Planned Parenthood boasted 2.4 million patients this past fiscal year, the same number as the year before. But that didn’t stop its number of abortions from growing.
Through 2018-2019, Planned Parenthood provided 345,672 abortions, nearly 13,000 more than the previous year. The nation’s largest abortion provider just released its annual report, and the results put to rest the lie that abortion doesn’t make up a big part of what Planned Parenthood does.
That makes its mission intensely partisan — indeed, by Planned Parenthood’s own admission, it’s not an apolitical organization.
“We know that the patients we serve do not have the luxury of ignoring politics without experiencing a decline in access and quality of care,” wrote President Alexis McGill Johnson and Board Chair Aimee Cunningham in an opening statement. “And as the leading provider of reproductive health care in this country, neither do we.”
Planned Parenthood, which fired its previous president for not being enough of an activist, is launching unapologetically into the political sphere. That makes sense. After all, legislatures in 12 states passed abortion bans last year. Planned Parenthood must protect abortion to protect its business model.
The group has performed more than 3.3 million abortions over the past 10 years, according to a summary by the Susan B. Anthony List and the Charlotte Lozier Institute. It’s not interested in slowing down. Over the past year, Planned Parenthood performed nearly 81 abortions for every adoption referral it made.
Though Planned Parenthood worries about limited abortion access killing a source of income, it’s not yet hurting for money. “Taxpayer funding in the form of government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements hit a record high of $616.8 million, or almost $1.7 million per day” this past year, according to the Susan B. Anthony List.
While its abortions have recently increased, Planned Parenthood’s other services have decreased nearly 13% over the past 10 years. That includes cancer screening and prevention services, prenatal services, and even contraception services.
Notably, Planned Parenthood has seen a 20% decline in unique patients over the past 10 years, meaning many of its same patients may be returning for repeated abortions. This means Planned Parenthood must continue to endorse women such as Michelle Williams, who claimed that abortion access was key to her success in life.
Planned Parenthood needs abortion to survive. Women, on the other hand, don’t.
