Another Abortion
Record at Planned Parenthood: PPFA Tries to
Mask Crucial Role of Abortion to Its Mission and Bottom Line
By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.
Today's
News &
Views
| July 19, 2007
Recent public comments by Planned
Parenthood (PPFA) that abortion constitutes "only 3%" of its services
radically downplay the centrality of abortion to the group's mission and
mask abortion's enormous impact on the organization's bottom line. This
reported percentage, touted relentlessly by PPFA (Planned Parenthood
Federation of America) president Cecile Richards, fails to include
ancillary services that may be sold along with the abortion and ignores the
fact that abortion provides PPFA with a huge--and steady--stream of revenue.
PPFA's most recent service report
is a perfect example. We learn that the nation's largest abortion chain has
again performed a record number of abortions at its clinics, in the process
raking in millions of dollars.
According to the 2005 service
report, available at
www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/pp-services-5552.htm,
Planned Parenthood performed 264,943 abortions in 2005, about 10,000 more
than it did in 2004 (255,015) and nearly double the number it did just 10
years ago (139,899 in 1995). During that time, Planned Parenthood "market
share" has almost exactly doubled--from 10.3% of all abortions done in the
U.S. in 2005 to about 20.6% today. [1]
On its web site and in public
statements, Planned Parenthood is increasingly attempting to minimize the
significance of this trend, claiming that abortions constitute "only" 3% of
services it performs for clients. Planned Parenthood apparently obtains such
a figure by counting each pregnancy test, each packet of pills it passes
out, every test it does for sexually transmitted diseases, etc., as a
uniquely rendered "service."
By this strained bookkeeping
procedure, PPFA obtains an overall figure of 10,112,642 "total services."
The 264,943 abortions reported by Planned Parenthood comprise about 2.6% of
that total, but this is extremely misleading, as we shall demonstrate.
First, this counting obscures how
several of these non-abortion "services" may in fact be bundled together and
sold with the abortion. For example, if every woman having an abortion first
receives a pregnancy test at the clinic to confirm her pregnancy, the
percentage of services directly associated with abortion jumps to more than
5%.
If every aborting woman was also
tested for an STD, the figure becomes 7% to 8%. If she received
contraceptives as part of her "going home" package, "services" obtained by
the abortion-patient would comprise perhaps 10% to 11%. Any other services
sold to the mother in the process of performing her abortion--a breast exam,
treatment for an STD, etc.--would push the percentage even higher.
Planned Parenthood doesn't
identify the services that are part of its abortion package, but it does
admit in the service report that the 10 million plus receiving services
actually represent only 3,051,144 "unduplicated clients." In other words,
though there were 10 million services, there were only about three million
individual customers.
Considered against this backdrop,
if we make the commonsensical assumption that there weren't substantial
numbers of women obtaining multiple abortions in a given calendar year, the
264,943 abortions Planned Parenthood reports represents not 3%, but about
8.7% of the unduplicated clients that Planned Parenthood saw in 2005.
There is one other dimension here
that, in the absence of further evidence, we cannot quantify. According to
the service report, 1,040,803 women came to Planned Parenthood in 2005 to
obtain a pregnancy test.
Assuming the availability of
abortion induces some women who thought they might be pregnant to come to
PPFA to purchase a pregnancy test and other services. Even if they turned
out not to be pregnant and therefore didn't have an abortion, this means
PPFA's marketing of abortion generates more services (and income) than
simply that coming from the women who do abort.
Second, even if one does not consider the other
services that often go along with the abortion, the relative impact of
abortion alone compared to the rest of Planned Parenthood's "services" on
the corporation's overall revenue stream is quite different.
While a pregnancy test or a pill
packet may cost a client $10 or $15, a standard suction curettage abortion
runs about $372. Even if, for purposes of discussion, you count every
abortion as a first-trimester suction curettage abortion--and count only the
abortion and none of the rest of the bundled services--this puts Planned
Parenthood's abortion income at least $98.5 million.
In truth, the real figure is
certainly much higher. This is so, not just because of the additional
related services, but also because we know from their own advertisements
that some Planned Parenthood clinics also perform considerably more
expensive abortions performed later in pregnancy.
(According to the Alan Guttmacher
Institute, Planned Parenthood's think-tank, the average cost of a surgical
abortion at 16 weeks in 2001 was $774. At 20 weeks, the price was $1,179.)
Income figures for 2005–06,
normally found in the group's annual report, were not available by press
time. However, reported figures for the 2004–05 fiscal year make clear how
substantial a part abortion is of Planned Parenthood's clinic business.
Even using the lowest estimate
from above, the minimum of $98.5 million from 264,943 abortions in 2005
would represent, not 3%, but 28.4% of Planned Parenthood's $346.8 million
clinic income for 2004–05. Hardly an inconsequential part of the business.
The dedication of Planned
Parenthood to abortion is, however, apparent in other ways. Against 264,943
abortions, Planned Parenthood saw just 12,548 prenatal clients. This means
that it was 21 times more likely that a pregnant woman coming into a Planned
Parenthood clinic would receive an abortion than receive prenatal care.
In 2005, in its entire nationwide
network of over 860 clinics, Planned Parenthood saw just 248 infertility
clients. Put another way, this means that PPFA treated just one infertility
patient for every 1,068 abortions it performed. Adoption services or
referrals aren't even mentioned.
Planned Parenthood talks about
giving women choices, but what is apparent from its latest service report is
how rarely Planned Parenthood's plans involve parenthood, and just how often
they involve abortion.
Footnote
1. According to
the Alan Guttmacher Institute, there were 1,359,400 abortions performed in
the U.S. in 1995. Guttmacher's latest annual estimate was 1,287,000
abortions for 2003.
SOURCE:
Another
Abortion Record at Planned Parenthood
**Thank God for those folks today who do
care about a child's right to life, and are speaking out publicly against
the evils of abortion. Instead of using the misnomer of 'Planned
Parenthood,' they ought to be honest and call their diabolical organization,
'Calculated Murderhood.' As much as abortionists try to label
Bible-believing, God-fearing Christians as 'hatemongers,' we do not hate
anyone. We are simply upholding God's Law which forbids the killing of
the innocent (Exodus 20:13). Every abortionist is a
cold-blooded murderer, no better than
Adolf Hitler! END
This
is so tragic! Where does the word "planned" come into play for a
parent who murders their beloved child? What plan? What a lying
crock of bologna! There is no plan except to kill children. Planned
Parenthood (Herodhood) has done it again, setting a new record in the
race to holocaust precious little children. Abortion has become
America's worst nightmare, devaluing life to complete worthlessness. Those savage monsters even sell the aborted baby's
body parts! They're a bunch of rotten thugs, with no regard for
God nor a child's right to life. Every child has a right to live. 
