Another Abortion Record at Planned Parenthood: PPFA Tries to
Mask Crucial Role of Abortion to Its Mission and Bottom Line
By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.

Recent public comments by Planned Parenthood (PPFA) that abortion constitutes "only 3%" of its services radically downplay the centrality of abortion to the group's mission and mask abortion's enormous impact on the organization's bottom line. This reported percentage, touted relentlessly by PPFA president Cecile Richards, fails to include ancillary services that may be sold along with the abortion and ignores the fact that abortion provides PPFA with a huge--and steady--stream of revenue.

PPFA's most recent service report is a perfect example. We learn that the nation's largest abortion chain has again performed a record number of abortions at its clinics, in the process raking in millions of dollars.

According to the 2005 service report, available at www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/pp-services-5552.htm, Planned Parenthood performed 264,943 abortions in 2005, about 10,000 more than it did in 2004 (255,015) and nearly double the number it did just 10 years ago (139,899 in 1995). During that time, Planned Parenthood "market share" has almost exactly doubled--from 10.3% of all abortions done in the U.S. in 2005 to about 20.6% today. [1]

On its web site and in public statements, Planned Parenthood is increasingly attempting to minimize the significance of this trend, claiming that abortions constitute "only" 3% of services it performs for clients. Planned Parenthood apparently obtains such a figure by counting each pregnancy test, each packet of pills it passes out, every test it does for sexually transmitted diseases, etc., as a uniquely rendered "service."

By this strained bookkeeping procedure, PPFA obtains an overall figure of 10,112,642 "total services." The 264,943 abortions reported by Planned Parenthood comprise about 2.6% of that total, but this is extremely misleading, as we shall demonstrate.

First, this counting obscures how several of these non-abortion "services" may in fact be bundled together and sold with the abortion. For example, if every woman having an abortion first receives a pregnancy test at the clinic to confirm her pregnancy, the percentage of services directly associated with abortion jumps to more than 5%.

If every aborting woman was also tested for an STD, the figure becomes 7% to 8%. If she received contraceptives as part of her "going home" package, "services" obtained by the abortion-patient would comprise perhaps 10% to 11%. Any other services sold to the mother in the process of performing her abortion--a breast exam, treatment for an STD, etc.--would push the percentage even higher.

Planned Parenthood doesn't identify the services that are part of its abortion package, but it does admit in the service report that the 10 million plus receiving services actually represent only 3,051,144 "unduplicated clients." In other words, though there were 10 million services, there were only about three million individual customers.

Considered against this backdrop, if we make the commonsensical assumption that there weren't substantial numbers of women obtaining multiple abortions in a given calendar year, the 264,943 abortions Planned Parenthood reports represents not 3%, but about 8.7% of the unduplicated clients that Planned Parenthood saw in 2005.

There is one other dimension here that, in the absence of further evidence, we cannot quantify. According to the service report, 1,040,803 women came to Planned Parenthood in 2005 to obtain a pregnancy test.

Assuming the availability of abortion induces some women who thought they might be pregnant to come to PPFA to purchase a pregnancy test and other services. Even if they turned out not to be pregnant and therefore didn't have an abortion, this means PPFA's marketing of abortion generates more services (and income) than simply that coming from the women who do abort.

Second, even if one does not consider the other services that often go along with the abortion, the relative impact of abortion alone compared to the rest of Planned Parenthood's "services" on the corporation's overall revenue stream is quite different.

While a pregnancy test or a pill packet may cost a client $10 or $15, a standard suction curettage abortion runs about $372. Even if, for purposes of discussion, you count every abortion as a first-trimester suction curettage abortion--and count only the abortion and none of the rest of the bundled services--this puts Planned Parenthood's abortion income at least $98.5 million.

In truth, the real figure is certainly much higher. This is so, not just because of the additional related services, but also because we know from their own advertisements that some Planned Parenthood clinics also perform considerably more expensive abortions performed later in pregnancy.

(According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood's think-tank, the average cost of a surgical abortion at 16 weeks in 2001 was $774. At 20 weeks, the price was $1,179.)

Income figures for 2005–06, normally found in the group's annual report, were not available by press time. However, reported figures for the 2004–05 fiscal year make clear how substantial a part abortion is of Planned Parenthood's clinic business.

Even using the lowest estimate from above, the minimum of $98.5 million from 264,943 abortions in 2005 would represent, not 3%, but 28.4% of Planned Parenthood's $346.8 million clinic income for 2004–05. Hardly an inconsequential part of the business.

The dedication of Planned Parenthood to abortion is, however, apparent in other ways. Against 264,943 abortions, Planned Parenthood saw just 12,548 prenatal clients. This means that it was 21 times more likely that a pregnant woman coming into a Planned Parenthood clinic would receive an abortion than receive prenatal care.

In 2005, in its entire nationwide network of over 860 clinics, Planned Parenthood saw just 248 infertility clients. Put another way, this means that PPFA treated just one infertility patient for every 1,068 abortions it performed. Adoption services or referrals aren't even mentioned.

Planned Parenthood talks about giving women choices, but what is apparent from its latest service report is how rarely Planned Parenthood's plans involve parenthood, and just how often they involve abortion.

Footnote

1. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, there were 1,359,400 abortions performed in the U.S. in 1995.   Guttmacher's latest annual estimate was 1,287,000 abortions for 2003.