Planned Parenthood Paid Millions to Raytheon

To the dismay of many sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice workers in the U.S., many movement organizations had to be pushed to call for a ceasefire in Gaza or otherwise voice support for Palestinians who are being murdered en masse by the Israeli military. This includes Israel’s recent assault on Rafah, a supposed “safe zone” that was shelled by Israeli forces, killing dozens of people who were sheltering in a displacement camp.

While some recent demands from pro-Palestine protestors may seem to have nothing to do with the repro movement—namely the call for institutions to divest from arms manufacturers that aid the ongoing genocide in Gaza—Prism exclusively reports that connections to weapons companies do exist in the repro field. In fact, the nation’s leading provider of sexual and reproductive health care contracts directly with one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers.

Planned Parenthood paid millions to RTX

As President Joe Biden continues to send billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, student protestors nationwide created encampments on their university campuses demanding institutions divest from companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies (RTX), Boeing, General Dynamics, and others that have business ties to Israel.

These companies offer profitable investment portfolios—especially for corporations and large institutions. And these investments are especially profitable now during the genocide in Gaza, as Israel is required to use the billions of dollars in funding it receives from the U.S. to purchase American-made weapons. This is why pro-Palestine protesters nationwide are demanding that institutions where they study, work, and live revise their investment portfolios to cut ties with companies implicated in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) identified more than 50 companies that are profiting from the genocide, asserting that “the scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without this continued flow of weapons from the U.S.” This includes companies like RTX.

According to research by AFSC, in addition to providing cybersecurity services for private, public, and nonprofit organizations, RTX makes “missiles, bombs, components for fighter jets, and other weapon systems used by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians.” RTX also manufactures interceptors for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, and the arms manufacturer created the technology that currently aids in the surveillance and militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Experts across the reproductive rights field have warned that Israel’s bombardments and ground invasions of Gaza worsened the already precarious access to reproductive care in the region. Members of the public and workers in the repro field continue to push sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations to speak out on the issue. There has been some success, but also a lot of pushback.

Demands for divestment in the repro field have not really emerged, though this is likely because workers are unaware of the connections between one of the nation’s largest sexual and reproductive health employers and an arms manufacturer.

According to a 2019 tax return that extends through the organization’s fiscal year ending in June 2020, Planned Parenthood Federation of America paid more than $3.3 million to Raytheon Foreground Security for “IT Services.” Raytheon Foreground Security is a subsidiary of RTX, one of the world’s largest defense companies. According to Crunchbase, Raytheon Foreground Security provides cyber security services, including security engineering, assessment, customized security training, and advanced incident response and forensics services.

As a nonprofit organization, Planned Parenthood is legally required to disclose on their Form 990 the five highest compensated independent contractors that received more than $100,000. Raytheon Foreground Security does not show up in any other Planned Parenthood tax forms before or after 2019. However, Prism obtained an internal Planned Parenthood document that indicates the organization had ties to Raytheon as recently as last year.

Prism contacted Planned Parenthood Federation of America for comment regarding its relationship to Raytheon Foreground Security and the services the arms manufacturer provides to the organization, but the president and CEO, senior vice president of communications, and a member of the board did not respond by publication time.

On LinkedIn, Planned Parenthood and RTX are publicly connected by two profiles. The first, Keith Frazier, is listed as a senior security engineer at Raytheon Intelligence & Space since 2019, describing his job as “senior security engineer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) on a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offering to the national office and transitioning 50 affiliated PPFA offices to the MSSP program.”

The second is a LinkedIn profile for a business analyst listed as Greg Z who, from June to August 2019, participated in an “information security analyst internship” at Planned Parenthood, where he “participated in weekly meetings with Raytheon” and documented “security vulnerabilities and security updates.”

Planned Parenthood’s links to the arms manufacturer appear to go back many years. In a 2013 annual report for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM), Raytheon Charitable Giving appears on a list of annual fund donors, though the donation amount is undisclosed. Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts told Prism in an email that they do not have a relationship with RTX.

“Any funds received from Raytheon Charitable Giving are from employees who choose to donate directly to PPLM through their company’s corporate giving program, not a corporate partnership,” the organization said in a statement.

Neither RTX nor any of its associated companies are included in any other Planned Parenthood annual reports.

Prism also reached out to RTX’s media contact for further details on the kind of cybersecurity services Raytheon Foreground Security provides to Planned Parenthood. The arms manufacturer did not respond by publication time.

Nearly two months after the genocide began, Planned Parenthood released a statement on Dec. 5, 2023, about the “violence in Israel and Gaza,” writing, in part: “The war against Hamas in Gaza has now killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, including many women and children, and resulted in a humanitarian crisis in which the people of Gaza lack access to much needed health care, food, water and other aid.” The statement was met with widespread criticism. To many in the reproductive rights field, Planned Parenthood’s position was lukewarm and played both sides of a genocidal siege on Gaza.

But despite issuing the statement that at least acknowledged the worsening crisis and despite having ties to a reproductive rights clinic that was bombed by Israel, Planned Parenthood has so far not announced its divestment from Raytheon Foreground Security. According to a report published this year by the online magazine Responsible Statecraft, RTX “supplies the Israeli military with air-to-surface missiles and cluster bombs, and manufactures engines for the F-15 and F-16 fighter jets that have been used to bomb Gaza.” A report published in Jacobin also revealed that in late October 2023, RTX executives framed the genocide as profitable for the company’s portfolio.

Unique legacy cybersecurity needs

According to cybersecurity consultant Praveen Sinha, who previously contracted with Planned Parenthood, the organization requires a robust and to-scale cybersecurity system. As a pro-choice organization that has long been the target of attacks from anti-choice and right-wing groups, Planned Parenthood is constantly at risk of malware, hacking, privacy breaches, and doxxing and harassment of staff and patients.

“Cybersecurity and physical security are always intertwined at this point, especially in 2024,” Sinha said. “A physical security attack is almost always preceded by a cybersecurity attack, whether it’s someone trying to find out the information of a staff member, like their private address so they can harass them, or to find out about an event, or even if it’s using more sophisticated electronic techniques to steal money or commit financial fraud.”

Sinha told Prism that because of Planned Parenthood’s size and recognizability, disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories about the organization frequently pop up.

“In right-wing forums, Planned Parenthood has such a mythology behind it that people will choose it as a target,” Sinha said, noting that the organization must prioritize digital security because of the amount of sensitive data and private patient information they are responsible for.

The organization’s need to stop leaks and security breaches at all costs goes beyond protecting staff.

“Planned Parenthood is housing a ton of sensitive data, both in terms of what the data is, like addresses, for example, but also, in the current reproductive environment, there’s also a lot of legal risk [for people seeking reproductive health care],” Sinha explained. “Let’s say somebody crosses state lines to go to a Planned Parenthood clinic in order to get health care; it doesn’t even have to be abortion health care; it could even be trans health care. All that data could potentially put that patient at a legal risk. So it’s not just the staff, it’s really about protecting the population, the health care recipients that are served by Planned Parenthood. This is another reason why cybersecurity has to be such a centerpiece of an organization this size.”

Planned Parenthood provided health care to more than two million patients in 2023, according to the organization’s annual report. While Planned Parenthood doesn’t publicize its exact number of workers, the organization cites “nearly 600 health centers across the country” in the same report.

With such widespread nationwide operations and extensive staff needs, organizations like Planned Parenthood require a scalable security system—the kind that only larger cybersecurity providers are able to offer. Planned Parenthood is also a legacy institution that needs to protect and manage large amounts of data amassed over its more than 100-year history. According to Sinha, these are complicated obstacles to overcome when seeking a cybersecurity provider.

“Being able to come up with a security plan for that type of organic, long-term, built-up national infrastructure is very complicated and very pricey, to say the least,” Sinha said. “I’m not going to say there are no values-aligned scalable providers out there, but they are relatively new in the scene. In the last few years, values-aligned start-ups have been turning up, but previous to that, there were not a lot of options.”

‘Reproductive genocide in Gaza’

Planned Parenthood’s digital security needs may be uniquely challenging, but it would be difficult for the organization to justify its contract with RTX given the worsening sexual and reproductive health conditions in Gaza.

Miscarriage rates in Gaza have skyrocketed by 300%, according to a report published in January. In November of last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that nearly 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza were in need of prenatal and postnatal care, while 15% of the estimated 180 women who were giving birth in the region every day faced a decimated health care system that has now all but collapsed.

According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), an Israeli airstrike destroyed the only health center run by the Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association (PFPPA) following an attack on an adjacent building. The IPPF is a global non-governmental organization of which PPFA is a member.

This week, a video of a baby beheaded by Israel’s shelling of a Rafah displacement camp shocked people around the world. The horrifying image is an indictment of how reproductive rights cannot exist in a world where war profiteering, colonization, and genocide exist.

For Sarah T. Hamid, co-founder and advisory team member of the Carceral Tech Resistance Network, Planned Parenthood’s cybersecurity contract is inevitable because the economy of the internet is deeply intertwined with the war industry.

“Movement technologists and the radical left need to accept that we cannot ethically consume our way out of what is essentially a war industry and economy,” Hamid told Prism. “Computing, digital infrastructure, and digital technologies are industries with deep historical and ongoing connections to defense and war. This is why IT is a significant export for Israeli firms: Computing technologies are developed, funded, and innovated within contexts of violence. This entanglement suggests that there may be no values-aligned companies to turn to, and more importantly, it indicates that that’s the wrong strategy to address what is a systemic issue.”

According to Hamid, even if Planned Parenthood found a values-aligned cybersecurity provider, it would do little to address these larger systemic issues. According to advocates, the most useful work to focus on is the dismantling of militarism, surveillance, and the prison industrial complex, which ensnares the same people Planned Parenthood provides health care services for. Citing the growing criminalization of abortion, Hamid said that even if Planned Parenthood divested from RTX, it would not ensure reproductive justice for all.

“We want Planned Parenthood to have really good cybersecurity because [right-wing extremists] are actively targeting their information so that they can criminalize people seeking abortions,” she said. “So there’s a real concern here, right? [Planned Parenthood] would be doing something in a moment that’s gonna put people at risk for seeking abortions.”

Focusing on symbolic divestment or values-aligned solutions feeds into what Hamid calls “liberal techno-solutionism.” Instead, she suggests that Planned Parenthood align itself with anti-militarism work more broadly—and that the organization publicly condemns Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

“At the end of the day, what Planned Parenthood as an organizing entity could do is actually align itself with the work that’s undoing the war machine,” Hamid said. “Planned Parenthood should use this opportunity to reflect on its position as a progressive organization. It should consider how it relates to its movement and cross-sector allies and how it can collaborate with organizers and organizations in the technology justice movement. Rather than making a largely symbolic gesture by choosing a new cybersecurity firm, Planned Parenthood could take a stand and condemn the ongoing reproductive genocide in Gaza.”