An analysis of Planned Parenthood’s 2014 annual report by the Charlotte Lozier Institute notes the “new decline in Planned Parenthood’s client load in 2014,” along with numbers that also show “the organization has lost fully 13.7 percent of its reversible contraceptive client base over a five-year period while under no federal funding stress whatsoever.”
Lozier Institute president Chuck Donovan points out that while the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 15 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clients would lose their contraception coverage if the organization’s Medicaid funds were halted, Planned Parenthood seems to be losing these clients all on its own…
The reversible contraceptive client total simply refers to the number of women coming to Planned Parenthood to obtain reversible contraception like oral contraceptives, barrier methods and IUDs, and this number continued to drop in 2014 – by more than 122,000 women, or more than 5.7 percent of those clients.
Perhaps Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards saw this coming in 2014, when she complained that over-the-counter birth control might not be such a good idea after all. It would force women to pay for their own contraception, she said. But Live Action News’ Cassy Fiano suggested that a concern for women’s finances was the furthest thing from Richards’ mind:
Interestingly enough, Cecile Richards was super excited about making emergency contraceptives available over-the-counter last year, as Jill Stanek points out. So what changed?
Could it possibly be that Richards realized birth control being sold over-the-counter without needing insurance would eat into her profits?
The reason behind the steady loss in contraceptive clients is unknown, but Lozier’s Chuck Donovan has a theory:
This trend seems relatively well established and may reflect, as news reports have discussed, the impact of larger changes in health care funding that have expanded access for many women to their own health insurance plans. It may also reflect increased funding for community health centers that offer a much wider array of general health care services at a single site.
Community health centers – 13,540 of them, compared to Planned Parenthood’s 665 facilities – would receive Planned Parenthood’s current $528 million annual taxpayer dollars, if Planned Parenthood were defunded. These community health centers offer contraceptive services, gynecological and breast exams, prenatal care, STD testing, and much more… so what does Planned Parenthood offer that community health centers don’t? Abortion.
Casey Mattox of Alliance Defending Freedom said it best. If Planned Parenthood’s funding were taken away, that money “would be better used by community health centers and other places around the country that can provide a fuller range of services to women without the ethical challenges that Planned Parenthood presents.”
Chuck Donovan writes that perhaps Planned Parenthood’s “service limitations… offer a more logical explanation for hundreds of thousands of women going elsewhere” for contraception. At this point, he says, “the organization is seeing a much lower number of clients at significantly higher taxpayer cost — one more sign perhaps that, with its consistent excess revenue over expense, it could absorb public funding reductions.”
As the supposed “need” for Planned Parenthood declines, the necessity to defund the abortion giant continues to grow.
