, thus, war profits, rather than peace and democracy. It was a machine designed to ensure its own survival and uninterrupted growth, no matter how the nation voted.
America’s abortion industry is structurally similar, financially insulated, and coordinated to survive no matter who we put in charge of the government. Just as with the military-industrial complex, the abortion industrial complex profits from death.
The Capital Research Center and others have previously used the “abortion industrial complex” metaphor to trace describe the eugenics roots of the movement, its early philanthropic funding, and its international scope. Today, in a time beyond the repeal of Roe v Wade, the abortion industrial complex still thrives within a politically protected infrastructure. (The rise of the abortion industry is covered extensively in Birth of the Abortion Industrial Complex, a 2022 report for Capital Research magazine.)
The leaders of this network are not primarily physicians. They are powerful, interconnected nonprofits that treat abortion not just as a service, but as a political weapon, a cultural pillar, and above all, a stable, highly defended business model.
For decades, this network was framed as necessary for “women’s healthcare.” But peel back the layers, and you discover a colossal nonprofit ecosystem with revenue in the billions, legal warfare divisions, and donor pipelines that would make a defense contractor envious.
At the heart of the abortion industrial complex are five nonprofits: the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Guttmacher Institute, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL), the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the National Network of Abortion Funds.
In early American history abortion was illegal or heavily restricted. Laws dating back to the 1830s prohibited abortion after “quickening,” a term used during that time for fetal movement. By the late 19th century, most states had outlawed the practice almost entirely. Abortion was not viewed as healthcare back then. It was considered a moral and legal issue.
Then at the start of the 20th century activists such as Margaret Sanger began promoting birth control as a means of eugenics and social engineering that would prevent the growth of “human weeds.” In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).
In a 1923 essay for the New York Times, Sanger wrote:
Birth control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced. It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocks—those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.
Preventing pregnancies isn’t the same as terminating them. But in hindsight the evolution from contraception advocacy to abortion promotion seems inevitable. (Dare we say “planned”?) Way back in her 1920 book, Woman and the New Race, Sanger advised that the “most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Birth control becomes abortion advocacy
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Like the military-industrial complex, the abortion industrial complex is impervious to policy changes. “In the two years since the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, the total number of abortions nationally has slightly increased,” reported the Kaiser Family Foundation in July 2025.
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While that brutally honest admission wouldn’t be used by the abortion industrial complex today, it doesn’t seem to have hurt the brand a century ago. Among the powerful people, abortion began to lose its reputation as a moral tragedy to be prevented.
By the early 1960s, big funders such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation were pouring millions into birth and population control. This helped construct the legal and cultural scaffolding for the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, which legalized abortion nationwide. The abortion industrial complex grew from there: clinic locations increased, and funding mechanisms were secured.
By the 1990s, abortion was not just a healthcare issue. It was a central organizing principle for the progressive movement and a major financial draw for several large nonprofits.
When Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe in 2022, abortion activists claimed it would be the death blow to abortion access across the nation. Instead, they used it as an opportunity for rapid restructuring, not retreat. The abortion nonprofits shifted from federal strategies to state-level ballot measures, from promoting primarily surgical abortions to streamlining mail-order abortion pills, and from building new clinics to providing interstate abortion travel funds.
A good example was the 2024 effort in Florida to overturn the state’s heartbeat law. Enacted in 2023, the law prohibits abortions after the detection of a heartbeat, which can occur as soon as week six of a pregnancy. The law does not affect the ability to obtain an abortion before that, or even afterward in verifiable cases of rape or incest. It is a moderate compromise that protects both abortion access for those who act promptly, and the unborn child once blood is clearly pumping.
But this was too much for the abortion industry. National abortion groups poured money, staff, and messaging into placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would have legalized abortion through viability—(when the baby can survive outside the womb). Even under our current state of miracle technology, viability generally occurs past week twenty—well after the heart has been thumping for three months.
When Amendment 4 qualified for the November 2024 Florida ballot, it demonstrated that the abortion industrial complex could operate very aggressively, even in a conservative state. According to a Ballotpedia tabulation, the abortion industry and its allies spent $121.8 million to support the proposal. This gave them a nearly 11-1 spending advantage over pro-life groups and allies who spent just $11.3 million to defend the heartbeat law.
That massive monetary advantage was used to purchase a fear-mongering media blitz, and it nearly worked. In Florida, ballot proposals to amend the constitution must have 60 percent support. Amendment 4 received 57 percent—an obvious majority, but not the supermajority the abortion industrial complex needed.
The impact of that massive spending advantage seems to have not survived much beyond the vote counting. In March 2025, a Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey showed 64 percent support for the heartbeat protection law that was nearly abolished five months earlier.
But the Florida setback perversely demonstrated the immense power of the abortion movement and the precarious state of the pro-life movement.
It’s hard to imagine a tougher battlefield for the abortion industrial complex to have selected. Florida is the third largest state by population and has become one of the most conservative. On the same day that 57 percent of Floridians were convinced to vote for more abortions, 56 percent voted to send Trump back to the White House.
So, even in Florida the pro-abortion side showed it has the ability to severely outspend the opposition and use the loot to (temporarily) win over a clear majority. But there are 38 other states, including all of the major swing states, where just a simple majority is needed to approve a constitutional amendment.
If that standard had existed in Florida, then the abortion industrial complex would still be celebrating a decisive victory over the heartbeat law.
What this event also illustrated is that in every era, whether it be pre-Roe marketing, Roe-era expansion and mainstreaming, or now (post-Dobbs restructuring), these nonprofits, not medical institutions, have acted as the architects and guardians of the abortion movement. They turned abortion into a cause, a political instrument, and above all, an industry.
Like the military-industrial complex, the abortion industrial complex is impervious to policy changes.
“In the two years since the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, the total number of abortions nationally has slightly increased,” reported the Kaiser Family Foundation in July 2025. (Confusingly, Kaiser—or KFF—is not really a family foundation, but a think thank that provides well-respected data on health care policy.)
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is the central office of the abortion industrial complex. It is the most well-known, best-funded, and most politically protected abortion provider in the country. Its annual revenue now exceeds $2 billion. The business model resembles that of a large-scale healthcare chain with subsidiaries, affiliates, and a strong advocacy arm with their 501(c)(4) Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Like the military-industrial complex, the abortion industrial complex is built atop your tax dollars. According to Planned Parenthood’s 2023–2024 annual report, $792.2 million of its $2 billion in annual revenue (nearly 40 percent of the total) came from “Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants.” Most of this money flows through Medicaid reimbursements and state programs. The Hyde Amendment blocks federal dollars from paying for elective abortions, but it does not prevent Planned Parenthood from billing the government for its other services.
PPFA’s supporting cast
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… this abortion tourism raises another controversy. Should tax-exempt nonprofits—charities—be permitted to finance medical procedures that are illegal in a patient’s home state, particularly when those procedures involve minors?
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In the military-industrial complex, the military obtains weapons and services from the defense industry. Similarly, the abortion industrial complex has its own supporting cast that provides research, legal, and other assistance.
The Guttmacher Institute:
The Guttmacher Institute is the research and data engine of the abortion industrial complex. While it cultivates a media reputation as an independent research group, Guttmacher was originally created within Planned Parenthood and formally separated from PPFA in 2007. Guttmacher’s 2024 annual revenue was $26.5 million and it annually receives millions from foundations that champion abortion, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.
Indistinguishable from PPFA, Guttmacher promotes expanding Medicaid coverage for abortion, deregulating abortion pills, eliminating parental involvement laws, and establishing constitutional protections for unrestricted abortion access.
Reproductive Freedom for All:
Reproductive Freedom for All (RFA) serves as the abortion advocacy movement’s political mobilization engine, shaping public opinion, coordinating ballot initiatives, pressuring lawmakers, and mobilizing voters. The name itself is just the latest effort to hide the real agenda of the abortion industrial complex. For half a century until 2023, “Reproductive Freedom for All” was known by a more honest name: the National Abortion Rights Action League, or NARAL.
As Reproductive Freedom for All, the group reported revenue of $18.5 million for 2024.
RFA maintains political pressure on lawmakers through the publication of Legislative Scorecards and Congressional Records. By documenting every vote on reproductive health issues, the organization creates a permanent public record of a legislator’s alignment with its mission. These scorecards are used to rank representatives, designating “Reproductive Freedom Champions” and identifying those who support restrictions to achieve targeted political accountability. This system makes it easy for their 4 million members to see who to support and who to vote against in the next election.
RFA’s influence has expanded rapidly through its aggressive ballot initiative strategy. The organization helped push constitutional amendments in states such as Michigan, Ohio, Vermont, and California, rewriting state constitutions to establish abortion as a protected right.
RFA also rejects parental involvement laws. They argue that minors should be able to access abortion without parental notification or consent.
And in April 2023, RFA (then still known as NARAL) denounced Florida’s heartbeat standard as “an extreme ban on abortion.” Recall that this supposedly “extreme ban” only applies to abortions committed after six weeks—literally halfway through the first trimester of pregnancy.
The Center for Reproductive Rights:
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) is so radical that it moves the goalposts well into the second trimester. A tax-exempt nonprofit, CRR is the legal defense arm of the abortion movement. For the year ending June 2024, CRR reported total revenue of $65.4 million. Recent seven-figure donors include the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (funded by billionaire Warren Buffett) and the Freedom Together Foundation.
Any reasonable and democratically approved regulation or restriction on abortion is likely to face a lawsuit filed by CRR.
For example, one of CRR’s practice areas has been the defense of late-term abortions. In Whole Woman’s Health v. Paxton, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood challenged a Texas law that banned abortions that occur far into the second trimester, or what the January 2022 CRR news release euphemistically referred to as “abortion care after about 14-15 weeks.”
When Margaret Sanger wrote that the “most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it,” perhaps she meant to say something no more off-putting than “provide abortion care after about 40 weeks.”
National Network of Abortion Funds
Reporting nearly $24.7 million in revenue for the year ending June 2024, National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) is the logistic lifeline of the abortion industrial complex. NNAF facilitates hundreds of local abortion funds that help women, including minors, travel across state lines to obtain abortions. In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, NNAF transformed into a network that subsidizes nearly every aspect of the abortion process.
One of the primary controversies surrounding NNAF is its role in abortion tourism. The organization openly funds transportation, lodging, meals, and childcare for women traveling to states where abortion is more permissive. After Texas enacted its heartbeat law in 2021, NNAF funded coordinated large-scale efforts to move women out of Texas for abortions in New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.
In addition to the ethical concern for the unborn, this abortion tourism raises another controversy. Should tax-exempt nonprofits—charities—be permitted to finance medical procedures that are illegal in a patient’s home state, particularly when those procedures involve minors?
NNAF is also part of the broader infrastructure promoting so-called “self-managed” abortion through nontraditional channels. While NNAF does not directly mail abortion pills, it openly partners with and amplifies groups that do, including linking women with a search engine for obtaining abortion pills. NNAF posts educational materials and guides explaining how abortion pills work, how they can be obtained outside of traditional clinics, and how individuals can navigate legal and logistical barriers in states where abortion is restricted.
The business of planning parenthood
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Planned Parenthood eventually had to abandon the odious reputation and policies of its founder. And by “eventually,” I mean they finally got around to it in 2015, the last year they gave out the “Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award.”
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At the center of it all is the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute notes that while PPFA’s non-abortion services (such as cancer screenings and prenatal care) have plummeted by more than 70% since 2010, its taxpayer-funded subsidies have increased. By 2024, government financial support rose by more than 20%, even as the organization closed clinics, cut back non-abortion services, and increased its total number of abortions.
This dependence on public funding continued even during the first Trump administration’s attempt to curb federal support.
In 2019, President Trump implemented the Protect Life Rule, which barred Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X grants unless it separated its abortion operations physically and financially from the rest of its services. Planned Parenthood refused and withdrew from Title X altogether, revealing how intertwined its services are with its abortion business. As noted earlier, Planned Parenthood continued receiving large sums through Medicaid reimbursements for exams, STD testing, and contraceptive consultations. Medicaid pays for services rendered, not grants, so the organization’s huge taxpayer-funded source remained untouched. In simple terms, Planned Parenthood lost the Title X faucet but kept the much larger Medicaid firehose.
Then, in 2025, the second Trump Administration sought to further restrict federal funds to Planned Parenthood. The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) contained a one-year Medicaid ban for “non-profits that offer abortions and receive more than $800,000 in federal funding in 2013.” According to Planned Parenthood, this one-year prohibition will cut roughly $700 million from their federal support.
Any extension of this temporary restriction will hinge on the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections. If Democrats take back control of the House of Representatives, then Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid firehose could be turned right back on. In the meantime, blue states such as California, New York, and New Jersey have stepped in to help offset the loss of federal funds. Here’s what they’re buying. The service data in Planned Parenthood’s most recent annual report covers the fiscal year ending September 2023. During that period its clinics administered 943,104 pregnancy tests and provided 402,230 abortions. The same chart shows just 2,148 “adoption referrals” and 7,008 visits for “prenatal services.”
So that’s 9,156 clinic visits (25 per day) for those planning for parenthood, versus 402,230 visits (1,100 per day) for those aggressively planning against parenthood. If Planned Parenthood was overtly promoting population control, would these numbers look much different?
A Kaiser Family Foundation report showed black women accounted for 40 percent of American abortions in 2022. This was triple the percentage of black Americans (12.6 percent) in the overall population.
That’s an outcome that would have made Magaret Sanger smile. In 1939 she was head of the Birth Control Federation of America (as Planned Parenthood was then known). That’s where she launched the “Negro Project,” a race control effort sold as “birth control.”
Planned Parenthood eventually had to abandon the odious reputation and policies of its founder. And by “eventually,” I mean they finally got around to it in 2015, the last year they gave out the “Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award.” Some of the last winners to accept PPFA’s “highest honor” include Nancy Pelosi (2014) and Hillary Clinton (2009).
In response to the George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020, the Manhattan Planned Parenthood office removed Sanger’s name from the building. In concert with this the nearby “Margaret Sanger Square” (so honored in 1993 at the request of Planned Parenthood) was also changed (again . . . at the request of Planned Parenthood).
Today the PPFA website’s history page concedes that “Sanger believed in eugenics, an inherently racist and ableist ideology that labeled certain people unfit to have children.”
Now it is the children who are the targets of Planned Parenthood advocacy. The sex-ed info page on the PPFA website boasts that they train “educators and school-staff” and that “Planned Parenthood education staff reach 1.3 million people each year, most of whom are in middle school and high school.”
Another PPFA web page offers thinly veiled advice for minors who wish to have an abortion without telling their parents. It notes, for example, that “California has no restrictions on abortion for minors” and that “if you live in a state where abortion is illegal, you may have to go to another state to get an abortion, and it can take time to arrange travel.”
In 2012 California became the first state to prohibit minors from buying several common cold and flu remedies. So, in the name of child safety, a 17-year-old girl in California is prohibited from purchasing a small bottle of Nyquil but can obtain an invasive medical procedure (i.e.: an abortion) without asking her parents.
Perverse policy influence is also a feature of the military-industrial complex.
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience,” said Eisenhower in his Farewell Address. “The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government.”
America does not have a grassroots abortion movement. It has a nonprofit-driven abortion industry with near-total economic, political and even spiritual influence over pregnancy termination policy. Looked at this way, it’s not a surprise that abortions increased after Roe was repealed.
