The American public has been led to believe that abortion facilities are providing needed medical care to women, but a new report reveals that this is not the case. The report revealed that of the facilities that provided the majority of abortions, just 18% offered any kind of prenatal and/or obstetric care. It also found that unlike facilities which committed more abortions, a higher percentage of non-abortion health care services were offered at facilities where fewer than half of patient visits were for abortions. In addition, the report noted that while the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has seen declining health services, facilities, and patients, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) providing comprehensive health care to both men and women have seen growth every year in service sites as well as patient volume.
The report, “Abortion service delivery in clinics by state policy climate in 2017” was funded by an “anonymous donor” and was published at the pro-abortion Journal Contraception. The report used data from Planned Parenthood’s former “special affiliate,” the Guttmacher Institute, regarding all known US abortion facilities that provided abortions.
In 2017, Guttmacher identified 1,587 abortion-providing facilities in the following categories:
- 808 total clinics provided 95% of all abortions.
- 253 specialized abortion clinics: (nonhospital facilities in which half or more of patient visits were for abortion services, regardless of annual abortion caseload) provided 60% of all abortions.
- 555 nonspecialized clinics: (nonhospital facilities in which fewer than half of patient visits were for abortion services) provided 35% of all abortions.
- 518 hospitals: (traditional hospital-based sites of care) provided just 3% of all abortions.
- 261 physicians’ offices: (facilities that provided fewer than 400 abortions per year) provided only 1% of all abortions.
As such, Journal Contraception’s latest report focused on providers categorized as clinics”because the majority (95%) of abortions were provided by clinics in 2017….”
The report looked at five categories of services but gave a sparse definition of each one, writing, “Response options included contraception or family planning (excluding postabortion contraception), gynecological care (including sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and sexual health care), prenatal and/or obstetric care, transgender-specific health services and general health care.”
What they found was that in 2017, “87% of clinics offered contraception or family planning and 85% offered gynecological care.”
READ: Media spins Planned Parenthood’s lack of prenatal care services
“While 100% of nonspecialized clinics offered standalone contraceptive services, 65% of specialized clinics did so,” the report stated.
However, a clearer picture of this so-called “care” begins to emerge by examining the table included in the report, shown below. According to the data, of the 808 abortion providers categorized by Guttmacher as “clinics” which provided 95% of all abortions in 2017, just 27% offered general health care while only 18% offered any type of prenatal and/or obstetric care.
Out of those categorized as “specialized abortion clinics” which commit 60% of abortions and where half or more of patient visits were for abortion services, just 11% offered general healthcare and only 5% offered prenatal and/or obstetric care.
In the “nonspecialized clinics” category, which commits 35% of all abortions and where fewer than half of patient visits were for abortion services, those numbers improved slightly with 36% offering general healthcare and 25% offering some kind of obstetric or prenatal care.
In other words, “clinics” in which fewer than half of patient visits were for abortions (nonspecialized clinics) were those which offered more health care options than those that committed the majority of abortions.
US abortion facilities which offered nonabortion related services 2017, Journal Contraception
In contrast, FQHCs provided hundreds of thousands of women with prenatal care:
- Planned Parenthood in 2017: 600 facilities provided 332,757 abortions as well as 1,074,952 pregnancy tests, 9,055 unspecified prenatal services and 2,831 adoption referrals. An Live Action News analysis found that in 2017, the corporation’s estimated abortion revenue was over $190 million, equating to 52% of its non-government health services revenue.
- Planned Parenthood in 2018: Planned Parenthood performed 1,074,952 pregnancy tests and recorded 9,798 unspecified prenatal services and 4,279 adoption referrals, while committing the highest number of abortions (345,672) recorded in recent years.
- FQHCs in 2017: 10,400 FQHCs served over 27 million patients, of which 573,026 were for prenatal care.
- FQHCs in 2018: 12,000 sites provided care to more than 28 million patients, of which 563,740 were for prenatal care.
- FQHCs in 2019: 12,000 sites served nearly 30 million patients, including 583,328 who were prenatal care patients.
The information in the report seems to confirm an earlier undercover investigation conducted by Live Action, which revealed that abortion — not prenatal care — is the primary service Planned Parenthood offers to pregnant clients. In past years (2010 to 2018), prenatal care has plummeted 68% at Planned Parenthood.
It should be noted that what constitutes “prenatal care” and “adoption referrals” at Planned Parenthood is not disclosed. See below for more from former PP facility manager, Sue Thayer:
A recent report from Live Action News found that from 2010 to 2018, Planned Parenthood received nearly $5 billion ($4,982,500,000) from US taxpayers while abortions increased and actual health care services dropped. As a result, Planned Parenthood’s net assets climbed nearly 72% from 1,159,600,000 in 2010 to 1,993,000,000 in 2018, while gaining $1,017,800,000 in excess revenue over expenses. In fact, between 2010 and 2018, Planned Parenthood’s revenue totaled over $12 billion dollars while they committed 2,970,388 of the nearly 7.7 million US abortions reported nationally during that time frame.
Even today, despite increased profits, skyrocketing abortions and declining health care services, this abortion behemoth is calling on states like Texas to not to remove Planned Parenthood facilities from its Medicaid programs. Yet, data from Planned Parenthood’s 2018-2019 annual report reveals that in just 2018, they committed nearly 81 abortions for every one adoption referral and over 35 abortions for every prenatal care referral that same year.
The fact remains that abortion is not health care and abortion businesses are not health care facilities. None should be supported with tax dollars.
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