Planned Parenthood received record gov't funding amid abortion increase, decline in health services
Planned Parenthood received record taxpayer funding amid an uptick in abortions and a decrease in healthcare services amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to its recently released 2020-2021 annual report.
The nation's largest abortion provider released the report earlier this month, showing the organization's affiliates conducted 383,460 abortions in the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2021. This figure constitutes an 8% increase from the 354,871 it performed in the previous year, as documented in its 2019-2020 annual report.
The most recent Planned Parenthood report reveals that its affiliates provided services to 2.16 million clients during its reporting period, a decrease from the 2.4 million it served in the same period the year before.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Services and testing for sexually transmitted infections decreased from over 5.4 million the year before to over 4.4 million in its most recent report. Meanwhile, cancer screenings decreased to nearly 417,000 from almost 599,000 the year before. Contraceptive services decreased to almost 2.2 million, down from over 2.5 million the year earlier.
The number of adoption referrals provided by Planned Parenthood decreased from 2,667 to 1,940.
Planned Parenthood reported receiving over $633 million in "Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants" for the year ending June 30, 2021, which equaled more than a third of its total revenue. The nonprofit received over $618 million in government reimbursements and grants the year before.
Planned Parenthood acknowledged that the "COVID-19 pandemic meant that many patients had to put off care to avoid exposing themselves and their loved ones to the deadly virus."
"Planned Parenthood health centers are proud to provide abortion," the report states. "That's never been more true than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Abortion is essential health care that cannot wait for the end of a pandemic or the whims of politicians."
In a Tuesday statement, Lila Rose, president and founder of the pro-life activist organization Live Action, said that Planned Parenthood has made a "mockery of our healthcare system." Rose noted the increase in the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood and the methods used to terminate pregnancies, including the "poison of the abortion pill regimen" and "the clamps and blades used in surgical abortions to kill and dismember preborn children."
"This barbaric butchery should be illegal, but instead, it is subsidized by the American public, with taxpayers contributing an all-time high of $633.4 million to the abortion giant, an over $15 million increase from the previous year," Rose said.
While the amount of taxpayer money Planned Parenthood received increased over the past year, government funding as a share of its overall revenue remained nearly steady, dropping slightly from 38% to 37%.
In a breakdown of the most recent annual report, Carole Novielli of Live Action News pro-life pointed out that within the past decade, the number of clients Planned Parenthood serves has declined by 30% from 2009-2010 and nearly 35% from 1996-1997.
From 2000 to 2020, Planned Parenthood conducted 6.4 million abortions while offering a little over 303,000 prenatal care services to pregnant women, according to Live Action.
"To put it in perspective, Planned Parenthood has committed about the same number of abortions every year that it offered in prenatal care services over two decades combined," Novielli wrote.
Michael New, a research associate at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America, notes that Planned Parenthood released its report over half a year after it usually does.
"The release of this report comes unusually late in the calendar year," he wrote. "Planned Parenthood had released their last four annual reports in the months of January or February. This 2021 report provides further evidence that Planned Parenthood continues to prioritize abortion."
Ryan Bomberger, a pro-life advocate and co-founder of The Radiance Foundation, questioned the timing of the release of the report.
"This year, PPFA released their latest annual report in a Friday news dump hidden beneath obsessive coverage of the British Monarchy and the passing of Queen Elizabeth," he wrote in an op-ed for The Christian Post.
"In a pandemic where they provided 200,000 less breast cancer exams and Pap tests (combined) than the previous year, PPFA somehow managed to have plenty of time to kill more human beings than ever in their history," he added.
"Even though they served 260,000 fewer clients than the year prior, they managed to rake in the most taxpayer dollars ever. ... Drastically fewer clients + drastically fewer medical services + stolen taxpayer dollars + more abortions = pay dirt."
Rose called for the halting of government support of Planned Parenthood, a demand pro-life activists have made for years.
"Every day that Planned Parenthood receives taxpayer money is a day where every American is involuntarily complicit in the ableism, misogyny, and violence inherent to Planned Parenthood's business model," she added. "Planned Parenthood must be defunded immediately, and their violent business shut down."
The release of the latest Planned Parenthood annual report comes less than one month after advocacy and political organizations affiliated with the abortion provider announced that they would spend $50 million on the 2022 midterm elections in an effort to elect "champions for sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights, including abortion, up and down the ballot."
The $50 million commitment follows a previous pledge from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America and EMILY's List to spend $150 million on the midterm elections.
OpenSecrets, a nonprofit organization that keeps track of the money spent by political groups to influence American politics, reported last month that the Planned Parenthood Action Fund spent over $569,000 on lobbying efforts in the second quarter of 2022. The money spent by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in the second quarter of 2022, when the news of the overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide first broke, marked a record for the most money raised by the pro-abortion group in the second quarter of a year.
OpenSecrets identified the legislation the Planned Parenthood Action Fund lobbied for, including the Women's Health Protection Act, which would codify the right to abortion established in Roe into federal law.
The U.S. House of Representatives most recently passed the bill in a 219-210 vote in July. The legislation remains stalled in the U.S. Senate, where it has previously failed to garner the votes necessary for passage.
