Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDSIn spite of its doom-and-gloom rhetoric following the end of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report shows they haven’t missed a beat in performing a record number of abortions during 2023-2024.
National Right to Life is reporting on the latest report, ironically labeled, “A Force for Hope,” showing that Planned Parenthood clinics killed 402,230 unborn babies during this period and made $2.026 billion in revenue for the year. Even more galling is the fact that 39 percent of their revenue for the same period - $792.2 million – came from U.S. taxpayers.
Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., National Right to Life Director of Education & Research, says that in spite of closing abortion operations in many newly pro-life states and closing more than fifty clinics since 2020, the abortion giant has managed to keep its killing machine humming by shifting a lot of their business to virtual clinics or telehealth operations. Virtual health centers are operating in 23 states and a new smart phone app, PPDirect, give women access to telehealth services and get prescriptions for chemical abortions in states where it is permitted, birth control pills, patches, rings, and emergency contraception.
“Planned Parenthood doesn’t tell how many of these ‘virtual abortions’ it facilitated,” O’Bannon writes. “But in a country where nearly two thirds of all abortions are now ‘medication’ or chemical abortions, the zealously pro-abortion Biden administration made it legal to prescribe mifepristone online and ship to women’s home. This represents a substantial and lucrative business venture.”
In addition, the newly created Direct Patient Assistance for Travel and Related Expenses, and the Patient Navigation programs, help women living in states where abortion is limited or banned to access abortion in other states. Planned Parenthood provided $3.4 million of direct patient assistance funding last year to help 12,500 women who were forced to travel for an abortion by giving them an average of $250 each to cover expenses.
“We estimate that Planned Parenthood affiliate abortion patient navigators have assisted more than 100,000 people have access care in the last year,” O’Bannon reports. “If this involved giving assistance and referrals to women in pro-life states so that they could be sent for abortions to Planned Parenthood clinics in neighboring states (an outcome Planned Parenthood has clearly planned for), this would mean as many as a quarter of Planned Parenthood’s abortions in the first full year post-Dobbs were women and babies who would have been spared that fate if they had stayed home.”
During the same time period, the number of Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services remained low or declined. For example, the cancer screenings the company touts in its advertisements and political statements fell from 2 million in 2005 to 426,268 in 2023-2024. Contraceptive services also declined from more than 4 million in 2006 to a little more than 2 million in the last reporting year. Prenatal services and adoption referrals also declined or were up so slightly as to be insignificant.
As for government funding, Planned Parenthood raked in $792.2 million in taxpayer dollars during this period.
“Planned Parenthood doesn’t spell it out here, but while some of that comes from federal family planning grants like Title X, the vast majority of it comes from state Medicaid reimbursements,” O’Bannon reports. “And though federal money, because of the Hyde amendment, is not allowed to go directly to abortion (though it helps keep Planned Parenthood open), many of the very abortion-friendly states where Planned Parenthood does business do allow state Medicaid funds to cover abortion.”
He continues: “With 39% of its revenues coming from government sources, and so much of its money and so much of its energy going to the promotion and performance of abortion, it is worth asking whether Planned Parenthood could survive or stay in business without government funding. If it did, it would have to be a far different business with a much different focus than what we see today.”
That day can’t come soon enough.
“Here’s hoping that Planned Parenthood, or at least the people who support them, will finally truly see the woman and the unborn children that they’re supposed to be serving. Instead of another 402,230 dead babies, Planned Parenthood could offer them real help and real hope, and not just another bloody, expensive encounter where they are processed and sent away with an empty womb, a broken heart, and a lighter wallet.”
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