Planned Parenthood: The Country's Number One Adortion Chain
ShareCHAPTER 65 — PLANNED PARENTHOOD: THE COUNTRY'S NUMBER ONE ABORTION CHAIN
American Life League
Planned Parenthood affiliates remain committed to assuring unrestricted access to abortion services.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America. 1991 Service Report.
Anti-Life Philosophy.
Planned Parenthood does not perform abortions. This is a piece of anti-choice propaganda whose purpose is to divert attention away from PP's many valuable programs that benefit the family and the nation as a whole.
The real reason the anti-choice people want to shut down Planned Parenthood is because they want to deny women access to effective contraceptive methods, thereby wresting from them their most fundamental right to control their own bodies.
Planned Parenthood: Efficient Abortion Machine.
It is a general rule of thumb in all human endeavors that larger scale means greater efficiency. In other words, the larger an entity is, the more efficient it is in accomplishing its mission(s).
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is a very good example of this rule. One of its many activities is the operation of the largest chain of abortion clinics in the country.
Since abortion was legalized, Planned Parenthood abortuaries have killed more than one and a half million preborn babies, as shown in Figure 65-1. This number is equivalent to the entire population of Detroit or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
FIGURE 65-1
ANNUAL ABORTIONS COMMITTED BY PLANNED PARENTHOOD IN THE UNITED STATES
YEAR
1973 - 20,000 *
1974 - 29,500 *
1975 - 38,000 *
1976 - 48,500 *
1977 - 58,660
1978 - 66,136
1979 - 72,112
1980 - 77,880
1981 - 79,997
1982 - 82,916
1983 - 85,242
1984 - 88,824
1985 - 91,065
1986 - 98,638
1987 - 104,411
1988 - 111,189
1989 - 122,191
1990 - 129,155
1991 - 137,000 *
1992 - 145,000 *
TOTAL ABORTIONS BY PLANNED PARENTHOOD IN 20 YEARS - 1,686,336
Note: * - estimated
Reference: Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "1991 Service Report: A Tradition of Choice."
As of June 1992, PPFA had about 171 affiliate clinics scattered all over the country, and these, in support of Margaret Sanger's statement of purpose, are primarily concentrated in poor, inner-city neighborhoods. Of these 171 affiliates, 57, or one-third, committed 129,155 abortions in 1990 about eight percent of the national total. 26.7 percent of these abortions were done on teenagers.[1]
To show just where its priorities are, 26 of PPFA's affiliates provided 7,053 patients with prenatal services in 1990.[1]
In other words, PPFA has more than twice as many clinics killing preborn babies than caring for them. And the ratio of preborn babies killed by PPFA to preborn babies cared for by the organization in 1990 was
(129,155/7,053) = 18 to 1!
All 171 Planned Parenthood clinics refer for abortions, and thus act as funnels to the organization's abortuaries. PP 'counselors' urge their victims to abort by using an array of subtle pressure tactics, as demonstrated by the fact that 70 percent of all women 'counseled' by PP eventually abort, compared to 29 percent of the general population and 24 percent of those who visit pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.[2]
The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) has confirmed that Planned Parenthood has a 345% higher direct abortion referral rate than other types of clinics that also refer for abortion. The average publicly- funded clinic that deals with pregnant women has a 10.2 percent abortion referral rate, which is less than one-third of the 35.2% overall abortion referral rate for Planned Parenthood clinics. Some PP clinics have an abortion referral rate as high as 86.4% in other words, in these clinics, six out seven women 'choose' abortion on the spot![3]
The Outer Limits of Commitment.
The 1975 Kenneth Edelin infanticide case demonstrated just how far Planned Parenthood will go to defend and extend the right to kill 'unwanted' children.
On October 3, 1973, Edelin, a Boston abortionist, performed an abortion on a 17-year old girl who was 24 weeks pregnant. His saline abortion attempt failed, so he performed a hysterotomy (Cesarian) abortion the next day.
He detached the placenta (cutting off blood oxygenation to the baby) and held the child inside the mother's uterus for three minutes as he watched the clock. Satisfied that the baby was finally dead, he removed it and disposed of it. A pathologist testified that the baby had been able to take at least one breath before Edelin suffocated it.[4]
Edelin was charged and convicted of manslaughter by a jury, but the verdict was thrown out by an appeals court on a minor technicality. It is significant that every major national pro-abortion group rallied to Edelin's defense, and went so far as to pay for most of his court costs.
What was Edelin's reward for this infanticide? He was certainly not censured by any pro-abortion groups; he was heavily supported by them during his trial. Edelin was promoted to the position of Chairman of the Board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and has narrated several Planned Parenthood videos aimed at teenagers, including the high-visibility propaganda film "Personal Decisions." He also became chairman of the National Abortion Rights Action League Medical Advisory Committee shortly after he killed the baby.[5]
This is very revealing. After a much-publicized infanticide and manslaughter trial in which he was convicted, Edelin was suddenly much in demand by the major national pro-abortion groups. He was showered with honors and support and given prestigious committees to chair. In other words, Edelin appears to be the ideal role model for Planned Parenthood and other pro-abort groups.
Planned Parenthood's International Activities.
As monstrous as it is, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is only one of the more than eighty affiliates of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), a multibillion dollar business whose avowed purpose is to spread abortion, birth control, and sterilization all over the earth.
IPPF fanatically battled the Mexico City Policy, which prohibited Federal funding for private organizations which "... perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning" in foreign countries. IPPF refused to accept this policy and lost more than $17 million of Federal funding annually. It spent over $2 million from 1987 to 1989 on lobbying, litigation, and advertising to overturn the Mexico City Policy. In 1987 alone, this massive propaganda campaign included ten quarter-page advertisements in the New York Times and the Washington Post, 13 full- paged ads in magazines, and more than 900 subway and bus ads in Washington, DC.[6]
The Family Planning International Assistance Program (FPIA), operated by PPFA out of New York City, also rejected the Mexico City Policy and sued the Federal government in January of 1987 to overturn it. This effort failed, as described in Chapter 58, "Legislation on Abortion."
Following the United States Supreme Court's 1991 Rust v. Sullivan decision, which cut off Title X funds to programs and organizations that performed or promoted abortion, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America chose to give up $37 million per year in tax dollars rather than repudiate its addiction to abortion (by which it makes about the same amount of money each year).
While the PPFA loudly cried that the Rust decision would "hurt poor women by shutting down family planning clinics," it gave up the money that would have kept those clinics open for services other than abortion.
This decision by PPFA demonstrated conclusively that the organization cares far more about abortion than it does about the health of poor women.
References: Planned Parenthood Abortions.
[1] Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "1991 Service Report: A Tradition of Choice."
[2] Cathy Deeds. "NARAL's "Silent No More" Ignores "Silenced Ones."" National Right to Life News, May 30, 1985, page 7.
[3] United States General Accounting Office (GAO). "Restrictions on Abortion and Lobbying Activities in Family Planning Programs Need Clarification." GAO/HRD-82-106 (September 24, 1982), pages 18 and 19. Also testimony before a United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources on July 30, 1987, by Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Jo Ann Gaspar.
[4] Charles J. Sykes. "Medical Nightmares: German Doctors/American Doctors." Milwaukee: Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, 1987, pages 16 and 17.
[5] Edelin is listed as chairman of the National Abortion Rights Action League Medical Advisory Committee in a 1978 NARAL fundraising/propaganda letter entitled "Your Town Could Be Next ..." Also see "Ppersonalities." Communique, March 1, 1991, page 4, by the American Life League.
[6] Susan Manuel. "Abortion Battle is Launched." USA Today, April 15, 1987, page 3A. Also see Planned Parenthood's 1986 Annual Report, page 15, and its 1987 Annual Report, page 11.
Further Reading: Planned Parenthood Abortions.
Robert H. Ruff. Aborting Planned Parenthood.
New Vision Press, 710 West 32nd Street, Houston, Texas 77018. 189 pages. Order from Human Life International, 7845-E Airpark Road, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20879, telephone: (301) 670-7884. Reviewed by Judie Brown on page 53 of the November-December 1988 issue of ALL About Issues. This book is a summary of more than 50,000 medical and other records salvaged from a dumpster behind a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas. The author covers, by the numbers, the numerous sex education myths that Planned Parenthood foists off on teenagers, and documents why they are false.
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This is a chapter of the Pro-Life Activist’s Encyclopedia published by American Life League.
