As we’re all VERY familiar with by now, Planned Parenthood absolutely insists that abortions only comprise 3% of their “services.” Now, even if this were an accurate representation of the truth, it would be abhorrent.
When you render 11,003,366 services in a year, and 329,445 of them are abortions, that’s nothing to be proud of. That’s equal to 329,445 murders, and it’s terrible. It should never be funded by the government or allowed by the public.
How would we like it if a mob boss told us that only 3% of his business was execution-style shootings. Or maybe, he only hired 3% of his staff as hit men. We’d be quite indignant that anyone in America was allowed to dedicate even 3% of their business to killing innocent people. And that’s if the number really was as low as 3%.
But it’s not. And that’s a fact.
Here’s how the numbers actually crunch down. According to Planned Parenthood’s 2010 Affiliate Medical Services Summary (the most recent on record), they claim that 33.5% of their services are contraceptives. But 39.7% of those contraceptives are actually “Emergency Contraception Kits”. We are fully aware, thanks to public debate, that the entire purpose of Emergency Contraceptives…like the Morning After Pill…is to kill any unborn child that may be present. It’s just abortion by another name. And it’s just as wrong. Granted, a pregnancy test will not reveal if a woman is pregnant that early on, but the whole purpose of Emergency Contraceptives is to kill the baby if the woman is pregnant. That’s the whole and only purpose.
With that understanding, 13.3% of Planned Parenthood’s entire services are dedicated to Emergency Contraceptives. These should be considered the same as abortions because of their purpose, as I described above. While not every woman who takes the Morning After Pill actually is pregnant, her goal is to kill her child if she has one. So, add this 13.3% to the 3% Planned Parenthood claims, and you have over 16% of their services going to abortion.
This, of course, says nothing of the percentage in money going to abortion. It’s kind of silly for Planned Parenthood…very ridiculous, in fact…to equate one pregnancy test or one condom handout as the same kind of service as one abortion. They couldn’t be more different in time, cost, or effect. This isn’t news to Planned Parenthood either. Clearly, they just want to make themselves look like a vital health service when they are really just a money hungry abortion giant, preying on women, men, and babies.
They themselves avoid discussing the amount of their work that truly goes into abortions. I don’t see abortions mentioned even once by name in the letter written by Cecile Richards and Valerie McCarthy that accompanies their new fact sheet. If abortions are such a vital part of women’s “reproductive justice”, why not be proud of the fact that you’re the largest provider in the nation. Apparently, Ms. Richards and Ms. McCarthy are rather ashamed, as they should be.
One of the most appalling figures apparent in the new fact sheet is how much of our own money continues to go to abortion. Planned Parenthood had a budget in 2010 of 1.0482 BILLION dollars. Over 46 percent of their budget came to them in the form of taxpayer dollars. (That’s 487, 400,000 as a gift from us to Planned Parenthood).
Finally, Planned Parenthood clearly attempts to twist numbers to their own advantage. They state, “Our broad base of committed donors provides approximately 78 percent of the national organization’s revenue and nearly 16 percent of affiliate revenue—evidence of our powerful grassroots support.”
First off, it’s pretty sad to claim 78 percent donor base support for the portion of your organization that uses less than 10 percent of your revenue. Planned Parenthood affiliates eat up 10 times the money that the national organization does, and as Planned Parenthood themselves admits, the affiliates are less than 16 percent donor supported. That’s powerful grassroots support? Wow. No wonder they rely so much on free taxpayer money.
Only $223,800,000 of Planned Parenthood’s 1.0482 billion dollars actually comes from donations. That’s roughly 20 percent total. While I’m sure any organization would love to receive over 200 million dollars from their donors, it’s not evidence of a “powerful” grassroots base when it’s less than 1/5 of the actual budget. In addition, Planned Parenthood themselves admits that a significant portion of this donor money comes from corporations and extremely liberal foundations.
Those are just a few of the facts behind Planned Parenthood’s twisted numbers and promotion of abortion by another name. I’d encourage you to go look at the report yourself and see what discrepancies you can find.
LifeNews Note: Kristi Burton Brown is a pro-life activist in her home state of Colorado, a pro-bono attorney for Life Legal Defense Fund, and a stay-at-home mom. This column originally appeared at the Live Action blog.
