Recently, The New Yorker published a piece defending Planned Parenthood and the services they provide, arguing that any move to defund or eliminate the nonprofit would result in “more abortions.” It claims that, thanks to Planned Parenthood, the number of pregnant teenagers (aged 15-19) having abortions has declined significantly, dropping from 62 out every 1,000 females, to 27 out of every 1,000 in 2013.

Plenty of abortions are still being performed today, however. An estimated 3,500 babies are believed to be killed in the U.S. each day. This number is likely far higher since some states, such as California, are not required to report the number of abortions they perform.⁽¹⁾

A decrease in the number of abortions since the 90s still doesn’t explain how ending Planned Parenthood would result in more abortions. Rather, one could strongly argue that women would be forced to find an alternative, such as adoption, or be more careful with their sexual activity in the first place, if they knew abortion wasn’t an option for dealing with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy.

Still, writing for The New Yorker, Michael Specter insists that without abortion, society would be bogged down paying tens of billions of dollars for teenage mothers who are without the financial means to support themselves and their child, resulting in more dependence on social programs that would be placed on taxpayers’ shoulders.

But the truth is, no one can predict the outcome of the lives of pregnant teens. As far as we know, both they and their babies could go on to have successful, meaningful lives, contributing greatly to society. There’s a good chance mothers will develop unbreakable bonds with their would-have-been-aborted children, unable to imagine their lives without them.

Another strike against Specter’s argument is that the left has made it crystal clear they are much more concerned with killing babies than they are with the welfare of pregnant teens. Though Specter argues Planned Parenthood is vital in educating young boys and girls about sex, and helping them avoid unwanted pregnancies altogether, the opposite has been revealed.

We’ve heard countless stories about Planned Parenthood technicians pressuring women into getting abortions, which some believe is a calculated move for the nonprofit to justify the half a billion dollars they receive annually – a large portion of which is allocated to abortions.⁽²⁾

Planned Parenthood has also been accused of pressuring women to have abortions in order to generate profits on the sale of aborted fetus parts, which was revealed to be a big business for the nonprofit when the Center for Medical Progress exposed the trafficking last year.⁽³⁾

At a Silent No More event for women who regret their abortions, a woman named Nancy shared her story:

“I was second-guessing my decision to have the abortion.” Nancy says. “And as I was filling out the paperwork, I saw a permission slip that dealt with the disposal of the “products of conception.”

After reading the permission slip, Nancy realized that the form gave Planned Parenthood permission to donate her fetus for scientific research, and she didn’t feel comfortable signing the form. She says that the nurse must have sensed her uneasiness about signing it, because she recalled that the nurse “asked me if I was an organ donor, and I told her that I was;” Nancy said, “she told me that this (the fetal tissue donation) was of a similar value.”

I said I didn’t want to sign it (the fetal tissue donation consent form) and they said I had to or I couldn’t have the abortion. I didn’t want my baby to be used for scientific research and I was told, “Don’t worry, it’s not a baby.” I told her I had two daughters already and I knew what a baby was. She said, “We don’t think it’s a baby.”

Click here to the read the rest of her story.

Why can’t we have sexual education and personal, reproductive responsibility without funding abortions? Why is it that the political left believes sexual education must be accompanied by abortion? What women need are more options, and less pressure to abort their babies, a decision many, many women spend the rest of their lives regretting.

Sources used:

(1) LifeNews.com

(2) SilentNoMoreAwareness.org

(3) SilentNoMoreAwareness.org

(4) LifeNews.com

(5) NewYorker.com