Recently President Donald Trump made an informal offer to Planned Parenthood: stop doing abortions and you can keep all of your federal funding. Planned Parenthood’s response was predictable, but not their honesty.
Taking to Twitter on March 6, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards said, “Planned Parenthood is proud to provide abortion—a necessary service that’s as vital to our mission as birth control or cancer screenings.”
It’s unfortunate that many discussions about Planned Parenthood and abortion quickly devolve into arguing over Planned Parenthood’s misleading talking point that only 3 percent of their services involve abortion. As we’ve addressed routinely, dividing 330,000 annual abortions by 2.5 million clients doesn’t equal 3 percent. Neither does dividing by the more than 1 million pregnancy tests they do: we all understand what happens there after a positive test in most cases. Planned Parenthood performs 160 abortions for every adoption referral they make.
By Planned Parenthood’s own admission now, abortion is not just a small part of their services, but a vital part of their mission. Every year their abortion commitment grows, right alongside their taxpayer funding. Will Planned Parenthood be more honest about their work moving forward?
There has been a push lately among abortion advocates to stop downplaying and apologizing for abortion. One can search online to find articles titled, “Yes, I’m pro-abortion,” or, “I love abortion.” Planned Parenthood has notably been one of the organizations slower to move in the direction of being earnest about their abortion advocacy.
Don’t just take Cecile Richards’ words at face value, but look at their clinic figures. Ten years ago in Michigan Planned Parenthood operated 34 offices, 3 of which performed abortions. Today they operate 19, 8 of which perform abortions. Planned Parenthood even made a rule in 2010 requiring all of their affiliates to operate at least one abortion clinic.
They have chosen to make abortion an inseparable part of their mission. They choose to coerce donations to them from the half of the country that believes unborn children have inherent value.
There’s only one reasonable conclusion from this: their abortion mission and our tax-dollars are inseparable. No amount of accounting or public relations gimmicks can hide that fact.
There are many more community health centers in Michigan than Planned Parenthood, and their only mission is to help every person in need of care. They deserve our tax dollars, not Planned Parenthood’s abortion mission.