Abortions Rise at Washington Planned Parenthood Despite Fewer Pregnancies
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 18, 2008
Olympia, WA (LifeNews.com) — Abortions are on the rise at Planned Parenthood of Western Washington (PPWW) even though the abortion business saw fewer pregnant women visit its centers last year. PPWW’s new annual report also shows the percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion has threefold since 2004.
The PPWW annual report for 2007 shows the number of pregnant women visiting its facilities from declining a whopping 51 percent from 2006.
With Planned Parenthood spending millions on public relations campaign saying it wants to reduce the number of abortions, the staggering decline should lead to fewer abortions. Not so.
The PPWW annual report indicates abortions actually rose 16 percent from 7,790 in 2006 to 9,059 in 2007.
The report also reveals that the percentage of pregnancies ending in abortions at Planned Parenthood of Western Washington rose from 18 percent in 2004 to 25 percent in 2006 to 58 percent in 2007.
Mary Emanuel, who runs the web site Abortion in Washington, studied the report and also found that the abortion increase occurred despite sales of over 106,000 emergency contraception kits to Planned Parenthood customers.
Emanuel says the abortion rise also occurred despite Washington state’s Take Charge pilot program.
Take Charge is a Medicaid section 1115 Waiver program initiated in 2001 to provide free contraceptives to low-income women not already covered under Medicaid. It was originally funded for five years in 2001, then extended for three more years, and comes up for renewal in 2009.
“The state is facing serious financial challenges. The last thing we need are government programs that do more harm than good and are actually failing to deliver the promised benefits," Emanuel told LifeNews.com in a press release.
“Taxpayers are supposed to be saving money and there are supposed to be fewer abortions but with this program we are seeing the exact opposite," she added. “With the tight budgets King County and the state government are facing, ending family planning programs like Take Charge at Community Health Centers would be a win-win for everybody.”
Dan Kennedy, the CEO of Human Life of Washington, the state’s pro-life group, agrees.
"Given the budget crisis facing government at all levels, ending this taxpayer largesse to Planned Parenthood is long overdue," he said.
The two say that PPWW is the only apparent beneficiary of the program and point to the annual reports showing PPWW annual revenues skyrocket from about $17 million to near $35 million.
"A spokesman for PPWW admitted earlier this year that it had indeed used the profits from the Take Charge business to open up new abortion clinics," they added.
"Planned Parenthood’s own annual report reveals that fully 70% of their 150,000 client visits were funded by Take Charge. The state is then left to cover the cost of an abortion or a Medicaid birth. Planned Parenthood is under investigation nationwide for Medicaid fraud in the illegal profiteering from contraceptive sales," they concluded.
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