According to Planned Parenthood’s 2013-2014 annual report, for every one-adoption referral they handed out, they performed about 175 abortions. During that same time period, the abortion giant killed 327,653 babies in abortions while taking in millions in taxpayer funds.
Although Planned Parenthood is required to provide tax-funded options counseling at their facilities, The Federalist reports that the organization’s own numbers show they are much more interested in selling abortion than promoting adoption. Of course, this is no secret to pro-life advocates, but the videos showing Planned Parenthood executives haggling over the cost of aborted babies’ body parts and admitting to altering procedures to obtain salable organs for harvesting highlight even further the importance of defunding the abortion company.
They Federalist also reports that one of the main sources of funding for Planned Parenthood is Title X, which is led by the “Office of Population Affairs.” Shockingly, a closer look at the program shows that taxpayers may be paying Planned Parenthood to encourage women toward abortion rather than adoption. The program is supposed to ensure that woman receive “unbiased, nondirective counseling”; however, the instructions Planned Parenthood is given to follow says that offering information about adoption is optional.
- A project must:
- Offer pregnant women the opportunity to provided information and counseling regarding each of the following options:
- Prenatal care and delivery;
- Infant care, foster care,or adoption; and
Pregnancy termination. 42 C.F.R. 59.5(a)(1). (emphasis added)
Additionally, Casey Maddox from Alliance Defending Freedom said that Planned Parenthood gives false information about adoption in their so-called counseling sessions with women. In fact, on their website in 2013 they shared what they really feel about adoption on their website.
Click here to sign up for daily pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com
They wrote, “The psychological responses to abortion are far less serious than those experienced by women bringing their unwanted pregnancy to term and relinquishing the child for adoption. … Women who relinquish their child for adoption are at risk for long-term grief that can have physical, psychological, and relational repercussions. While this response is comparable to that of losing a child through death, the grieving response post-adoption is often more symptomatic and can be chronic in nature.”
They also said that “[r]esearch studies indicate that emotional responses to legally induced abortion are largely positive.”
This information is 100% false and adoption is proven to benefit birth mothers and adoptive families. Currently, in the United States there are approximately two million parents waiting to adopt a child. The U.S. Department of Health and Services reports that adopted children live happy and health lives. In fact, 85% of children who are adopted are in excellent or very good health, the same as the general population; and 81% of adoptive parents described their relationships with their children as very warm and close.
Furthermore, abortion is proven to hurt women both physical and emotionally. After abortion over 65% of women suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and post abortive women are six-times more likely to commit suicide than women who have given birth. Also, many women describe their abortion experience as ‘a nightmare,’ with 60% reporting that it felt like ’Part of me died.’
Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood specifically has a history of hurting women in botched abortions, stealing money from taxpayer programs and performing abortions on abused minors without parental consent –- so even before the expose’ videos were released there were significant reasons to cancel their government funding.
Here’s more about Planned Parenthood’s so-called adoption services:
If you subtract Planned Parenthood’s numbers from the overall statistics, you find that one child is adopted for every 4.5 aborted.
This is a sad number. And it’s even sadder given the number of couples waiting to adopt. But compare that to the reality for women who walk into Planned Parenthood: one adopted for every 174 aborted. Women with an unplanned pregnancy who decide between abortion and adoption are 38 times more likely to choose abortion if they go to Planned Parenthood for advice.
What does it say for Title X’s taxpayer-funded and supposedly nondirective options counseling program that its largest grantee, Planned Parenthood, seems to be steering so many women toward abortion?
Regulations Make Adoption Counseling Optional
Since Planned Parenthood’s disturbingly small adoption numbers have received public attention over the last few years, it has now removed that information (and its adoption numbers magically more than doubled), but there is no indication that its counselors have changed their tune on adoption. Between silence and telling women that adoption will be emotionally devastating while abortion is quick and easy, is it any surprise that women listening to Planned Parenthood’s sales pitch/nondirective options counseling almost never choose adoption?
Abortion Makes Money; Adoption Doesn’t
Planned Parenthood has total annual revenues of roughly $1.3 billion. But its health-center income, the amount its individual affiliates bring in from non-governmental sources for health services, was roughly $305 million in the last fiscal year. Since the Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of Medicaid and other taxpayer funds to pay for most abortions, this should include almost all abortion revenues.
Planned Parenthood made $0 from its relative handful of supposed adoption referrals. According to the Guttmacher Institute, an average abortion costs $468. Given Planned Parenthood’s approximately 328,000 abortions, it brought in approximately $153 million from abortion revenues, just over 50 percent of its revenues for non-government paid health services.
But however the percentage is calculated, $153 million is a serious revenue stream for any business. On the other hand, Planned Parenthood made $0 from its relative handful of supposed adoption referrals. As former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson explains, unlike abortion, adoption is not “revenue generating.”
