Anyone familiar with the truth about Planned Parenthood is not surprised by the trends documented in the abortion chain’s recently released annual report: increasing abortion numbers, a decrease in many of its other services, increased taxpayer funding, and significant profits.
Even the disingenuous themes in the report’s introduction by Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards were predictable.
But there was a significant change in the way Planned Parenthood reported its service information that raises serious questions about what Planned Parenthood is not disclosing.
Ordinarily, Planned Parenthood reports its services for a calendar year. However, in its recently released 2011–2012 annual report, Planned Parenthood’s “2011” figures are actually for October 1, 2010, through September 30, 2011. This means that three months — one-quarter of a year — are repeated from what Planned Parenthood already disclosed in its 2009–2010 Annual Report.
Why would Planned Parenthood suddenly use a different reporting year — one that does not coincide with the calendar year or its fiscal year?#more#
While its annual report does not explain the rationale, coincidentally, because of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s (PPFA) new mandate that all PPFA affiliates must provide abortion services, Tri-Rivers Planned Parenthood in Missouri disaffiliated with Planned Parenthood effective October 1, 2011. Whether it was done for this reason or not, by restructuring its service year, Planned Parenthood’s “2011” report does not take into account the three months in 2011 after the non-abortion-providing affiliate, Tri-Rivers Planned Parenthood, dropped its affiliation.
Thus, in PPFA’s curiously restructured annual report for last year, abortion appears to be a lower percentage of Planned Parenthood’s services than it actually was.
Notably, Planned Parenthood’s 2011 service report includes a drastic decrease in its breast-health services. On average, it seems that Planned Parenthood was performing 9,000 less breast-health services per month — over 100,000 services less for the reported year. However, that comparison contains the same inexplicable overlap with its 2010 figures. Therefore, how low Planned Parenthood’s breast-health services actually sank in 2011 is indeterminable.
While it cannot be determined from Planned Parenthood’s recently released report just how much lower its breast-health services number was in 2011, the answer is significant. Planned Parenthood launched a vicious campaign against the Susan G. Komen Foundation over its decision to raise its grant standards in the winter of 2011/2012. An even lower breast-health services figure than what its 2011 number reports would further expose as unfounded Planned Parenthood’s attack on the well-respected cancer foundation.
The clear departure from its previous reporting practice raises the question: Why is Planned Parenthood not disclosing its “service” numbers from the last three months of 2011?
Although the 2011 data is incomplete, it is clear that abortion is an increasing share of Planned Parenthood’s overall operations. But even therecord-high 333,964 abortions reported by Planned Parenthood—as its overall service numbers decreased—falls short of explaining the extent of Planned Parenthood’s growing abortion business.
PPFA’s new directive that all its affiliates must provide abortions took effect in January 2013.
The annual report data includes several clinics that only provided non-abortion services and that have subsequently renounced their affiliation with Planned Parenthood over the new abortion mandate. The data also includes previously non-abortion-providing affiliates that are, presumably, in the process of complying with the mandate.
While purifying its brand—and ensuring that, in 2013, the Planned Parenthood name is synonymous with “abortion provider”—means that even full disclosure of its 2011 figures would paint an inaccurate account of Planned Parenthood’s abortion-centric nature today, the question must still be asked: What is Planned Parenthood hiding?
American taxpayers who provided the abortion giant more than $1 billion dollars in 2010 and 2011 deserve an answer. Planned Parenthood’s financial reports released last week document that the abortion chain received nearly $1.48 million taxpayer dollars per day. Notably, PPFA and its affiliates’ revenue—45 percent of which came from American taxpayers—exceeded its expenses by $242.9 million. During hard economic times, the abortion chain made nearly a third of a million dollars in profit every single day.
Anything less than full transparency from such a heavily subsidized organization is absolutely unacceptable.
— Anna Franzonello is Staff Counsel for Americans United for Life.