Planned Parenthood Breaks Records for Abortions, Taxpayer Funding, and Lies as Cancer Screenings Continue to Plummet

By 

Matthew Clark

|
January 17, 2020

6 min read

Pro Life

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Planned Parenthood, which deceptively claims that abortions are only an infinitesimal part of its business, just set a record for the most abortions committed in a single year.

Planned Parenthood’s 2018-2019 annual report shows that while nationally the abortion rate is at an all-time low, Planned Parenthood committed more abortions than ever before. The latest report shows that abortions increased 12,915 to a staggering 345,672 abortions in a single year. That’s up another 3.9% over the prior year.

In fact, Planned Parenthood set another record. It now has the largest-ever market share of the abortion industry, besting its own prior record. According to the most recent available data from the Guttmacher Institute (the abortion industry’s own research arm), Planned Parenthood now accounts for more than 40% of all abortions in the U.S.

These Planned Parenthood abortion figures paint a stark contrast with the national abortion rate, which is at the lowest rate since the Supreme Court legalized the murder of unborn babies in 1973. So, while abortions are down nationwide, they are up disproportionately at Planned Parenthood.

At the same time, Planned Parenthood reports another year of decreased cancer screenings, with “Cancer Screenings & Prevention” dropping another 7.8% since last year. Of that, “Breast Care” dropped 10.6%. This is the supposed “other” care that Planned Parenthood tries to tout to hide its true abortion purpose.

For the last several years, we’ve been documenting how Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services continue to drop as abortions and profits rise year after year. In fact, contraceptive services have dropped again this time by another 2.5%.

Maybe this could explain why the abortion giant’s private fundraising efforts are down 6.2% in the past year. Of course, this is more than made up for by another shocking increase in taxpayer funding which increased another $53 million (or nearly 10%) in the same period.

That’s right, your taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood reached an all-time record high of $616.8 million.

This has helped pave the way for Planned Parenthood’s second highest year for annual profits. However, Planned Parenthood may have wised up to our reporting because for the first time, it hid its annual profits in the report. In previous years, there was a specific line item in its annual report for “Excess of Revenue Over Expenses,” what is traditionally known as profits. This year, however, the line is conspicuously missing. Simple math, however, shows that Planned Parenthood earned $110.5 million in profits – its second highest year ever.

Of course, Planned Parenthood is very accomplished at hiding the truth in its annual reporting. Its “3% lie” continues, this year stating that 4% of its “services” are abortion. Maybe the percentage point increase is due to the Washington Post even exposing this lie. As we’ve explained before, Planned Parenthood unbundles its non-abortion services in order to make its abortion services seem like a much smaller percentage of its business.

In a tiny footnote in its report, Planned Parenthood states, “A service is a discrete clinical interaction, such as the administration of a physical exam or STI test or the provision of a birth control method.” Let’s take a look at some specifics from its report to show just how bogus this accounting method is.

It claims 2.5 million contraceptive services, which is more than the number of patients it serves (2.4 million). A contraceptive “service” is literally one pack of birth control or a condom. Similarly, it claims to provide 4.9 million STI tests and treatment – that’s at least 2 of these “services” per patient. Another 1 million “services” are simple pregnancy tests, which would be naturally required before performing an abortion. This data alone demonstrates that Planned Parenthood would report AT LEAST 4 non-abortion “services” for a patient who ultimately obtained an abortion.

Here’s another way of looking at it. Planned Parenthood has 2.1 million female patients (total patients minus the number of male patients). Thus, 16.5% of Planned Parenthood’s female patients got an abortion – a significantly higher percentage than Planned Parenthood’s deceptive 4% figure.

Think of it this way. Planned Parenthood now holds the largest market share of any abortion business in the U.S. – a whopping 40% of all abortions. Think of any other business in the U.S. with a 40% market share of some product or service attempting to claim that it wasn’t in the business of selling that product or service, or that that’s not really what that company is about. It’s patently absurd.

Prenatal “services” is another way Planned Parenthood disguises the numbers. Planned Parenthood lists 9,798 prenatal “services” (note this is less than one tenth of a percent of its “services”), which is down 75.8% in the last decade. In 2009, Planned Parenthood listed the number of prenatal clients it had, but the number was so low that the following year it attempted to revise the number upward by listing it as the number of prenatal “services” to make it look more impressive. Every year since, it has ONLY listed prenatal services. But the 2009 data is informative. As we’ve previously explained: “In 2009, Planned Parenthood reported performing 40,489 prenatal services for 7,021 prenatal clients, an average of roughly 6 services per prenatal client.”

If we are to assume roughly this average of 6 services per prenatal client continued, then we’re probably looking at a measly 1,633 prenatal clients versus more than 345,000 abortions. Even if you add this to the 4,279 adoption referrals Planned Parenthood claims, that’s 5,912 babies saved compared to 345,000 babies killed. That is stark.

But these aren’t the only lies Planned Parenthood was caught in. It won the prestigious award of having told one of the lies of the year. As I explained earlier this year:

Planned Parenthood has once again been exposed in a lie.

This time peddling the pernicious propaganda that “thousands of women died” each year from back alley abortions before Roe v. Wade.

The argument is a slight-of-hand by Planned Parenthood seeking to shift any focus on saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies each year to the blatantly false allegation that ending abortion would lead to the deaths of thousands of women each year. They back this false claim with, you guessed it, made-up statistics. Now even the mainstream media isn’t buying it – with the Washington Post fact checker giving it a maximum pants on fire score of four Pinocchios.

The bottom line is, Planned Parenthood is in the abortion business. In fact, it’s the largest abortion business. It can lie, obfuscate, deceive, deflect, distract, and attempt to hide this truth, but the fact still remains. Planned Parenthood is synonymous with abortion. And it doesn’t need our tax dollars. Not another penny.

At the ACLJ, we will continue to cut through the lies, expose the abortion distortion, and defeat this abortion behemoth in the courts, in Congress, in state legislatures, and in the court of public opinion.