Discover the Truth About Defunding Planned Parenthood: Lesson 5

Without access to Planned Parenthood, won’t “back alley” abortions increase?

This is a commonly held misconception often cited in arguments favoring Planned Parenthood. There is no actual evidence to support this claim. In fact, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, former abortionist and co-founder of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), admitted that the statistics on illegal abortion were manipulated prior to the passage of Roe v. Wade, explaining, “We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure constantly fed to the media was 10,000.”

Statistics from the CDC in the year prior to Roe dispute the lie that thousands of women died from illegal abortion, shown in this table from their surveillance report on abortion.

Recent cases like that of Kermit Gosnell and the abortion-related deaths of Cree Erwin-Sheppard and Tonya Reaves (who both obtained their abortions from Planned Parenthood) suggest that the premise that legal abortion is safer than illegal abortion is incorrect.

Watch a former abortionist answer this question.

What alternatives to abortion do women have? How have the stigmas surrounding adoption, single parenting, having a child outside of marriage, and maintaining a career as a mother all changed since Roe v. Wade?