Planned Parenthood Director Who Quit Was Pressured to Meet Abortion Quotas
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 5, 2009
Bryan, TX (LifeNews.com) — The former Texas-based Planned Parenthood director who recently quit after seeing an ultrasound video of an abortion says high Planned Parenthood officials wanted her center to meet quotas for the number of abortions done. Abby Johnson had been the director of the Planned Parenthood in Bryan/College Station.
She turned in her resignation on October 6 and watching an ultrasound of an abortion capped off years of pro-life advocates urging her to quit.
Now, Johnson tells WorldNetDaily that Planned Parenthood officials were pushing her to keep abortion numbers high and that she, in turn, pushed employees to meet abortion goals as well.
"There are definitely client goals," she said. "We’d have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients."
She said her facility did abortions every other Saturday but began increasing the number of abortions in order to increase revenues. One method involved increasing the number of abortions done with the dangerous mifepristone abortion drug.
"One of the ways they were able to up the number of patients that they saw was they started doing the RU-486 chemical abortions all throughout the week," she said.
Johnson told WND that abortions using the drug, which has killed 13 women worldwide and injured at least 1,100 in the United States alone according to the FDA, would bring in between $505 and $695 depending on the age of the baby at the time of the abortion.
She said the move to increase abortions came as Planned Parenthood experienced financial difficulties due to the troubled economy.
"Abortion is the most lucrative part of Planned Parenthood’s operations," she said. "Even though they’re two separate corporations, all of the money goes into one pot. With the family planning corporation really suffering, they depend on the abortion corporation to balance their budget, help get them out of the hole and help make income for the company."
"They really wanted to increase the number of abortions so that they could increase their income," she told the news service.
Planned Parenthood officials are engaging in retribution against Johnson but filing a restraining order in an attempt to silence her. The abortion business claims it is concerned Johnson will turn over client records or confidential documents to pro-life advocates.
However, Johnson told WND, "I don’t have any confidential documents, so I’m not sharing anything because I don’t have anything. I have no patient information. I’d never do anything to compromise patient safety or confidentiality. For them to even make that type of statement is so offensive."
"Planned Parenthood is an organization that really runs on fear. If somebody crosses them, they are quick to threaten that person. I’ve worked for them for a long time and seen them threaten lawsuits multiple times," she said. "I’m not sure what they’re scared of. When I first got the restraining order, I was so surprised. My initial response was, what do they think I know? What are they feeling guilty about?"
That Johnson would admit that Planned Parenthood is more accurately described as an abortion business doesn’t surprise pro-life advocates.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America released its annual report for fiscal year 2007-2008 and it showed the nation’s largest abortion business is getting bigger.
According to Planned Parenthood’s latest report, abortions increased to 305,310 abortions up from 289,750 in 2006.
That 5.3 percent increase came at a time when the Guttmacher Institute, its former research arm, showed abortions were at near-historic lows.
Looking at Planned Parenthood data from 1997 to the present, the increase in government funding corresponds with an increase in the number of abortions. (See image)
In 1997, Planned Parenthood did about 160,000 abortions and received approximately $160 million in total taxpayer funding from various levels of government. Both the number of abortions and the amount of money received from government, supposedly for family planning to reduce abortions, has double since then.
Planned Parenthood also says it helped just under 11,000 women in 2007 with prenatal care and pregnancy help services.
Yet, prenatal care and adoption referrals resulted for only 5 percent of the total services provided to women in 2007 while abortions accounted for 95 percent of the services that year, according to Planned Parenthood’s own figures. (See image)
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