Planned ‘Murderhood’ and the Myth of the 3%

When it comes to telling the truth, Planned Parenthood (PP) does not have a very good track record.

First, they boasted about the mammograms they provide for patients.  As it turns out, there’s not one mammogram offered in any of the PP facilities.  No – not one!

Then they boasted about their prenatal care services.  PP President Cecil Richards said in 2011, “Prenatal care – these are the kinds of services that folks depend on Planned Parenthood for.”  But an undercover video by Lila Rose of Live Action shows that that’s a myth … as they demonstrate in recorded call after call to PP facilities, seeking prenatal care, only to be told by PP representatives that they don’t provide it.

Now here’s the claim most often made … which is not new … that only 3% of their services involve abortion.  PP President Richards repeated this statement before Congress just recently.  Is that true? … or is it ‘common core math’ to arrive at an absurd conclusion?

Even liberals know that’s misleading.  NPR said on (8/5/15) that critics note the 3% claim “doesn’t explain how much of Planned Parenthood’s revenue comes from abortion.” Rachel Larimore of Slate magazine (5/7/13) declared the 3% claim is “the most meaningless abortion statistic ever.”  The Washington Post (8/12/15) even debunked the statistic and gave the claim 3-Pinocchios.

Recently, Eric Scheidler, the Executive Director of the Pro-Life Action League, told Dr. Jerry Newcombe on his radio show to have him explain how they derive the 3% figure … especially in light of the fact that PP does over 30% of the abortions in the USA.  Eric said, “‘The three percent myth,’ we call it, is totally inaccurate … abortion is far more significant at Planned Parenthood than that would suggest.”  He went on to explain that they have a list of services they’ll provide the woman in her process of getting an abortion and count each service as a separate service … even though it is all a part of the process of her abortion.  They’ll check off these services, counting each one as a service unto itself: counseling; ultrasound – so they’ll know how old the child in the womb is, charging more for older children; contraceptives; possibly pain medication, etc.  Eric noted, “Every single one of those things is going to be counted as a separate service.  So even when a woman goes to Planned Parenthood specifically to get an abortion that day, Planned Parenthood will be saying that the abortion is one out of five or six or ten different services that they provided.  So they could say it was only 10 percent of what she came for.  That woman knows she went there for an abortion that day.  That’s why she went there, and that’s what she’s going to remember for the rest of her life.”

Eric uses an analogy to explain the statistic: “It’s as if a company, like a car dealership, were to say that when you go there for a car, you also get a cup of coffee and a donut and maybe you have something from the vending machine – say a package of M&M’s, and there’s 25 M&M’s in the package.  Add up all those little items, and they’re not really a car dealership at all, are they?  They’re in fact a candy company because most of what they sell are individual M&M’s, not individual Cadillacs.  It’s that kind of accounting that leads them to claim that abortion is only three percent of the services they provide.”

Eric concluded, “They continually, consistently try to minimize their role in abortion, when in fact they are the nation’s largest abortion provider.”

Rich Lowry offered similar analogies in National Review (8/4/15): “Such cracked reasoning could be used to obscure the purpose of any organization.  The sponsors of the New York City Marathon could count each small cup of water they hand out (some 2-million cups, compared with 45,000-runners) and say they are mainly in the hydration business.  Or Major League Baseball teams could say that they sell about 20-million hot dogs and play 2,430-games in a season, so baseball is only .012 percent of what they do.”

Listen: Abortion is much more important to PP than a mere 3% of what they are all about. I suppose if they have no qualms about killing a viable baby, then why should they have any qualms about lying?

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel