Pennsylvania Annual Abortion Stats Released Planned Parenthood Increases Abortions, Pro-Life Agencies Provide Real Choices for Women.(Brief Article)

Harrisburg, PA -- The state's Department of Health released the latest annual abortion statistics in January, and they showed that the total number of abortions in Pennsylvania increased in the year 2000 by 3.3%. Previous years had seen sharp decreases in abortions, leaving many people to ask, "Why has that trend apparently changed?"

There are several factors that may have contributed, but the largest single factor, and one we can't afford to ignore, was the increased activity of Planned Parenthood in our state.

Planned Parenthood opened an abortion facility in Bucks County, and the abortion number there then increased from 60 in 1999 to 685 in the year 2000. That 625-abortion increase in one county where Planned Parenthood expanded its work accounts for more than half of the total abortion increase for the entire state.

Planned Parenthood also operates abortion centers in Allegheny, Philadelphia, Chester, York, and Berks Counties. All of those counties except York saw an increase in abortions in 2000. The 61 counties where Planned Parenthood has no abortion facility saw a combined decrease of more than 200 abortions in the year 2000. Even two of the Philadelphia-area counties (Delaware and Montgomery) where Planned Parenthood has no abortion facility saw a decrease in abortions.

In fact, the total increase in abortions in the six counties where Planned Parenthood operates abortion facilities is 1,350, so the six counties where Planned Parenthood has the most influence more than account for the 1,138-abortion increase for the state as a whole.

A majority of the state's counties are still seeing the previous years' trend of a decreasing abortion rate.

The pro-life movement is continuing to do its job, and helping more women with crisis pregnancies than ever before. The state-funded program Project WIN helped nearly 11,000 women find life-affirming alternatives in 2000, and dozens of other privately funded agencies statewide helped thousands more through pregnancy, childbirth, and beginning to parent their babies. Were it not for such agencies, ...