Early this year, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, released their latest annual report, covering 2018-2019. Sadly, the story is the same as in previous years. The report shows an increase in the number of abortions committed at Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country, and an increase in taxpayer dollars going to the abortion giant!
The 2017 report noted 332,757 abortions committed by Planned Parenthood. For 2018, the number of abortions jumped to 345,672. This increase of 21,915 is an increase of 3.88%. Live Action noted, “In the past ten years, abortions at Planned Parenthood have risen nearly seven percent (6.67%) from 324,008 in 2008 to 345,672 in 2018.”
At the same time Planned Parenthood’s abortion tally continues to climb, the number of abortions throughout the United States continue to decline. Texas has seen marked declines in abortion in recent years, in part due to the strong Pro-Life laws Texas has passed. However, other states are also seeing a decline, with the CDC reporting that the national number of abortions and abortion rate has decreased roughly 50 percent from 1980! While there are fewer abortions committed each year, Planned Parenthood has managed to be the one committing more of them, further cornering the abortion market.
Even with Planned Parenthood’s dishonest math, the abortion business can no longer try to support the claim that abortion is “3%” of what they do. Even with absurd counting practices that render their figures meaningless, Planned Parenthood now has to say abortion is at least four percent of their business. The reality is, of course, that abortion is much more than four percent of the procedures. Of all the “services” listed in the annual report, only four totaled more than abortions at Planned Parenthood. Those four did not include cancer screenings or mammograms (which Planned Parenthood does not offer and has never provided).
The increase in abortions comes as no surprise. In 2018, Planned Parenthood announced a strategic plan to “super-size” the abortion business. Last year, the board of Planned Parenthood fired then-president Leana Wen after less than a year with her at the head of the abortion business. In the discussion following the abrupt decision, details surfaced showing that Wen’s firing was precisely because she wanted to increase legitimate health services at Planned Parenthood and downplay abortion in public relations.
What is surprising is the record increase in taxpayer dollars flowing to the abortion mill. From $563.8 million in 2017 to a whopping $616.8 million in 2018, taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood increased more than nine percent. Fungible tax dollars are given to the abortion giant as reimbursement for the few legitimate health services the organization offers, services which have largely continued to decline.
Interestingly, private donations to Planned Parenthood fell significantly, from $630.8 million in 2017 to $591.3 million in 2018. While private donors are leaving the organization in droves, taxpayers are forced to continue funding a business that ends the lives of more than 345,000 preborn babies each year. This is precisely why Texas Right to Life has worked tirelessly to cut off state funding to any abortion business. Pro-Life taxpayers should be protected from paying for the death of preborn children, and businesses that profit from these abortions should receive no public money.
Abortion activists in other states continue to push for expanded taxpayer-funding of elective abortion, and federal tax dollars continue to go the Planned Parenthood even though federally qualified health center providers vastly outnumber Planned Parenthood and are better equipped to meet the needs of under-served and rural populations, without committing abortions.
According to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, the abortion business now ends the lives of 947 preborn babies per day, while receiving almost $1.7 million in tax dollars per day.
Abortion is the gravest injustice of our time. Subsidizing the killing with our tax dollars must end — share these numbers and spread the truth!