So here is your Harvard Business School problem of the year. Among other “services,” Planned Parenthood provides low cost contraception. Most folks don’t object to that on either side of the political spectrum, although the use of taxpayer monies to do that gripes many. PP even goes so far as to give contraceptives to minor children, at school clinics, without parental consent, further irritating many but even that is not the issue today. No, the issue today is determining the cost basis for aborted babies.
PP’s CEO, Cecile Richards, admitted in an ABC interview that PP sells aborted baby parts. To be sure, she didn’t like the manner in which PP’s baby selling scheme was uncovered, but in the end, she admitted that they do sell aborted baby parts. “The most damaging aspect of the interview is perhaps the section during which Richards tells the host that Planned Parenthood is not making a profit over the sale of the aborted baby body parts.”
So that brings up the Harvard question. In order to know whether one is making a profit or not, one has to have some data. What is the cost basis of aborted baby parts? Some of you may remember this as “cost of goods sold” from Accounting 101. If it costs $4.87 to make a widget, that is good to know, but how is that cost allocated? There is material cost, labor cost, transportation cost, overhead both fixed and variable, etc. At the end of the day, one has to figure out what it cost to make a widget so that one can set a sales price to make a profit. Makes sense right?
In order for PP to know their material cost, they have to know the price of an aborted baby. Is it simply a free biological specimen brought to you by a female who is no longer desirous of the tumor growing inside her? Do you then add the cost of the clinic, technicians, the doctor, the bio lab materials, the fixed and variable overhead, and so forth to finalize a “cost of goods sold?” If so, the devil is in the details. Fixed and variable overhead allocation is always debatable. What part of a facility is for abortions vs. program administration, warehousing product, training, etc.? What part of a doctor’s salary is for abortions vs. counseling, education, or program administration? Once ones haggles about those things, then one can set the price.
CEO Richards maintains that PP doesn’t make a profit from the sale of aborted babies. Before she can know that, she has to know her cost of goods sold. One doesn’t get to be the CEO of a major non-profit entity, drawing a $400,000 salary, without knowing one’s data. Assuming that she has calculated all those fixed and variable costs, she has to have allocated a cost basis for that aborted child.
There are only two options when it comes to the cost basis of a baby.
Option 1: At its birth, a baby is a huge liability. Food, clothing and shelter are expensive. Education, while technically optional, is required otherwise this kid is going to be a burden of greater magnitude. The expenses can be incredible and if all goes well, the child will one day be a solid return on investment. But that cannot be known at birth. It just can’t. From a biological standpoint, a baby, especially an unborn baby, is a liability and not an asset. Negative value is thus assigned.
Back to PP. If they have decided that their cost basis in the aborted baby is zero, then sure, they can simply figure the rest of their costs and say that they aren’t making a profit on that sale. Question is, why would anyone do that? Why would anyone go through that sort of trouble to make zero? Nada? Zilch? If there is nothing in it for PP, why do it? A smart CEO would nix that money losing operation in a heartbeat. I submit that they are lying and that they are making money off aborted babies. It’s the only logical conclusion one can draw. Is it enough to fund all of PP’s programs? Probably not but there is no logical reason to sell aborted babies. Selling fetal tissue, commonly called a baby, is undoubtedly making PP money to help pay for its other free programs. A smart and gifted CEO would know that.
Option 2: That child is a priceless gift from God.
In which case, PP can never, ever, in a million years, make a profit from selling aborted babies, and thus CEO Richards would be truthfully stating that selling aborted babies and their parts is a non-profit endeavor. Can PP admit that a baby, aborted or born alive, is priceless? No it can’t. If it admitted that, it would never engage in abortions. So it denies the very thing that it’s CEO requires to be true, otherwise she is a bald faced liar.
Babies are priceless. Even the CEO of Planned Parenthood knows that. Her own math tells her that she must admit that which she denies.
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