A recent piece in The Guardian accuses Planned Parenthood of being more concerned with power and profit than anything else. Surprisingly, the piece is not written by a pro-lifer, but by a former employee of the United States’ top abortion business.
Pulling back the curtain on her former employer of five years, Planned Parenthood in the Texas Capital Region, author Jessa Crispin accuses Planned Parenthood of being “more concerned with hobnobbing with the powerful” than caring for its clients. Her piece, titled, “The pro-choice movement is in tatters. Planned Parenthood is part of the problem,” paints Planned Parenthood as a business which runs roughshod over its competitors in the industry. And Crispin has a point; every time an independent abortion facility closes, Planned Parenthood snatches up a larger portion of the abortion market share. It currently commits 40% of the nation’s abortions.
Crispin seems to have caught on to the fact that the abortion industry might just be driven more by profit than benevolence. She believes Planned Parenthood and its industry cohorts overcharge clients for abortion, especially the abortion pill:
Planned Parenthood and other clinics charge $400–$600 (the price varies from region to region and clinic to clinic) for the combination of drugs that induce a medication abortion, despite the fact that the medication only costs about $90 for the clinics. That’s the same amount charged for the surgical procedure – and that’s if you want to experience potential white-knuckling pain during an already potentially emotionally traumatic procedure; if you want pain relief it will cost you much more.
Abortion is a moneymaker for Planned Parenthood. In 2017, according to a Live Action News analysis, the corporation’s estimated revenue from the abortion pill was $62 million, while its overall estimated abortion revenue reached nearly $200 million. That $200 million equated to more than half (52%) of Planned Parenthood’s non-government health services revenue.
In 2018, Planned Parenthood ended the lives of 345,672 preborn children in abortion. Because the latest statistics show that 40% of all abortions are now done by pill, Live Action News estimates that based on this statistic and on the typical charge for the abortion pill (138,269 abortions x $600), Planned Parenthood potentially amassed nearly $83 million from abortion pill sales in 2018. Since 2000, the corporation has committed over 5.6 million abortions while accruing over $1.5 billion in excess revenue.
Planned Parenthood 2018 abortion numbers, excess revenue and taxpayer dollars
READ: As employees speak out, Planned Parenthood’s mask begins to crack
But while Planned Parenthood raked in millions in excess revenue, staffers at various affiliates claim the corporation failed to pay them a decent wage and unnecessarily furloughed employees.
The cracks are beginning to show. Multiple Planned Parenthood employees have jumped ship due to long-held dissatisfaction with the corporation. Those who remain have chosen to unionize, and some have exposed the corporation’s abuses, low wages, and affiliates’ failure to offer paid medical leave. Employees have also filed whistleblower lawsuits and publicly revealed how the corporation discriminates against pregnant employees.
Crispin says the corporation in general is more concerned with its own image than with “providing care”:
Planned Parenthood seems more concerned with hobnobbing with the powerful, paying the CEOs of its regional chapters salaries in the mid-six figures, making symbolic gestures and coming up with a catchy slogan to sell on T-shirts than with providing care for the people who need their services.
In her op-ed, Crispin describes her former employer not as a health care organization but as a “political leader” which “spends its time talking about ‘protecting Roe’.” This sort of allegation is not new. Former president Cecile Richards said it was her goal to make the corporation into the largest ever “kick butt political organization” – and as a result, the corporation has made many political alliances that benefit its bottom line. Year after year, Planned Parenthood’s clients and legitimate health care services decrease while abortions and government funding increase.
Planned Parenthood was recently exposed further by its employees with accusations of abuse, mismanagement, racism, and retaliation by leadership – overall, a “toxic culture” at the corporation funded by half a billion annually in taxpayer dollars. Despite a change in leadership, the abortion-focused political organization cannot escape its numerous scandals, abuses, fraud, covering up for child sexual predators, and participation in the trafficking of aborted baby body parts.
If this is what leadership looks like in the pro-abortion movement, Crispin and her fellow abortion supporters are beginning to grow tired of it. She writes, “If Planned Parenthood is one of the leaders, if not the leader, of the pro-choice movement, perhaps it needs to take some responsibility for the movement being in a shambles.”
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