Planned Parenthood still falsely claims that abortion is “only 3%” of what they do. This line comes up most frequently when the abortion business is attempting to justify maintaining the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood affiliates. The newly released three-part plan to “super-size” the abortion side of the business seems to be, finally, the public admission that abortion is much more than 3% of what Planned Parenthood does.
In the new strategic plan to make mega-abortion mills and lobby for taxpayer funding of elective abortion, Planned Parenthood admits they are “uniquely positioned to do this work.” They most certainly are! While legitimate health services offered at Planned Parenthood continue to decline, abortions remain steady. Pap tests, contraception services, cancer screenings, and other health services declined dramatically over the past decade and a half. Yet, over that same period, Planned Parenthood’s market share of abortion increased more than ten percent.
Pro-Life writers have refuted the 3% statistic time and again, and even pro-abortion media have rated the statement as untrue. How do they get away with this? The simple answer is fancy math, more accurately described as fabricating statistics.
When Planned Parenthood calculates the percentage of their business that consists of abortions, they count every single test, counseling service, or prescription a woman receives as a separate service. Abortion, a major medical procedure that violently ends the life of a baby, is then counted as a simple “service” on par with getting a pregnancy test or an antibiotic. Pro-Life writers have pointed out the absurdity of this tactic. By Planned Parenthood’s logic:
The sponsors of the New York City Marathon could count each small cup of water they hand out (some 2 million cups, compared with 45,000 runners) and say they are mainly in the hydration business.
Or Major League Baseball teams could say that they sell about 20 million hot dogs and play 2,430 games in a season, so baseball is only .012 percent of what they do.
Even if they continue to manipulate the statistics of their services, the truth is clear that abortion is a major part of what Planned Parenthood does. More to the point, even if abortion were only 3% of their business, they would still be a massive national organization with more than a half billion dollars in taxpayer funding that is killing preborn babies 3% of the time they are conducting business. Deliberately killing one baby is unacceptable. The fact is there are more than 320,000 preborn babies killed in Planned Parenthood facilities every year. Whether that represents 3% (which it doesn’t) or 70% of what they do, they are an abortion business that kills innocent, defenseless human beings.
In a display of remarkable cognitive dissonance, Planned Parenthood is sticking with the 3% myth while openly pushing abortion as the core of their business, the focus of their public lobbying, and the single issue pushed through their allies in the media. Pretending that the dwindling offering of legitimate health services is inseparable from abortion, Planned Parenthood tries to claim they are concerned with women’s healthcare despite the overwhelming evidence they are only concerned with abortion.
A stunning example of this cognitive dissonance comes from Planned Parenthood’s vice president of communications, Ken Griffis. He explained to NPR that the goal of Planned Parenthood’s collaboration with their many allies in the entertainment industry is “to change people’s perception of abortion so that they see it for what it is — which is a really safe medical procedure and a typical, standard part of healthcare.” That is definitively not what abortion is. There is no “typical, standard part of healthcare” that involves obliterating a unique child with a beating heart using a high-powered vacuum.
Planned Parenthood’s publicity has two irreconcilable claims: abortion is “only 3%” of what they do and taxpayer-funded, elective abortion is the only public policy and social issue that they push. While the number of people seeking legitimate health services and indeed the actual number of health services declined, mysteriously federal funding of Planned Parenthood has increased in recent years. Planned Parenthood is an abortion business, and despite their insidious attempts, they cannot convince Americans that abortion is a form of healthcare.
Until Planned Parenthood commits exactly zero abortions, they are not a healthcare organization and they should not receive taxpayer dollars. The fact that they are the single largest abortion business in the United States and the most powerful lobbying group pushing for the legal killing of the preborn demonstrates the need to end Planned Parenthood funding.