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by Jim Holman.
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Battle for Blood

EDWARD ALLRED SUES PLANNED PARENTHOOD

By James McCoy

It's California's biggest abortion chain versus the biggest abortion franchise nationwide, with anti-abortion activists relishing the legal battle from the sidelines. For no matter who wins this titanic lawsuit, the other party will get back to its monstrous business with a few teeth knocked out.

Last month Family Planning Associates, Southern California's largest abortion provider, sued the three Planned Parenthood organizations for unfair business competition, business done in violation of state regulations. Planned Parenthood, which consists of independent local groups, like franchises, under a national umbrella has carved up southern California into three nonprofit corporations: Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino, and Los Angeles counties respectively. Long Beach-based Family Planning Associates are a string of 21 abortion clinics founded by Dr. Edward Allred, "a comprehensive network" created over the years "at great expense," as the suit filed in the Orange County Superior Court points out.

Planned Parenthood "has gone beyond its original charitable purpose," the suit alleges, "and has commenced to compete generally with private community physicians by offering compensated medical services to the general public" in violation of state health and business codes. While state regulations do allow "a limited exception for community clinics operated by non-profit corporations" to provide compensated medical services, Planned Parenthood has made the exception the rule. "Over the years," Family Planning Associates charged, "Planned Parenthood has expanded far beyond its original charitable purpose of providing medical care and treatment to indigent persons. Planned Parenthood operates a network of facilities throughout southern California...for the purpose of providing compensated medical service to the general public and is engaged in an aggressive marketing."

Allred must have seen red when Planned Parenthood "knowingly and willingly conspired," as the suit puts it, to provide abortions to patients referred by Southern California Permanente Group, an HMO. Permanente doesn't send referrals to Family Planning Associates anymore, and that, according to a Los Angeles pro-life researcher (who asked not to be identified) meant Allred's clinics lost "by far their largest HMO contract."

"Planned Parenthood stole one of Family Planning Associates' contracts," said Cheryl Sullenger, director of the California Life Coalition who sidewalk counsels in front of the Family Planning Associates clinic in San Diego, "and they're upset about that obviously." In her 15 years' of sidewalk counseling, Sullenger said, "we would often see people go into it [the clinic] with their Kaiser cards. On any given day two or three that we would be aware of were from Kaiser." Significantly, while Family Planning Associates has contracts with over 260 organizations, Permanente's defection is the only one explicitly mentioned in the suit: "For the past approximately 20 years, Family Planning Associates...has provided medical care and treatment to Permanente patients. Over the years Family Planning Associates has, at great expense, opened numerous medical facilities creating a comprehensive network of facilities in close proximity to Permanente facilities..." But for three years now, the suit charges, "Permanente has ceased referring its patients to Family Planning Associates for care and treatment in the counties of San Bernardino, Orange and San Diego."

I tried calling Family Planning Associates headquarters for further comment, but the woman who answered the phone at its Long Beach abortion clinic said "no comment" and hung up. I called Family Planning Associates' Sacramento-based attorneys, Wagner, Kirkman and Blaine, who declined to comment on pending litigation. I called Planned Parenthood in San Diego, and Mark Salo, its president, likewise declined to comment. I called an 800 number for Permanente, but, having descended three circles of its automatic phone menu, my call was disconnected.

Pro-lifers, however, gushed. "That's great!" exclaimed Sullenger, just after reading the lawsuit. Why? "Because we want them to win. I want Family Planning Associates to win because Planned Parenthood wouldn't be able to provide medical services, including abortions, in the State of California."

Mrs. X, an attorney licensed to practice law in California (who requested anonymity) said, "personally, I would like to see Allred win the lawsuit because one of the strengths of Planned Parenthood is all this free money they get.... They don't have to operate the business efficiently because they can be big and fat and inefficient.... If Allred wins it's either going to affect their tax exempt status or [make them] charge more. So that means in a competition that would level the playing field, and in a fair fight, Allred would win."

Mrs. X thinks that Allred's got a strong case because he has "standing." He can show that he has been personally damaged. A pro-lifer, however, could not bring the same suit against Planned Parenthood because the court would ask, how have you been damaged? "Allred actually has standing," she said, "because he can say, 'look I have a contract with Permanente.'" The suit does not specify damages except to say that they would be more than $25,000, the threshold for cases for superior court, Mrs. X explained. The actual damages would be much, much larger. But that's not all. "Whatever he gains from this court he [can] take that principle and use it as a settled matter in other counties," Mrs. X said.

"I figure," the LA pro-life researcher added, "that their [Planned Parenthood's] charter says they're there to help indigent and poor women.... If somebody has health insurance they're not indigent and poor."

Allred's argument, Mrs. X said, thus boils down to: "I followed capitalist principles, I raised the capital and put out the money...and built my business. But Planned Parenthood being a charity didn't raise capital to build their business, but they're acting not as a charity but as a business." "Somewhere in the complaint," the pro-life researcher said, "he [Allred] says, [Planned Parenthood is] doing it below cost." Is that why Permanente switched from Family Planning Associates to Planned Parenthood? "I think it's just the bottom line," he agreed, "who could supply the best service at the cheapest price."

While Family Planning Associates has got a case, what if it nevertheless loses? Sullenger says that even then, the pro-life cause still wins. "If Planned Parenthood wins, it will be a death blow to Family Planning Associates," she said. "I think Family Planning Associates has been losing business anyway because they're having problems staffing their clinics. When they have to cut back on [abortion days] I think that business goes elsewhere." Sullenger said that ever since the local Family Planning Associates clinic's full-time abortionist, Dr. Karl Seligman, retired, "they've had a series of abortionists in there .... They have a different abortionist everyday. They're like scrambling to find abortionists to fill the killing days."

Mrs. X sees the same abortionist attrition: "Ultimately one of the things that is a good development in this country [is] there are getting to be less and less abortion providers," she said. They may be giants, but "they're fighting over the shrinking abortion business," she said. "The total number of abortions is going down."

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