By: News Analysis On: April 12, 2011
As US lawmakers last week debated whether government funding of the family planning organization Planned Parenthood would continue, the nonprofit’s role in providing abortions became the central talking point to the debate. Opponents of Planned Parenthood keyed in on its abortion services, while its supporters highlighted other services related to sexual health, such as contraception, sexual education and gynecological screenings. The discussion over services brought Planned Parenthood into the light as a rallying point for both sides of the political spectrum.
Ezra Klein @The Washington Post | “As you can see in the chart atop this post, abortion services account for about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities. That’s less than cancer screening and prevention (16 percent), STD testing for both men and women (35 percent), and contraception (also 35 percent). About 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s users are over age 20, and 75 percent have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line. Planned Parenthood itself estimates it prevents more than 620,000 unintended pregnancies each year, and 220,000 abortions. It’s also worth noting that federal law already forbids Planned Parenthood from using the funds it receives from the government for abortions. So though the fight over Planned Parenthood might be about abortion, Planned Parenthood itself isn’t about abortion. It’s primarily about contraception and reproductive health.”
Reader comment @The Daily Dish | “If you read the source pdf (which you guys even linked to!) you’ll see that the chart is based on number of services provided, not their cost. Also, the Ezra Klein post you linked to, while technically accurate, badly obscures the important numbers. Planned Parenthood obviously doesn’t do very many abortions compared to the number of condoms they hand out, but they still do about 330,000 abortions a year. That’s a lot. How much? Compare that number to CDC data and you’ll see that Planned Parenthood performs about a third of all known abortions in the United States. So, yes, they’re a big abortion provider.”
Ben Smith @Politico | “There are any number of ways to tally this. At the high end, Planned Parenthood’s enemies at Live Action peg abortion spending at a third, based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation around internal cost Planned Parenthood doesn’t release. The chart above, on the other hand, seems to reflect a decision to make abortions appear as minimal as the organization can plausibly claim — part of what has been a strategy of painting Republicans as foes not just of abortion, but of contraception. The underlying Planned Parenthood release offers what strikes me as another reasonable way of looking at it: They say they see more than three million patients a year and perform 332,278 abortions, putting the procedure somewhere a bit north of ten percent of their practice, and a substantial share of the abortions provided nationally. Abortions, along with a few thousand vasectomies, are the only surgical procedures reflected in the chart.”
GetReligion | “Let’s start with the headline on the latest report from the Tulsa World:
“Religious pro-choice group says anti-abortion legislation endangers women
“Now, the reporter undoubtedly didn’t write the headline. But the headline certainly reflects the nature — and tenor — of his story.
“Anybody see any journalistic problems with that headline? Besides, of course, the fact that it favors one side? How about its violation of The Associated Press Stylebook, the journalist’s bible?:
“abortion Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice.
“Obviously, a newspaper could adopt its own style in a case like this. But journalistic fairness would require a consistent style. If you’re going to call one side pro-choice, then shouldn’t the other side be labeled pro-life?
Politico | “With the budget battle putting women’s health issues front and center, reproductive health groups tell POLITICO they’ve seen an unprecedented surge in activism at a time when many supporters had grown complacent, less fazed by legislative threats now that a president who supports abortion rights is at the helm.”
Tags: Politics, women's issues
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The Theological Anthropology of the Preborn, Ctd. | The Seedbed
April 15, 2011 @ 11:45 am ()
[...] federal budget debates that brought attention to federal funding for Planned Parenthood brought the question of the theological anthropology of the preborn back to my mind. Planned [...]
The Abortion Decision « Dialogic Magazine
April 15, 2011 @ 11:54 am ()
[...] The federal budget debates that brought attention to federal funding for Planned Parenthood brought the question abortion and the right to life to my mind. Planned Parenthood, as everyone knows except people who are vehemently anti-abortion rights and people who are trying to make a partisan politics point, does more than provide abortions. It also provides birth control counseling and prescriptions, often at reduced costs, health screenings and checkups, and counseling services for gynecological health and wellness. And the pragmatist in me says, “Well who wouldn’t be all for bringing down the number of abortions by making sure that all pregnancies are planned and wanted? Who wouldn’t want to make sure as many of those pregnancies are healthy by providing prenatal health screenings? Or that all women are healthy throughout their sexual lives by making sure they have access to that type of health care, which are expensive and not always fully covered by insurance plans? [...]