Pro-Life Groups: De-Fund Planned Parenthood Over Abortion Decline Halt

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 12, 2011   |   12:23PM   |   Washington, DC

Reacting to the news from the Guttmacher Institute that the two-decade decline in abortions has stalled, pro-life groups say the numbers point to the need for legislation to de-fund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business.

The new report indicates abortions rose in 2008 after the previous report, covering 2005, showed abortions continuing to decline. While the abortion increase can be accounted for by the inclusion of California abortion centers not included in the 2005 report, the numbers clearly show the abortion decline has stopped, at least for now.

At the same time, the Planned Parenthood abortion business has further increased its share of the abortion market and now does more than 26 percent of all abortions in the United States, according to its own numbers from its annual report. Last year alone it received more than $363 million in revenue from government grants and contracts and increased the number of abortions it does to 324,008 abortions, a 5.8 percent increase from the previous year and a figure which also set a record high at that time.

Charmaine Yoest, of Americans United for Life, has had enough and said, following a change in Planned Parenthood’s business model, the decline in the number and rate of abortions “stalled.”

“Planned Parenthood’s emphasis on chemical abortions and “mega clinics” in urban areas are factored into why the long-term national decline in abortion rates has recently “stalled,” she explained, adding support for the Mike Pence-sponsored legislation that would revoke family planning funds going to Planned Parenthood and businesses that do abortions.

Although state legislation has helped reduce abortions in some states, “there is another, more effective legislative prescription for a rising abortion rate: Defund Planned Parenthood,” she said.

“Almost 70 percent of Americans – pro-life and pro-choice – agree that tax dollars should not support abortion,” said Yoest. “In the Guttmacher data we see the tragic result of an aggressive abortion industry.”

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, agrees, and says “there are ways to cut down on the number of abortions in America. For starters, we can stop paying for them.”

“Unfortunately, the last Congress made that even more difficult by stuffing millions of abortion dollars into the health care law. Then they funneled even more into Capitol Hill’s backyard by agreeing to subsidize abortion in Washington, D.C.–something pro-life Members are fighting to overturn,” he added.

After the new Congress convened, Congressmen Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, and Dan Lipinski, an Illinois Democrat, wasted no time introducing a bill called the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” which would wipe the slate clean of most government projects that force Americans into the abortion business.

“What the Left can’t seem to admit is that America’s abortion rate had fallen because of the hard work of the pregnancy resource centers, abstinence education, and pro-life laws. But despite its own findings, Guttmacher, which was once the research arm of Planned Parenthood, is using the report to advance their political agenda of more abortion, more access to abortion, more abortion doctors, and more restrictions on abortion protestors,” Perkins says.

“Obviously, the organization is going to bat for its old friend Planned Parenthood, whose relationship with the government has been an especially lucrative one for the abortion industry. But in the end, it’s a partnership that Americans can’t afford–not from an economic standpoint and certainly not from an ethical one,” he concludes.