State-funded abortions in the United States have increased by close to 3 percent, according to the latest data from Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Planned Parenthood performed 354,871 abortions in 2019-20, a 2.7 percent increase from 2018-19, which was a 3 percent increase from the year before that, the organization’s latest annual report states.
“Planned Parenthood’s business is abortion, not health care,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, in response to the report.
She told Catholic News Agency that state-funded abortions increased “when US abortions overall have long been on the decline.”
Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider. Due to its abortion business, some members of Congress and the Trump administration have sought to separate the organization from Medicaid funding and federal family planning funding.
The Trump administration issued a rule in February 2019 prohibiting grantees in the federal Title X family planning program from referring for abortions or being co-located with abortion clinics.
The Title X Family Planning Program is a federal grant program for low-income patients to receive family planning and reproductive health services. Its regulations prohibit funds from being used for abortion care, though health centers that provide abortions have received Title X funds.
Rather than comply with the regulations, Planned Parenthood withdrew from the program in August 2019, forfeiting an estimated $60 million in annual funding.
Despite withdrawing from Title X, the group received more than $618 million in government funding in the 2019-20 year—an increase of $1.3 million from the previous year.
Media reported in February last year that states were already moving to fund the organization in their budgets to cover the Title X funding shortfall. Planned Parenthood also receives reimbursements from Medicaid for services, although Medicaid cannot pay for elective abortions by law.
The White House, meanwhile, has reaffirmed President Joe Biden’s support for federal funding of Planned Parenthood, and Biden has issued guidance saying that states can’t refuse to fund the organization with Medicaid dollars.
Biden also supports repealing the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding of elective abortions.
Dannenfelser warned against efforts by Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups to loosen federal restrictions on the abortion pill regimen, making it available over-the-counter and through the postal service. Currently, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations require that the abortion pill be prescribed in-person at a health clinic.
“We will never quit fighting to stop taxpayer funding of the abortion industry and provide the life-affirming alternatives women and families deserve,” she said.
In comparison to the number of abortions performed last year, Planned Parenthood said its affiliates provided 8,626 “prenataervices,” 2,110 instances of “miscarriage care,” 31,912 “family practice services,” and 2,667 “adoption referrals.”
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