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Margaret Sanger never advocated for or promoted abortion.


They've tried the "abortion is a small percent of our services" defense before, and it holds as much water now as it did then. As long as you're lumping in every single pregnancy test, STI test, and you administer as a service, it's no wonder you can make abortions performed seem insignificant by comparison.

But let's try another analysis using the report you linked.

Let's look at the services they provided as a percentage of all such services performed in the US, as best we can estimate it.

The report you linked says PP administered about 197,000 pap tests. NIH estimates about 55 million pap tests are done each year in the US. CDC says about 14 million in 2018. So PP accounts for somewhere between about 0.35% and 1.4% of all pap smears administered per year.

Vasectomies. PP performed 4,083 in 2023-24. 2023 data is hard to come by, but NIH reports about 500,000 vasectomies were performed in 2015. In the wake of Roe v. Wade, insurance company data indicates that number has climbed quite a bit. So it's reasonable to conclude that PP is providing a very low percentage of overall vasectomies in the United States.

Miscarriage care. Yale estimates about a million miscarriages occur in the US per year. PP meanwhile cares for 3,604 of them in 2023, so about 0.36%.

LEEP Procedures. 2023 data is again difficult to come by, but estimates as of 2014 are that half a million of them are performed in the US each year. PP meanwhile provided 1,341 of that number in 2023, so about 0.27%.

Now, abortion.

Guttmacher reports that in 2023 there were a total of 1,026,700 abortions. Planned Parenthood's 2023 numbers account for 392,715 of that, so PP performed about 38% of the country's abortions in 2023.

So they provide, as best we can estimate...
  • 1% of the country's vasectomies...
  • 0.4% of the country's miscarriage care...
  • 0.3% of the country's LEEP procedures...
  • ...and 38% of the country's abortions, and your argument is that abortion is not a major component of the organization?
Their dominance of the abortion market suggests otherwise.

I would be interested to see more detailed financial data to break down revenue by service. That is, to see what services are their real money-maker. I'd bet good money that most of it comes from abortions.
 
btthegreat said:
The employee didnt advocate. That's the point. She described a clinical procedure and the process of acquiring one. The only opinion my ex wife heard, was the one inside herself.
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Ah. When you said she "helped my wife decide not to have an abortion" I took that to mean she counseled your wife against having an abortion.
 

What happened to all the other services I listed? Reproductive counseling (males and females), free and subsidized birth control, including some implantations, pre-natal exams, fetal health exams, pre-natal vitamins, dietary advice, gynecological exams, cancer screenings, PAP smears, and where in your calculations are there distinctions between the abortions that are elective and medically necessary?
 
Lursa said:
Pretty sure ~90% of those going to PP have no idea who Sanger is. And so her association means nothing to them.....
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I wonder what they would think if they were informed who Sanger was. I wonder if it would give them pause when getting birth control from an organization whose founder advocated that birth control be used "to assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit."

 
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Please consider: I was responding to weaver. I chose services that PP listed on their report, and took a sample of them to compare the number of services provided by PP versus the total number of those services provided overall, annually.

Do you think any of PP's services have anything approaching the market dominance (ie, about 38% of the market) that their abortion service does? If so, I'd be interested to see evidence to support it.
 

You quoted my answer and then asked again. Why? I'm sure they dont care at all. Why would they, it was more than 100 yrs ago. I asked why they would...so where is your answer?

And here's what I've written many times before:


Can you answer those questions?
 

I dont know why that matters. Why would you expect one organization, PP, to have comparable metrics with all other org's metrics aggregated?

And...why does it matter, please explain?
 
Lursa said:
You quoted my answer and then asked again. Why? I'm sure they dont care at all.
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Shrug. I'm not.

Lursa said:
Why would they, it was more than 100 yrs ago.
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The civil war was longer than that ago, yet we're all still agonizing over civil war figures and their positions on slavery and racism.

Lursa said:
I asked why they would...so where is your answer?
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I alluded to it already. If I were seeking birth control from an organization whose founder expressly wanted birth control for the purpose of blocking the unfit from the gene pool, I might conclude that the organization doesn't have my best interests at heart, or that its founder at least certainly didn't.


No. And I don't advocate their erasure.

Lursa said:
I dont know why that matters. Why would you expect one organization, PP, to have comparable metrics with all other org's metrics aggregated?

And...why does it matter, please explain?
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Because it is a dubious proposition to say that abortion is not a major part of planned parenthood when it is the leading provider of abortion in the US and not (apparently) of any of the other services that keep getting cited.

This line of debate is confusing me. The OP sought to distance Sanger from abortion (which I interpreted as trying to distance her from Planned Parenthood). But now we're trying to distance Planned Parenthood from abortion. What exactly is the point here? Why should pro-choicers want to distance anyone or anything from abortion?
 
Atreus21 said:
Shrug. I'm not.
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You're not what?

Atreus21 said:
The civil war was longer than that ago, yet we're all still agonizing over civil war figures and their positions on slavery and racism.
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We are? Where? You are the one proposing that Sanger matters to PP patrons. So...back that up.


This is all unfounded pre-supposition on your part. Yes or no? What have you got to support it?

LOL you are trying to say that PP has the lions' share of abortion/reproductive services businesses AND trying to say that Sanger's 100 yr old association with it is making a difference and driving people away from it?

What? LOL Please explain...

Atreus21 said:
No. And I don't advocate their erasure.
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Why not? According to you, we should all still be hating on Jefferson and all that he produced. So what distinction are you making between him and Sanger?

Atreus21 said:
Because it is a dubious proposition to say that abortion is not a major part of planned parenthood when it is the leading provider of abortion in the US and not (apparently) of any of the other services that keep getting cited.
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Except for the $$ and the reports showing abortion in relation to its other services. And I didnt see you addressing any of the other many things that I listed...it's cumulative...PP provides a range of services.


I'm not interested in distancing PP from abortion...only being accurate on its role. What exactly IS the point here? PP is often located in areas with lower income families. Women with lower incomes tend to need abortions due to financial reasons...what's the problem?

I see no need to distance abortion from anything...who says it's wrong? Dobbs made it clear, it enabled the states to allow women/their doctors to have abortions with no due process. And most do...as a matter of fact, they all do except for handful.
 
I have said before that PP made a particular effort to separate its abortion services from all other services financially. It's virtually as if they are separate NGOs. And you can specify when you make a donation whether you want this to go toward only other services, only abortion services, or don't care which.

I'm not saying PP doesn't provide a considerable percentage of abortions. So what?

Before the late sixties when the government asked PP to offer certain services, it was nothing but a family planning service that provided help in family planning, provision of contraception, and pregnancy tests. It was very successful and loved as an NGO. When they added other services, it wasn't because others didn't offer them. It was because PP had offices all over the place, including in rural areas where there was virtually no health care at all. That's why PP was asked to provide them if they got fundiing to do so. They agreed because they were nice.

No abortion services were offered at PP until the later seventies, when many doctors didn't want to have the reputation of offering them. The backlash caused PP to separate its finances in the way noted above.

The services other than family planning and provision of contraception and pregnancy tests, etc., were all additions to the existing PPs in the late 1960s and 1970s. They didn't do tests for STDs, etc., before the government asked them to in the sixties, and they didn't do abortions until later in the 1970s.

And PP is not a for-profit organization. It's an NGO. The purpose of PP isn't to make money, but to provide a social service to others.
 
PP is the leading provider of family planning services and always was. It was the only provider of contraception for a long time, and it was more important for family planning and contraception for huge numbers of people who did not live in urban areas, because it located offices in places poorly served by the health industry, where the nearest doctor was far away. That's why it became a very loved organization.

I find it interesting that you're such an extreme opponent of blocking genetic unfitness. There are certain diseases that are genetically heritable, like Huntington's, that would make a normal woman decide not to have kids, because passing on Huntington's would be a terribly mean thing to do to a future child. She alone should be able to decide whether it's in her best interest to have a child to whom she would pass that on or not to reproduce it in the best interest of future kids in general.
 

Your method of analysis showing the % of all abortions in the US performed by PP was originally presented by the Charlotte Lozier Institute an anti-abortion organization that often quotes Lila Rose of Live Action and visa versa. It's a creative but dishonest way trying to leave the impression that 38% of PP services are abortion therefore they make a lot of money doing abortions.
Abortion is 4% of the services PP provides in spite of what Lila Rose and Lozier say.
About 45% of their revenue comes from federal government contracts and grants to serve the reproductive services to Medicaid women. The government is prevented by the Hatch Act from paying for abortions, so no abortions were paid for in the 45% of revenue coming from the government
About 30% of their revenue comes from private gifts contributions and bequests.
That accounts for 75% of their revenue ................. none of it from abortions. At the max. there is only 25% of their revenue that comes from abortion.

Unfortunately for those of you that lie about PP they are scrutinized, looked at, required to report, explain, justify more than any other non-profit and their reports of what they do and where their revenue comes from is accurate.
 

Charlotte Lozier Institute is a religiously-funded org. That tells us a lot about their reliability...poor.
 
weaver2 said:
This thread is not a poll. It is not a question to be discussed. It is a statement of fact posted to refute and expose the anti-abortion lie that Margaret Sanger promoted abortion.
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It matters not what Sanger believed. It's a mere guilt-by-association fallacy.
 
Blacks certainly believe Sanger wanted them dead

EFFECTS OF ABORTION ON THE BLACK COMMUNITY
black women obtain abortions.Accordingly, black women are 5 timesmore likely to have an abortion than whitewomen. A recent study released byProtecting Black Life, an outreach of LifeIssues Institute concluded that, “79% ofPlanned Parenthood’s surgical abortionfacilities are strategically located withinwalking distance of African and/orHispanic communities.”
AND
: “Since the number of current living blacks(in the U.S.) is 31 million, the missing 10 million representsan enormous loss for, without abortion, America’s blackcommunity would now number 41 million persons. It wouldbe 35 percent larger than it is currently. Abortion has sweptthrough the black community cutting down every fourthmember.”
So MLK's niece says it plainly
…How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate…If the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live. Our mothers must choose life.
 
quip said:
It matters not what Sanger believed. It's a mere guilt-by-association fallacy.
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Well it can't be that if PP had her name for decades and then distanced themselves.

It only matters what she believed because PP is directly the modern association she founded.
 
me your eternal buddy said:
Well it can't be that if PP had her name for decades and then distanced themselves.

It only matters what she believed because PP is directly the modern association she founded.
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This always cracks me up, such limited thinking but not original...we see it alot.

I guess we should also dump the USA and the Constitution because founding fathers own slaves? Like Thomas Jefferson, slave owner and rapist.

In your new "life" where every you go...try for something original. And that makes sense.
 
When they spoke of race in the 19****in20s they spoke of the human race? XD. Sorry thats too stupid for me to ignore.
 
Gordy327 said:
No, it was a popular social concept back then. The Nazis took it to another level.
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The nazis took eugenics it to its most logical conclusion.
 
Thats not the same as advocating for state control of the ecenomy.
 
Only if one listens to liars and tsarists.
 
What we have here is a simple genetic fallacy on full display.
 
me your eternal buddy said:
Well it can't be that if PP had her name for decades and then distanced themselves.

It only matters what she believed because PP is directly the modern association she founded.
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You just completed a 360° 'guilt-by-association' pirouette.

I see you're banned and suspended. Catch you later...maybe.
 
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