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Planned Parenthood Did 100,000 Fewer Breast Cancer Screenings

by Americans United for Life Legal Team | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/15/13 7:43 PM

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The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) released two documents last week[1] showing that the abortion chain continues to grow its abortion business while its provision of other services continues to decline.

Among Planned Parenthood’s significantly decreased services are its breast health services. That is especially ironic considering the media storm during the 2011/2012 Susan G. Komen Foundation grant changes. While Planned Parenthood has used breast health services as a major talking point in fund raising, that facts show it has become a smaller share of its efforts.

But on the increase is abortion, and even more dramatically than the recently-released reports describe. Planned Parenthood has subsequently “purified” its brand: beginning January 1, 2013, all of its affiliates are required to provide abortions.

Coinciding with bigger abortion is an increase under the Obama Administration in Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding and profits.

PPFA’s annual report declares one of its top priorities is to ensure its services are “adequately financed.”  But a look at the supporting data shows that the “non-profit” has been significantly padding its bank account at the taxpayer’s expense.

• According to PPFA’s just-released financial reports, the abortion chain received over a billion dollars in taxpayer funds between June 2010 and June 2012 – nearly $1.48 million taxpayer dollars per day.

• PPFA and its affiliates’ revenue—45% of which came from American taxpayers— exceeded its expenses by $242.9 million.[2] During hard economic times, the abortion chain made nearly a third of a million dollars profit every single day.

It is clear that abortion is an increasing share of Planned Parenthood’s overall operations.  But even the record-high 333,964 abortions reported by Planned Parenthood—as its overall service numbers decreased—falls short of explaining the extent of Planned Parenthood’s growing abortion business.

• By restructuring its service year—reporting for October 2010 to October 2011, instead of using the 2011 calendar year—Planned Parenthood’s “2011” figures do not take into account the last three months of 2011 – those months after a non-abortion providing affiliate, Tri-Rivers Planned Parenthood, dropped its affiliation with the abortion chain. Thus, in PPFA’s curiously restructured annual report for last year, abortion appears as a lower percentage of both Planned Parenthood’s patients and its services than abortion actually was.

• Planned Parenthood does not explain why it restructured its service year, choosing to repeat an entire quarter of 2010 figures that it already disclosed in a previous annual report. But the clear departure from its previous practice begs the question: why is Planned Parenthood not disclosing its “service” numbers from the last three months of 2011?

Even full-disclosure of its 2011 services would not accurately reflect Planned Parenthood’s abortion business today. Planned Parenthood’s new directive that all its affiliates must provide abortions began in January 2013.

• The just-released annual report data includes data from several clinics that provided only non-abortion services and that have subsequently renounced their affiliation with Planned Parenthood over the new abortion mandate.

• The data also includes previously non-abortion providing affiliates that are, presumably, in the process of complying with the mandate.

Planned Parenthood’s President and Chair (Cecile Richards and Cecilia Boone respectively) lament in the annual report’s introduction that the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s “new rules” would have excluded Planned Parenthood affiliates from receiving grants in the winter of 2012. Of course, they fail to mention that the new grant standards were designed to more effectively help vulnerable women and that while the “new rules” impacted Planned Parenthood, they did not target Planned Parenthood specifically.

But while claiming that the Komen Foundation’s adoption of “new rules” was the result of the foundation “bowing to political pressure,” the data demonstrates that Planned Parenthood experienced a drastic decline in breast health services before the Komen decision.

• For the period of October 2010 to October 2011, Planned Parenthood’s breast exams/breast care dropped by over 100,000 services from the number of reported services in its last annual report (from 747,607 to 639,384). This number is such a significant decrease in services—on average over 9,000 less per month—that it seems unlikely that reporting for the 2011 calendar year would alter the fact that Planned Parenthood’s breast health services decreased substantially.

Planned Parenthood’s “shared goal of improving breast health” seems only to have become a priority after public disclosure of the Komen Foundation’s decision to redirect its grant money.

Notably, Planned Parenthood still does not provide mammograms and its clinics still would not meet the Komen Foundation’s standards which were lowered after Planned Parenthood and its allies launched a vicious campaign against the well-respected cancer research foundation.

[1] Planned Parenthood Annual Financial Report 2010-2011 and Planned Parenthood Annual Report 2011-2012 available at http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/annual-report-4661.htm.

[2] According to the Planned Parenthood reports, its revenue exceeded expenses by $155.5 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2011 and $87.4 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2012.

LifeNews Note: Americans United for Life is a national pro-life organization.