NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE
RESPONDS TO LATEST GUTTMACHER REPORT
'When
tax dollars pay for abortion, you get more
abortion'
WASHINGTON – Today, the National Right to Life
Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state
right-to-life affiliates, disputed claims that
restrictions on abortion "disproportionately
affect" poor women. The assertion was made in,
"Changes in Abortion Rates Between 2000 and 2008
and Lifetime Incidence of Abortion, published
online yesterday in the June 2011 issue of
Obstetrics and Gynecology by researchers
from the Guttmacher Institute (originally
founded as a special research affiliate of the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America).
"Data showing an eight
percent drop in abortion rates across the board
from 2000 to 2008 are encouraging," said
Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D., National Right to
Life director of education and research.
"Guttmacher suggests that
higher abortion rates among poorer woman and
abortion restrictions are somehow connected, yet
it's a thesis that goes undefended,"
O'Bannon further noted.
"How common sense regulations
like right-to-know laws, which tell women about
abortion's risks and alternatives which are
better for both them and their unborn children,
and similar protective measures, are supposed to
hurt poor women is hard to fathom."
The overall downward trend seems
to indicate that such laws, along with the
assistance provided by pregnancy care centers,
which provide lifesaving alternatives to
abortion, are enabling more women to choose life
for their unborn child. However, several states
– California, New York and at least a dozen
others – publicly fund abortion for poor
women. "While the abortion industry saw
declines among most demographic groups, it just
happened to see growth among women for whom
states were covering abortion costs,"
observed O'Bannon.
The fact is, when tax dollars
pay for abortion, you get more abortion,"
O'Bannon observed.
The Planned Parenthood Federation
of America (PPFA), according to their own
2008-2009 annual report, showed over $1 billion
in revenues, including $363.3 million in
"Government Grants & Contracts" (an increase
from $165 million in 1998). At a time when the
overall number of abortions has decreased, PPFA
reports performing 332,278 abortions for the
period covered in the 2009 report – accounting
for more than 27% of all abortions performed
annually in the United States.
O'Bannon noted:
"The abortion industry likes to
argue that high abortion rates are due to
insufficient government funding for 'family
planning,' but the record seems at odds with
that assertion. As abortion industry giant
Planned Parenthood has received hundreds of
millions of tax dollars each year, abortions at
their facilities have steadily increased at
rates that very nearly match their increases in
government funding."
"Ultimately, the report says
less about pro-life laws and more about the
aggressiveness of the abortion industry that,
funded by tax dollars in many states, exploited
poorer women during the recession and profited
from their misery. If more women choose life for
their unborn children as a result of pro-life
legislative initiatives, the abortion industry
knows that it will adversely impact their
financial bottom line,"
O'Bannon concluded.
The
National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the
federation of 50 state right-to-life
organizations and more than 3,000 local chapters
nationwide, is the nation's largest pro-life
group. National Right to Life works through
legislation and education to protect those
threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia
and assisted suicide.
