If Planned Parenthood collapses, so does the abortion industry, Part 1
Had Planned Parenthood gone under in 1986, the abortion industry would hardly have noticed. At the time Planned Parenthood was committing only 6.2% of all U.S. abortions.
That was then.
With a total of 342 abortion clinics at last count (174 surgical/168 medical), Planned Parenthood now owns 46% of the remaining 751 abortion clinics in the U.S.
Planned Parenthood’s biggest abortion surge has been in the field of medical (RU-486) abortions. Planned Parenthood operates 90% of all U.S. medical abortion clinics, according to AbortionDocs.org. Here’s a chart from STOPP.org:
By 2011, the latest figures available, Planned Parenthood was responsible for 31.6% of the U.S. abortion marketshare, surely higher today.
Were Planned Parenthood to go under now, the abortion industry would collapse.
I wrote last week about Planned Parenthood’s growing monopoly of that shrinking industry.
This has been intentional, a dual strategy by Planned Parenthood to increase the number of its abortion clinics while crushing the competition.
Planned Parenthood has been conducting its coup for years, if not decades. Quoting the Wall Street Journal from back in 2008:
“This is not the Planned Parenthood we all grew up with… they now have more of a business approach, much more aggressive,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, who runs abortion clinics in Texas and Maryland.
Ms. Hagstrom Miller competes with Planned Parenthood for abortion patients – and finds it deeply frustrating. She does not receive the government grants or tax-deductible donations that bolster Planned Parenthood, and says she can’t match the nonprofit’s budget for advertising or clinic upgrades. She has carved her own niche by touting her care as more holistic – and by charging $425 for a first-trimester surgery at her Austin clinic, compared with $475 at the local Planned Parenthood….
“They’re not unlike other big national chains,” Ms. Hagstrom Miller said. “They put local independent businesses in a tough situation.”
There is plenty of evidence Planned Parenthood is indeed trying to drive out the competition. Two recent examples:
- In Texas, where there is now a dearth of abortion clinics thanks to pro-life legislation, Planned Parenthood is building two new clinics in Dallas and San Antonio - where two of the state’s last three independent clinics already exist (if and when the law takes full effect). The other five that are anticipated to remain standing all belong to Planned Parenthood.
- In North Carolina, Planned Parenthood smelled blood and forced a shaky independent abortion clinic to close this year by announcing plans to build.
But there is a provocative flip side to this that plays right into pro-life hands: As Planned Parenthood grabs more of the declining abortion industry, and the industry becomes ever more dependent on Planned Parenthood for survival, the prospects of that industry’s collapse only increase.
Were Planned Parenthood to go under, the number of U.S. abortion clinics would be cut by almost half, and replacing them would be difficult due to today’s stricter clinic regulations and oversight, in conjunction with the decreased demand.
Also gone would be Planned Parenthood’s influence on elections and litigation.
“Remember that, in addition to becoming the primary abortionists, Planned Parenthood is who provides the lawyers and the political connections to keep abortion legal,” noted American Life League’s Jim Sedlak in an email. “If Planned Parenthood collapses, all the behind-the-scenes infrastructure goes with it.”
Interesting theory, but is it realistic to imagine that Planned Parenthood could crash?
Stay tuned for Part II.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I don’t see a crash yet. Just looking at their board members, a significant section of tony culture and political leaders are intertwined with them. In a sense, they are too big to fail. If CareNet or Heartbeat did a fraction of what Planned Parenthood gets away with every year, they’d be done. In practice, they are an arm of the national Democratic Party, and media conglomerates would fall on their swords for them before truly going Upton Sinclair on them. Abortion is so heinous, at some point you continue serving it because the cost of doing right, of reexamining what has been happening becomes too high for the moral cowards.
Things change though, and it’s easier to deal with one mega-group than many independent groups. I just think it will end with them fading into obscurity rather than one spectacular fall from grace. Goodness, they get away with murder, what does it matter if they abet sex predators and steal tax dollars when they serve their purpose so well? I guess their monopoly is a double-edged sword.
Chris, stay tuned for Part II… :)
Excellent article Jill. Sadly, Planned Parenthood still has a pretty good name in the public eye because they associate it with family planning and women’s health, so we must continue to educate people and expose Planned Parenthood’s abortion agenda and abuses.
And here is how to take down PP with one fatal punch: Take away their money.
On the first day of this Fall Campaign of 40 Days for Life, we saw the closing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fond du Lac, WI. They claim that cutting of state funding was the reason for closing this PP store and four others.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/planned-parenthood-to-close-fond-du-lac-clinic-b99295044z1-263847131.html
It’s interesting that Planned Parenthood is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging Texas’s requirement that abortion clinics meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers. Maybe they have an explanation for that, but it seems more than coincidental that they aren’t challenging a law that would give them a near monopoly in the state.
[…] Backdrop: “If Planned Parenthood collapses, the abortion industry collapses, Part I.” […]
I keep getting them mixed up. Is PP #1 or #2? /s
If PP collapses so does the entire industry…well thats what we are hoping for.
It will be interesting to see what develops.
The independent chop shops cannot afford to operate up to medical standards. PP survives because they get federal and state grants, charity grants, and lots of Medicaid reimbursements. Any cutting of funding is enough to close some satellite clinics (as we saw in Wisconsin).
The big moneys are federal grants and state Medicaid reimbursements. These are the funds that translate into PP’s powerful lobbying and election contributions. What will happen when PP can’t buy influence in Washington? Will Nancy Pelosi’s abortion ground still be sacred?
“What will happen when PP can’t buy influence in Washington? Will Nancy Pelosi’s abortion ground still be sacred?”
No, it won’t.
It is the political power that is attractive. Ted Kennedy was pro-life, as was Jesse Jackson.
There are many politicians who would be pro-life, at least weakly, if not for the problem of receiving campaign funds, or going against the prevailing public opinion of their voters.
This support is wide-spread but not deep.
Once the money is gone, the support is gone. This is why they have to gin up the rhetoric and find all kinda obscuring terms for abortion, and form a straw-man enemy of middle-ages, knuckle-dragging anti-intellectual oppressive Christians as the only opposition.
[…] other five that are anticipated to remain standing all belong to Planned Parenthood,” Stanek writes on her […]
[…] is the abortion industry’s new cash cow business model, as verified by the surge of Planned Parenthood’s chemical abortion business. A 2014 Guttmacher report indicated that […]