Understanding Our Opposition
2003-04 Planned Parenthood Annual Report
PPFA Abortions Up Again, Commitment To Abortion as Strong as Ever
By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D., Director of Education & Research

Editor's note. As pro-lifers anticipate the battles of 2005, it is imperative that we know not only who has an ideological commitment to abortion on demand, but who profits from the deaths of 1.3 million babies each year. That would be Planned Parenthood, which not only performed over 244,000 abortions but whose political arm for the first time endorsed a candidate for President in 2004. When speaking in public, some pro-abortionists try to minimize their advocacy role. Not PPFA, as the following article makes clear.

Thanks to the ongoing work of pro-lifers, the number of abortions is down by 18% since its high point in 1990. But, once again, the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood Federation of America clinics has risen, as revealed in PPFA's latest annual report.

Not only that, PPFA is making greater use of chemical abortifacients - - RU486 - - a higher priority in more and more of its clinics. And, without actually naming the ban on partial-birth abortions, PPFA makes much of its role in persuading federal courts to strike down the ban, which was passed last year.

Now approaching a quarter of a million abortions annually, the nation's largest abortion chain accounts for nearly one out of every five abortions performed in the U.S. each year. And there's no indication of any slowdown on the horizon. The latest annual report offers plenty of evidence that abortion remains a prominent business focus and political priority for the organization.

"Clinic Services" in Perspective

According to the 2003-04 Annual Report, there were 244,628 abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2003.1 This represented an increase of over 14,000, or about 6.1% above the previous all-time high of 230,640 reported in 2002.

Planned Parenthood gives no indication of any adoptions being handled by its "health centers," but does show a drop in "adoption referrals to other agencies" from 1,963 to 1,774. Comparatively speaking, there were about 138 abortions for every one adoption referral at Planned Parenthood clinics.

There was a 43.1% increase in "infertility clients." But the actual numbers for 2003 are so low (465 at all of Planned Parenthood's "nearly 850 health centers" combined - - just over one client for every two clinics) that this hardly augurs any new sort of trend.

PPFA clinics saw 16,427 "prenatal clients" in 2003, an increase of 3.6% over 2002. But that still represents just over 6% of those pregnant clients that came in for obstetrical services.

Expanding Abortion Services with the Abortion Pill

Lest there be any doubt about its plans for the future, Planned Parenthood features the "Mifepristone Affiliate Readiness Project" in the 2003-04 report. ("Mifepristone" is the generic name for RU486, the French abortion pill.)

Utilizing grant money from the Packard Foundation, financier George Soros' Open Society Institute, and others, Planned Parenthood trained 3,000 staff and clinicians in the use of the abortion pill.

More than 95,000 women had chemically induced RU486 abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics, the annual report says. Nearly two-thirds (64.2%) of Planned Parenthood affiliates now offer RU486, with many clinics offering abortion for the first time, thanks to the abortion pill. The report crows,

Forty-nine Planned Parenthood centers now provide early abortion with mifepristone in centers that formerly provided no abortion services, increasing access to early abortion in rural and underserved areas.

Fibs and Spins

Planned Parenthood makes much of its success in getting lower federal courts to overturn the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban that President Bush signed into law in 2003, but it never refers to the actual name of the law. Instead, the annual report repeatedly refers to "the federal abortion ban," or the "first federal criminal abortion ban," and says, "Our basic human right to make our own childbearing decisions has never been so threatened."

La Don Love, the Planned Parenthood Federation's national chair, rachets up the rhetoric. She repeats the falsehood that "[r]ight now, Roe v. Wade is protected by a slender one-vote majority," even though past conduct indicates that there are only three votes on the current Supreme Court that might vote to overturn that decision.

Finding "Faith"

Despite the constant demonization of the "religious right" that one finds in Planned Parenthood's fundraising letters, the annual report takes pains to show that PPFA, too, is comfortable with religion (as long as it doesn't conflict with Planned Parenthood's agenda).

"Last year," the report announces, "PPFA appointed its first chaplain to articulate the spiritual dimensions of sexuality and reproduction." The chaplain, Rev. Dr. Ignacio Castuera, "a strong advocate for choice for more than 24 years," has been a member of Planned Parenthood's "Clergy Advisory Board" since its inception in 1994.

So what does this chaplain do? Does he challenge the culture of death which has taken hold at Planned Parenthood? Hardly. The Rev. Dr. Castuera seems to be the token minister who assures local pastors and congregations (and, one supposes, reporters from local newspapers) that it's okay to have a Planned Parenthood clinic in town.

In his new role as chaplain, Rev. Castuera has offered support and guidance to more than 25 affiliates that wanted to strengthen ties to religious leaders and organizations or that faced opposition from religious groups in their communities.

Standing Up for Women's Lives?

The theme of the 2003-04 annual report is "Stand Up for Women's Lives," with text and pictures throughout the report featuring the "March for Women's Lives" that occurred in Washington, D.C., April 25, 2004.

PPFA claims that "[m]ore than a million women, men, and children" gathered for the "historic" march and "showed their support for preserving women's lives and health." Others have placed the estimate lower, but there were a substantial number of people there.

But with upwards of 45 million abortions now having been performed since 1973, one wonders whether it crossed the minds of those who put the report together just how many unborn women's lives have been lost at Planned Parenthood clinics over the years.

One of the 13 "beliefs" the report says is part of Planned Parenthood's "Vision for 2025" is this claim: "We believe in acting courageously, especially as allies with those who have little or no voice and little or no power."

While that seems an apt description of the defenders of the unborn, one wonders how the statement does not choke the throats of those who callously put to death nearly a quarter of a million of the voiceless and powerless each and every year.

NOTE:

1. The published version mistakenly reports a 6.1% drop in abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2003, but the online version corrects this error. To see that report and find out more about Planned Parenthood plans, activities, and finances, go to www.plannedparenthoodrx.com/annualreport/report-04.pdf.