How many children would Planned Parenthood terminate to pay prez Cecile Richards for a year?

Answer: Over a thousand.

Last week we learned that Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, made over half a million dollars in the fiscal year that ended in June, 2013. This is a hike compared to years past. Her non-profit organization makes a killing –literally– on the backs of dead children and injured women. Planned Parenthood, very simply, is a killing business — but how much killing do they have to do to pay these exorbitant salaries?

Planned Parenthood’s profit margin on abortion is what helps to cover the organization’s fixed costs, including “executive compensation,” aka Cecile Richards’ lavish salary. Keith Riler, a financial analyst, explained for First Things how abortions contribute to things like Richards’ paycheck:

The contribution margin of each [abortion] procedure is the marginal profit per unit of sale and thus the amount each procedure contributes to the coverage of fixed costs (such as executive compensation) and to profits.

This means that abortion’s profit margin played a role in paying Richards last year. How many children would need to die if Richards’ salary were paid exclusively by abortion profits? Here’s the breakdown.

Planned Parenthood lays out an ambiguous answer to its abortion costs on its website, saying — on the same page — that the range is between $300-$1,700, and between $300-$950. Riler simplifies matters, using a $500-$900 range to explain how profitable abortion is. That means they make about $400-$600 per abortion, after their medical cost (as detailed by their annual report) is recouped.

Therefore, an average of $500/abortion goes towards expenses such as executive compensation, which include Cecile Richards’ salary of $523,616. Based on this modest estimate, the number of children who would have to be aborted by Planned Parenthood’s abortionists to pay their president for one year is staggering. It would take 1,047 abortions to pay Richards’ salary.  

 While the organization offers other “services” besides aborting children in the womb, abortion is the most lucrative “procedure” that Planned Parenthood has on the menu. Remember Planned Parenthood’s “Mammosham” back in 2011? Richards lied about Planned Parenthood offering mammograms, which yield an extremely low profit margin. It would take MANY more mammograms than abortions to pay her salary. Keith Riler contrasted profit from a mammogram procedure with that of an abortion (emphasis added):

Given a choice between 330,000 mammograms or 330,000 abortions, cancer screening will lose every time… Mammograms were invented over forty years ago and Planned Parenthood still doesn’t offer them because, in comparison, abortion is a gold mine… Mammograms are an unprofitable imaging modality, requiring a cross subsidy from technologies like CT, PET, and MRI. Likewise, Planned Parenthood mammograms would require a similar cross subsidy; requiring a reduction in abortion profits, executive compensation, or both. 

It seems unlikely that Planned Parenthood will be willingly reducing its abortion profits or executive compensation any time soon.