Planned Parenthood’s Newest Report Exposes Its Lies About Its Abortion Agenda

Planned Parenthood has just issued its 2017-2018 report, and once again it distorts facts and manipulates numbers in order to hide the truth behind its real agenda: profiting from the death of innocent babies.

Here are some fast facts from the latest annual report:

• 332,757 abortions performed – up 11,000 from last year and the most abortions since 2012.
• $563.8 million received in taxpayer dollars – up $20 million from last year.
• $244.8 million in profits (“Excess Revenue Over Expenses”) – up nearly 150% since last year.
• 2,831 adoption referrals – down 27% since last year.
• Only 9,055 prenatal services (likely provided to only about 1,500 unique clients, as explained below).
• Cancer screenings and preventative care, including breast exams, pap tests, colposcopy procedures, and LEEP procedures, were all down more than 7%.
• Contraception services were down 3% over last year.

All told, while many of Planned Parenthood’s supposed other services were down, abortions, taxpayer dollars, and profits were way up.

Dr. Leana Wen has replaced Cecile Richards as president of Planned Parenthood, and the three words that sum up her vision for Planned Parenthood are “provide,” “protect,” and “expand.” This report demonstrates that those goals are primarily for one “service” – abortion.

Aside from its mission to destroy innocent babies in their mothers’ wombs, the ability of Planned Parenthood to use rhetoric and smokescreens to hide its true nature is most disturbing.

For example, Dr. Wen states that she has “been inspired on a daily basis by the dedication, passion, and kindness of the Planned Parenthood family.” I will certainly agree with Dr. Wen that Planned Parenthood supporters and workers are dedicated and passionate. Dedicated to and passionate about killing babies.

But Planned Parenthood was the opposite of kind when it threatened Senators and attacked Judge Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearings. It isn’t kindness that has driven Planned Parenthood to vehemently oppose state laws that require the humane disposition of the remains of aborted babies and prohibit abortions based on the unborn child’s race, sex, or potential disability. And it isn’t kindness that is behind Planned Parenthood’s jubilant celebration of a new bill in New York that will essentially legalize abortion up until the point of birth.

It is not kindness. It is a perfect example of calling “evil good, and good evil.”

Planned Parenthood’s leadership believes that its “vision is in line with what the American people want . . .” and that “protections for birth control coverage” are being “gutted.”

First of all, polling shows that “[m]ore than three in four Americans, including six in ten who identify as pro-choice, want significant restrictions on abortion.” In other words, a MAJORITY of Americans think that abortion should be restricted – significantly restricted. In stark contrast to the American people’s desire for restrictions on abortion, Planned Parenthood has announced its “multi-million dollar plan to protect and expand abortion access . . . .” This flies in the face of Planned Parenthood’s false assertion that its mission is in line with what the American people want.

Second, abortion is not birth control. Abortion is killing a baby. Yet, despite Planned Parenthood’s claim to be in the business of preventing abortions by providing contraceptives, its reports show that Planned Parenthood’s contraceptive services declined by over 80,000 and its abortions increased by over 11,000.

One published report commented on this trend by stating that Planned Parenthood’s abortion services are “supplier induced,” meaning that the call for abortion on demand “may be motivated by financial gain for the service providers, by patients who are not fully informed of their options and thus delegate the decision to the supplier, and by the influence of provider values.”

The report, which studied Planned Parenthood and abortion trends from 1995-2014, further stated that Planned Parenthood's “revenues from government reimbursement and grants increased 220% from $112 million to $554 million, reflecting a shift from low-revenue counseling and contraception services to much higher revenue abortions.”

Quite simply, Planned Parenthood is creating the demand for abortion, not the American people.

Planned Parenthood tries to hide this fact by claiming that abortion is only 3.4% of the services it provides. As we’ve explained before, Planned Parenthood is incredibly deceptive when it comes to reporting numbers.

In this year’s report, Planned Parenthood claims to have provided 9.7 million “services” to 2.4 million “patients.” Already we can see that averages out to a little over 4 “services” per “patient.” Then, using its highly inflated number, Planned Parenthood concludes that the 332,757 “abortion procedures” they performed last year only amounted to 3.4% of their services.

However, as we’ve previously explained:

Planned Parenthood’s 3 percent figure has been bought hook, line, and sinker by the mainstream media as proof positive that Planned Parenthood isn’t really about abortion. But if you take even a cursory look at Planned Parenthood’s own data, that claim begins to unravel and quickly.

Planned Parenthood’s [2016-2017] report states that it performed “11 million services during nearly five million clinical visits.” So, now their abortion number jumps to 6.6 percent of clinic visits were for abortions. That’s right 6.6 percent of all visits to Planned Parenthood result in an abortion.

Planned Parenthood included a small footnote in its latest report to explain the discrepancy in its numbers reporting – perhaps because even mainstream media like the Washington Post (as discussed below) doesn’t believe the numbers add up? The footnote reads: “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. In 2017, Planned Parenthood health centers saw 2.4 million patients, collectively delivering nearly 9.7 million services during 4 million clinical visits.”

Planned Parenthood bundles its services in its report to make abortions seem like a smaller percentage of its services. But let’s do the real math here. Planned Parenthood sees 2.4 million patients, who make 4 million visits, and who require roughly 2.5 services per visit. Out of those 2.4 million patients, 332,757 of them have an abortion – that’s roughly 14% of Planned Parenthood “patients” who get abortions…not 3.4%. Even if you decide to use the larger number and divide the number of abortions by the total number of visits – 4 million – 8.3% of visits to a Planned Parenthood facility result in an abortion – over twice the number that Planned Parenthood cites in its report.  

In addition, the other “services” that Planned Parenthood claims to provide, such as prenatal services (9,055) and adoption referrals (2,831), account for a measly 0.1% of all services.

As we’ve previously detailed, Planned Parenthood has carefully crafted a reporting method to make its prenatal services percentage seem larger than it is, and its abortion services percentage look much smaller than it really is.

“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 an average of 6 prenatal services per client (as was the case in 2009), Planned Parenthood’s current listing of 9,055 prenatal “services” could be for just over 1,500 prenatal clients. When combined with adoption referrals, that would be just over 4,300 live births as opposed to more than 332,000 abortions.

That’s why when The Washington Post fact-checker did an actual analysis of Planned Parenthood’s 3% claim, they gave it three Pinocchios.

As we explained at the time:

The Washington Post Fact Checker continues noting, as [we] have in the past, that looking at Planned Parenthood’s abortion revenue could paint a far better picture of Planned Parenthood’s true business model:

“Typically, this calculation is made by taking the number of abortions, multiplying them by the average cost of abortions advertised by Planned Parenthood clinics, and dividing the figure by the organization’s total non-government health services revenue [clinic income].

The main Planned Parenthood Web site says first-trimester abortions can cost up to $1,500. Some affiliate clinic Web sites provide a range of costs: a Western Pennsylvania clinic lists $390 to $1,090 for abortions, and first trimester abortion is priced at $515 in Arizona.”

It explains that while “advocates and opponents of abortion rights have calculated somewhere between 15 percent [of total revenue] and 37 percent [of clinic revenue]” comes from abortion, “[d]epending on which price you use, you can even get up to 55 percent.”

That’s 55% of Planned Parenthood’s clinic income coming from abortion.  [We]’ve previously calculated this at 51% of its clinic income.

Planned Parenthood is working overtime to further its agenda to provide a convenient narrative that helps it protect and expand its main source of income – abortion.

This is why our work here at the ACLJ is so important. We work to expose the true nature of Planned Parenthood by shining a light on its deceptive narrative, and by providing facts that truly inform the American people.

You can join us in our efforts now by signing our petition to defund Planned Parenthood.