Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is urging the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate following reports that some Planned Parenthood affiliates are offering cosmetic services like Botox in an apparent effort to stabilize funding amid federal cuts.
“I write to draw your attention to a concerning article describing—and in some respects even promoting—efforts by Planned Parenthood affiliates to ‘attract a new clientele’ by offering neurotoxin injections similar to Botox and other aesthetic treatments while operating as tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charitable organizations,” Blackburn wrote in a March 26 letter, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, to Robert Malone, director of Exempt Organizations and Government Entities at the IRS.
“Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in Northern California—the organization’s largest affiliate—now operates a dedicated aesthetics program, marking a significant shift from the organization’s claim to be a charitable health care organization providing public health services,” Blackburn wrote.
In an interview published in March, Dr. Laura Dalton, the chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood, Mar Monte, told KCRA News that the affiliate, headquartered in San Jose, which runs 30 centers in California and Nevada, would be offering Botox injections and nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, for pain management.
KCRA News reported that Botox treatments will be offered at $9 per unit, compared with $12 or $15 at many medical spas.
“Let’s be clear what is actually occurring here,” Blackburn wrote in the letter. “Planned Parenthood, in an effort to abuse its 501(c)(3) status, is appealing to the women’s beauty market after the Working Families Tax Cut Act (Public Law 119-21) imposed a restriction on federal Medicaid funding for tax-exempt community abortion providers.”
