Planned Parenthood continues as the leading abortion provider in the United States. The latest news comes from their fiscal year 2003 annual report. This report shows that Planned Parenthood killed 227,385 babies in utero in 2002 with surgical abortion. Even though the overall rate of abortion is declining in the U.S., surgical abortions increased more than 14,000 from the previous year at Planned Parenthood. How could Planned Parenthood be interested in reducing the abortion rate when that would have a negative impact on an important revenue stream?

According to statistics released by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), Planned Parenthood’s “special affiliate” for “reproductive health research,” abortions have declined in the U.S. every year but one from 1990 to 2000 (the last year for which national statistics were available), with an overall decrease of 18% in those eleven years. By contrast, since 1990 Planned Parenthood abortions have increased in 11 of the 13 years they have reported statistics, with an overall increase of 76% during the period.

These additional abortions also padded the profit margin for this claimed-to-be non-profit organization. Planned Parenthood’s annual profits shot up 300% from $12.2 million to $36.6 million. This profit margin was obtained from revenues of $766.6 million, of which $254.4 million was taxpayer money. This means that Planned Parenthood is on the public dole for one third of their annual revenue. Why should taxpayer money be used to allow Planned Parenthood to push abortion?

Statistics for 2002 show that Planned Parenthood is far more committed to abortion than to parenthood. Planned Parenthood did see 15,860 prenatal clients in 2002, but against the more than two hundred thousand abortions, this is relatively very small. Combining the two figures one sees that only 6.5% of those clients receiving pregnancy-related services received prenatal care - the rest received abortions.

The record for adoption services is even worse. Planned Parenthood performed no adoption services in house, but shows 1,963 adoption referrals in 2002. To put things in perspective, that translates into nearly 116 abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics for every adoption referral.