New analysis confirms American women do not need Planned Parenthood for health care

New research states that Planned Parenthood is not an irreplaceable provider of health care for Americans, and that there are other options for Americans searching for legitimate health care providers.

Key Takeaways:

• Congress voted to strip abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, of Medicaid funding for one year.

• Abortion advocates claim this will deprive millions of women of legitimate health care.

• An analysis from the Charlotte Lozier Institute confirms that women will not lose access to health care if they can't go to Planned Parenthood.

The Background:

The Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) released a new analysis debunking the idea that without Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, women will not be able to access health care.

Recently, the Trump administration passed the "Big Beautiful Bill," which included partially defunding Planned Parenthood. It has since spawned court battles, as Planned Parenthood sued to block the bill from taking effect. Most recently, an appeals court ruled that the government can defund the abortion chain while the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.

Abortion advocates have lashed out and claimed that defunding Planned Parenthood does not only affect abortion, but deprives women of access to legitimate health care, too. Planned Parenthood has claimed that Medicaid recipients, specifically, would not be able to find providers offering low- or no-cost health care.

The Details:

The CLI analysis proved this to be false. The group's press release summed up their findings with the following key facts:

Federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, and doctor’s offices provide comprehensive health care Planned Parenthood doesn’t.

Pregnancy resource centers help by offering free assistance, including ultrasounds, STI tests, material resources and counseling.

States like Iowa, Kansas, and Texas that have previously defunded Planned Parenthood from state family planning programs show that Planned Parenthood can be replaced.

“For years, Planned Parenthood received hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding despite abhorrent stories of poor care and its focus on abortion," Tessa Cox, senior research associate at CLI and author of the paper, said in the press release. "Now, with tax dollars being redirected at the state and federal levels, abortion advocates insist that Planned Parenthood is irreplaceable. Women deserve to know they have health care options that extend beyond a group dedicated to ending unborn life.”

In the analysis, numerous alternatives were suggested, including Rural Health Clinics (RHIs) and Federally Qualified Health Clinics (FQHCs), as well as private doctor's offices. The abortion industry claims they will be overwhelmed by the number of former Planned Parenthood patients, which the CLI analysis debunked. As Medicaid recipients are already being served in large numbers at private offices, there is little-to-no reason to believe these women will not be able to find a health care provider beyond Planned Parenthood.

Yet in reality, Planned Parenthood doesn't even serve most Medicaid recipients — not even for family planning. "According to an analysis of Medicaid data by the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2021, Planned Parenthood served just 11% of Medicaid family planning clients, a category which includes not just contraception but STI services, pap smears, breast exams, and other related health care such as pregnancy testing," CLI noted. In over half of the states, Planned Parenthood serves less than 5% of Medicaid recipients.

"When Planned Parenthood has been defunded at the state level, state programs have adapted, and women have gone elsewhere for care," CLI concluded, pointing out, "Planned Parenthood is the dominant abortion chain in the United States, responsible for more than 400,000 abortions a year."

Reality Check:

Far from being a health care provider upon which countless Americans rely, Planned Parenthood only serves a small number of people, and their main business is abortion — not health care.

Planned Parenthood only serves an estimated 2% of American women of reproductive age, and according to its own annual reports, the few health care services it provides have plummeted, while abortions have increased steadily.

Over the years, the health care services Planned Parenthood pretends to provide have all fallen. Cancer screenings have fallen by 79%, breast cancer screenings over 80%, Pap tests over 83%, prenatal care 80%, and STI treatments 19%. And yet, all the while, abortions have increased by 100% in the past 25 years.

So if the very few women who do get health care from Planned Parenthood no longer can, where can they go?

Planned Parenthood is far outnumbered by FQHCs and other non-profit health clinics. In 2023, there were 15,000 FQHC location sites, as opposed to just 600 Planned Parenthood facilities. FQHCs serve significantly more people, providing cancer screenings, prenatal care, and more.

So there is no issue as to where low-income patients will go without Planned Parenthood.

The Bottom Line:

Women do not need Planned Parenthood for health care, and this desperate ploy to masquerade as a legitimate health care provider is nothing more than propaganda, meant to keep taxpayer dollars flowing.