Now that Congress is looking at a bill that would prohibit abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, we can expect that abortion profiteer Planned Parenthood and its allies will begin the push to disseminate a lot of misinformation.
It is important to note, first and foremost, that despite the often-repeated lie that abortions after 20 weeks are only committed for reasons’ of women’s “health,” reasons, Planned Parenthood actually considers all abortions legitimate, for any reason whatsoever, calling every abortion (including late-term ones) “medically necessary.”
But if late-term abortions are truly only done for health reasons, why is there no mention of this on Planned Parenthood’s own website when listing abortion services up to 24 weeks?
Planned Parenthood abortion after 20 weeks
Planned Parenthood abortion 24 weeks
Several Planned Parenthood facilities in California commit abortions up to 24 weeks, the legal point of viability. One undercover video features a Planned Parenthood staffer admitting as much. In the video below, Planned Parenthood social worker Randi Coun tells a woman seeking a sex-selection abortion, “I can tell you that here at Planned Parenthood we believe that it’s not up to us to decide what is a good or a bad reason for somebody to decide to terminate a pregnancy.”
This confirms information unearthed in a court case from Alaska, in which Planned Parenthood abortionist Eric Latzman testified:
[…] an abortion is medically indicated if it will ameliorate a condition harmful to the physical or psychological health of the patient in the professional judgment of the treating physician…
He has never concluded that an abortion is other than medically indicated when a woman wishes to terminate her pregnancy.
A second Planned Parenthood abortionist, Dr. Jan Whitefield, has “never found that an abortion is other than medically indicated,” according to the court document:
His definition of medically indicated is a practical one: if a patient has a problem and an abortion will help resolve the problem, the abortion is medically indicated.
Contrary to what the public is led to believe, it is clear from previous Live Action News reports that late-term abortions are not being performed solely for health reasons. And, in several states, including New Mexico, taxpayers are funding late-term abortions (after the 20th week) done for any reason the woman desires.
READ: Former abortionist: Abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of the mother
While there are prohibitions on later-term abortion in some states, in others, a fully-developed, viable child can be legally aborted right up until birth. In 2013, Live Action’s undercover cameras exposed the chilling admissions of late-term abortionists committing third trimester abortions and partial-birth abortions. Although these abortionists confess to the humanity of often viable, fully developed children, they inflict inhuman and cruel abortion procedures upon them:
20 week old preborn baby
The actual number of late-term abortions committed at or after 20 weeks is unknown because there are no federal requirements to report abortion numbers, nor the gestational ages of babies that are killed. There is also no requirement that abortion providers report the reasons for those procedures.
Abortion statistics published by the Centers for Disease Control are provided to the CDC voluntarily.
The Guttmacher Institute, a former “special affiliate” and “research arm” of Planned Parenthood, gathers its abortion numbers from surveys it sends to abortion facilities; if Guttmacher fails to get a response, it may estimate numbers.
So when the abortion lobby, including Planned Parenthood, starts ratcheting up its talking points that late-term abortions are “rare” and only done for “health” reasons, keep this in mind.
In 2013, according to the CDC, only 47 reporting areas sent abortion data to the CDC, excluding five (California, Florida, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Wyoming) that either did not report, did not report by age, or did not meet reporting standards. Because reporting is not mandatory, a complete number of abortions performed in the District of Columbia and New Jersey could not be obtained. According to those 2013 figures, only 40 areas reported the gestational age at the time of the abortion.
The government agency claims that 7.1 percent of gestational age abortions reported to them were between 14 and 20 weeks and 1.3 percent were greater than 21 weeks. Let’s break this down in actual numbers:
- less than 8 weeks: 296,781
- 9-13 weeks: 115,268
- 14-15 weeks: 15,188
- 16-17 weeks: 8,484
- 18-20 weeks: 8,150
- 21 and greater: 5,770
This means that more than 13,000 babies were killed by abortion after the 18th week of pregnancy, in just ONE year! Again, keep in mind that several states, which have late-term abortion facilities, did not report their numbers. These figures only represented 449,641 out of the 664,435 actually reported to the CDC in 2013.
In 2013, Guttmacher published a report, claiming to detail the reasons women seek abortions after 20 weeks. In that study, authors Diana Green Foster and Katrina Kimport “estimated” that 15,000 abortions occurred annually after 20 weeks, writing, “Given an estimated 1.21 million abortions in the United States annually, more than 15,000 likely take place after 20 weeks. It is these procedures that have captured legislative attention.”
It might interest our readers to know that Katrina Kimport and Diana Greene Foster are among the faculty and staff of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), a group which publishes workbooks on abortion training — which they call an “all-inclusive curriculum with tools to train new abortion providers.”
Foster also sits on the board of the Later Abortion Initiative (LAI), a group with the mission of (among other things) “increas[ing] the number of sites where later abortion is available” and “expand[ing] the number of physicians who can perform later abortion, especially at 20 weeks’ gestation and beyond.” In addition, the organization’s mission also includes working with “communications, messaging and public relations experts to build support for later abortion and fight restrictions on later abortion at the state level.” Foster has been applauded by the abortion advocacy group, NARAL.
20 week old unborn child – when many states still allow abortion
Planned Parenthood publicly presents no restrictions on late-term abortions, claiming online that “Nearly 99 percent of abortions occur before 21 weeks.” Of course, Planned Parenthood fails to note that these statistics incomplete at best, as I’ve already pointed out. The abortion corporation charges nearly $1500.00 to end the life of a preborn child between 14 and 20 weeks, according to its website.
Keep in mind that Planned Parenthood has also been caught on undercover video by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) bargaining over prices for the body parts of aborted children, including those killed in gruesome late-term abortions.
The media has conveniently stopped mentioning the videos, because many members of the media serve as mouthpieces for Planned Parenthood’s propaganda. And Planned Parenthood continues to use its friends in the media to spread lies about how “rare” late-term abortions supposedly are.
Abortions after 20 weeks (image credit Guttmacher)
In January of 2017, Guttmacher published abortion statistics showing that 926,200 abortions were reported to them in 2014. And although abortions after 20 weeks have been a legislative issue for years, Guttmacher did not break these numbers down by specific gestation.
Instead, the organization published a graph showing that 3.8 percent of abortions reported to them were done between 16 to 20 weeks of pregnancy, while 1.3 percent were above 21 weeks.
This translates into actual babies killed as follows:
- 16-20 weeks: approximately 35,195
- 21 weeks and greater: approximately 12,040
We may never know how many of the 35K were performed at 20 weeks.
At 20 weeks, a preborn child has developed all of his organs and systems, and there is indication that the child can feel pain. Studies have shown that premature babies, depending on the treatment administered by the hospital, can survive outside the womb as early as 22 weeks.
Late-term abortions do not always fulfill the intended consequence of killing the baby. In fact, some abortion victims have been born alive. In 2015 alone, documents from three states indicate that ten babies may have been born alive after abortions.
Other babies have been left to die after abortion attempts.
In 2013, during testimony before the Florida House, Planned Parenthood lobbyist Alisa Lapolt Snow was asked, “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”
Her answer shocked the nation: “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.”
That statement sums up Planned Parenthood’s philosophy on late-term abortions.
