In the mid-to-late 1990s, Planned Parenthood suggested in an annual report that prenatal care was its “fastest-growing area.” Today, the tune has drastically changed. Prenatal care at Planned Parenthood has been on the decline even as its abortion numbers continue to increase year after year. Over the span of a decade — the corporation’s 2009-2010 annual report through its most recent 2019-2020 report — Planned Parenthood provided a total of 200,530 prenatal services. At the same time, they committed nearly four million abortions.
Today, Planned Parenthood’s website makes it clear that only “some” Planned Parenthood facilities actually offer prenatal care. But as recently as 2017, Planned Parenthood’s website misled potential clients by listing “Prenatal” at the top of its web pages under pregnancy services. In actuality, few were offering prenatal care of any kind, as a Live Action undercover investigation learned. Out of 97 facilities called, only five said they offered any type of service to mothers who wanted to carry their babies to term. Nearly every Planned Parenthood staffer plainly told investigators they did not offer prenatal services at Planned Parenthood.
After the release of Live Action’s investigation, Planned Parenthood purged its websites. Not long after, additional women reached out to various Planned Parenthood facilities, many in their local communities, and confirmed Live Action’s findings. Former Planned Parenthood managers have even stated that in their experience, Planned Parenthood actually had nothing to offer pregnant women besides abortion.
A 2020 survey of all U.S. abortion businesses (not just Planned Parenthood) revealed that just 18% offered any kind of prenatal and/or obstetric care.
How does Planned Parenthood currently define prenatal services?
Planned Parenthood’s reports and website are unclear on exactly what constitutes a prenatal service at facilities which offer the care. Online, Planned Parenthood currently defines prenatal care as “[w]hen you get checkups from a doctor, nurse, or midwife throughout your pregnancy. It helps keep you and your future baby healthy,” adding that “Your doctor, nurse, or midwife will monitor your future baby’s development and do routine testing to help find and prevent possible problems.”
“During your follow-up prenatal care visits, your doctor, nurse, or midwife will examine you to make sure your pregnancy is developing well, and that you and the fetus are healthy,” Planned Parenthood adds on a separate web page, which allegedly spells out the care.
In 2020, Dr. Meera Shah, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic in New York State and a national medical spokesperson at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Self.com that in NY, Planned Parenthood provides “[p]renatal care and link[s]… prenatal patients to ob-gyns in the community for labor and delivery.”
READ: One every 89 seconds: Newest Planned Parenthood report shows record number of abortions
Planned Parenthood’s primary focus is abortion
Abortion is the primary focus of Planned Parenthood — not prenatal care. In September of 2019, the same year the organization announced its plans to expand abortion, Planned Parenthood launched an “Abortion Service Locator,” which it claimed offers “specific, easy-to-understand information and resources.”
To be clear, while Planned Parenthood is often touted as a needed source for pregnant women, as well as low-income patients, the abortion organization offers no “locator” for prenatal care services — or any other services, for that matter.
Then again, it is abortion — not prenatal care — that drives Planned Parenthood’s business model, and this particular abortion marketing strategy will likely be a boon for the abortion corporation. Planned Parenthood recently claimed that the site has already received more than 767,000 visits, with more than 73,000 abortion clients scheduling an abortion appointment.
Planned Parenthood Abortion Locator (Image: PP website accessed 2/26/2021)
The impact of Planned Parenthood’s “Abortion Service Locator” is yet to be seen, but from its most recent 2019-2020 annual report (for services rendered between October 1, 2018 and September 30, 2019) is that Planned Parenthood provided a mere 8,626 “prenatal services” while committing a total of 354,871 abortions.
Over the years, prenatal services at Planned Parenthood have drastically declined. The most current prenatal care numbers represent a decline of nearly 12% from prenatal care reported in its 2018-2019 report and a drop of over 72% from 2010. To date, Planned Parenthood commits 41 abortions for every one prenatal care service and 133 abortions for every adoption referral.
What if pregnant women who visit Planned Parenthood want to keep their babies?
Planned Parenthood masquerades as a health care organization, but even past failed reinvention attempts show that the corporation, with few exceptions, offers abortion as the option for pregnant women. This has led to an increasing market share, and today, Planned Parenthood commits 41% of all U.S. abortions.
This anti-life mentality appears to have infiltrated other areas. Planned Parenthood’s own pregnant staffers recently exposed the organization’s abysmal treatment of and discrimination against pregnant employees. The details, published by the New York Times in a stunning exposé, revealed that Planned Parenthood “employers saw accommodating expecting mothers as expensive and inconvenient. Others were unsympathetic to workers seeking special treatment.”
According to current and former Planned Parenthood employees in California, Texas, North Carolina, and New York, “[M]anagers in some locations declined to hire pregnant job candidates, refused requests by expect[ant] mothers to take breaks and in some cases pushed them out of their jobs after they gave birth,” in clear violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which “provides certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year.”
Despite this and other abuses, Planned Parenthood continues to receive $1.7 million a day from U.S. taxpayers. Over the past decade, Planned Parenthood has received nearly $6 billion from U.S. taxpayers while accumulating $1 billion in excess revenue over expenses.
Editor’s Note, 5/7/21: This article has been updated for consistent numbers on “prenatal services” versus prenatal clients.
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