Abortion industry in crisis: Planned Parenthood seizes control of shrinking turf
Since 2010, abortion proponents have acknowledged with increasing frequency and alarm that they think they are starting to lose. Two recent essays reveal new crises they are adding to their growing list:
- “When the going get tough,” the report on a May 2014 meeting sponsored by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Provide
- “Another choice lost: HB 2 targets most of Texas’ independent abortion providers,” an August 28 article by Andrea Grimes, senior political reporter for RH Reality Check
Putting information gleaned from these pieces together with Time magazine’s analysis of the pro-abortion movement on Roe’s 40th anniversary and four recent assessments by abortion proponents from various vantage points, it is clear the other side believes there has been a shift in the abortion wars, and legal access is in danger. I agree.
Although there has been no concerted effort by pro-lifers, the long term result of everyone pursuing an end to abortion according to their own passions has resulted in a myriad of problems for the other side, some of which are mutating into unforeseen new problems, the topic of this post.
To summarize the abortion lobby’s old problems:
1. Proliferation of pro-life laws
2. Litigating pro-life laws
3. Abortion stigma
4. Shrinking number of abortion clinics
5. Inability to staff abortion clinics
6. Science
7. Shift in public opinion; dearth of abortion advocates
8. Attempts to defund Planned Parenthood
According to the aforementioned essays, new problems facing the abortion lobby are:
1. Abortion access (distance, funding, logistics)
2. Demise of independent abortion clinics; Planned Parenthood monopoly
The irony of the old and new Planned Parenthood problems couldn’t be richer. I’ve noted for years that Planned Parenthood is trying to drive independent abortion clinics out of business and take over the industry. I’m not the only one. Tweets from a 2012 conference of indie mills identify in part how Planned Parenthood is doing it:
Because Planned Parenthood is such a large conglomerate, is tax exempt, is subsidized by the government, wields greater political influence, can order supplies in bulk, has top notch PR, advertising, and litigation teams, has university/hospital connections to hire abortionists and get admitting privileges, has greater access to insurance claims/state Medicare/Obamacare, and has brand recognition, Planned Parenthood can easily crush the competition.
In addition, Planned Parenthood’s large donor base enables it to upgrade clinics to meet new standards, or build new clinics, often, noncoincidentally, in the competition’s backyard, such as in North Carolina and Texas.
Planned Parenthood abortion monopoly no longer deniable
Finally, mainstream abortion proponents like Grimes are acknowledging Planned Parenthood’s growing monopoly on the abortion trade. But she found a way to blame pro-lifers, claiming clinic regulations are responsible for the demise of indie clinics that leave only the stronger Planned Parenthood clinics standing.
But the failure of substandard clinics is not anyone’s fault but their own. And when Grimes and her tribe come to Planned Parenthood’s aid when fighting to hold on to its government subsidies, they only further fortify the abortion giant and the unlevel playing field.
The report I referred to at the top of my post was on a meeting held this past May between groups concerned about abortion access, particularly in the South and Midwest, where it is becoming a huge problem.
But “[i]nvitees were limited to those working in a non-affiliate based organizational structure,” the report stated, “as we believed that independent groups operate in a distinct resource and decision-making context.”
In other words, Planned Parenthood was not welcome.
Many attendees were part of an emerging field: abortion funding.
Abortion funding groups are networking nationwide to create an abortion underground railroad. Fewer clinics and longer waiting periods mean pregnant mothers seeking abortion have to allot for transportation to clinics sometimes hundreds of miles away and hotels and meals if having to stay put 24-72 hours before getting their abortions.
Women of means have no trouble surmounting these hurdles, so it is basically the poor, uneducated, young, and/or foolish who need a helping hand, surely complicating an already complicated process. Add ticking gestational clocks to all the other drama, and you get “triage” situations where the funders determine who will and won’t get to kill their baby.
And is Planned Parenthood included in the mix? Don’t think so. From the 2012 conference of independent clinics:
It turns out Planned Parenthood has formed its own funding groups to fund abortions at its own clinics, making it more likely independent funding groups will bypass Planned Parenthood clinics if possible and send women to independent mills, both to strengthen the cash reserves of independents as well as spite Planned Parenthood.
So another interesting breach between Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups is surfacing. (Others I’ve recently documented include Planned Parenthood’s rift with women of color groups and Planned Parenthood’s split from “pro-choice” groups.)
And with the abortion lobby noting Planned Parenthood’s takeover of the industry, it makes it that much harder for Planned Parenthood to claim abortion accounts for a minuscule part of its business. Planned Parenthood went from committing 6% of all U.S. abortions in 1986 to 31.6% in 2011.
That percentage is certain to grow as Planned Parenthood runs competitors out of business.
“Underground railroad”– are you kidding me?? After decades of bashing the pro-life movement’s affinity for the anti-slavery cause, they think they’re taking it up by paying women to kill their kids? Abortion funds are nothing like the Underground Railroad; they bear a closer resemblance to slaveholder search parties with hounds.
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The growing monopoly that Planned Parenthood is establishing in the abortion killing business is, perhaps, partly a reflection of a long term trend in American society toward the big institutions, including government, crowding out the smaller. We certainly need to be wary of the political, financial and widespread dominance of Planned Parenthood. But being a large corporate target also makes them vulnerable to exposure and concentrated opposition.
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Yes, Raymond, you’re absolutely right. I couldn’t get into that in this piece, but if PP continues to run indie abortion clinics out of business, then when PP falls – is convicted of Medicaid fraud, has federal funding withdrawn, loses contraception business if it goes OTC, etc – the abortion industry will crash.
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Hmmm…. So the abortion industry thinks that pro-lifers are their greatest enemy. And yet… they are their own worst enemies, aren’t they?
They have earned their reputation of being lousy care providers, ghouls who prey on vulnerable women, frauds who gouge the welfare system, and slick liars who puff up a defective product.
Their opponent is reality — a public who have seen ultrasound pictures and know that abortion means killing a child.
But they think we pro-lifers are the enemy. They waste their time and money pursuing buffer zone laws (struck down by Supreme Court) and writing blogs against pro-lifers (like RH Reality Check and Every Saturday Morning, which no one reads).
The public does not want abortion clinics if they are not safe and standard, competent and ethical. The public will not tolerate dangerous clinics anymore. All pro-lifers did was to help draft the legislation.
Pretty soon, the public will realize that they do not want to subsidize a nasty private business like Planned Parenthood with $half-billion per year. Again, pro-lifers will have the enthusiasm to draft some legislation and get the word out.
But pro-lifers are not the abortion industry’s primary enemy. Citizens are.
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This should be fun to watch.
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See? It’s way better when we aren’t the ones knifing each other.
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“Although there has been no concerted effort by pro-lifers, the long term result of everyone pursuing an end to abortion according to their own passions has resulted in a myriad of problems for the other side…”
We are everywhere, yet nowhere… WINNING
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very good
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