New report disputes claims that Planned Parenthood is 'irreplaceable' or 'lifesaving'

A new report released by an influential pro-life organization on Wednesday has disputed claims that Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the U.S., is neither "irreplaceable" nor "lifesaving."

Planned Parenthood, which received approximately $555 million in federal tax dollars in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2016, has made the claim that it is an "irreplaceable component of our country's healthcare system" that offers "lifesaving care."

A new report, however, noted that for most of its services at nearly 650 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide, the abortion organization only provides "a very tiny fraction" of the national annual incidence of those specific health services.

"For example, in 2015, Planned Parenthood provided 654,218 HIV tests, one of their highest-volume services. However, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 16% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 64, or about 45 million people, were tested that year for HIV," the report stated.

The figures reveal that Planned Parenthood only conducted 1.4 percent of HIV tests in the U.S. that year.

The comprehensive study was published by the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), an education arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, which is an organization that works to get pro-life women elected to Congress.

The report was authored by CLI President Charles A. Donovan and Vice President and Director of Data Analytics James Studnicki. The authors suggested that Planned Parenthood's public image as a "last resort" for people in many communities is inaccurate given the group's high concentration of their contraceptive clients in a handful of mostly liberal states with urban centers.

"The state of California alone provides 35.6% of all Planned Parenthood contraceptive clients, and that the majority (55.7%) of its contraceptive clients nationally come from only five states: California, New York, Texas, Washington, and Pennsylvania," Donovan and Studnicki noted.

"In fact, Planned Parenthood is most heavily invested in high-population areas which are rich in alternative providers," they continued.

The report noted that the group's facilities are mostly focused on contraceptive services, sexually transmitted infection testing, and abortions.

It further claimed that Planned Parenthood does not provide services that are not easily available from alternative providers. The group's highest volume service, STI testing, is provided by local public health departments, which outnumber Planned Parenthood clinics by a ratio of 4–1 nationally, according to the study.

The authors contended that Planned Parenthood remains as the dominant provider of induced abortions in the U.S.

The data has shown that between 2011 and 2016, Planned Parenthood had increased its service-to-unique-client ratios for contraceptive services by 2.1 percent, testing for sexually transmitted infections by 19 percent, and abortions by 25 percent. However, the group's other services have decreased significantly over the same five-year period.

While Planned Parenthood's service-to-client ratios for breast exams and pap test declined by 37 percent, the organization has "maintained contraception and STI testing as important support services for their major objective — abortion."

In the fiscal year of Planned Parenthood's report, the group noted that it has conducted 328,348 abortions, 3.4 percent of its total services. The authors, however, noted that abortions represent a significant portion of Planned Parenthood's income, with estimates ranging from 10 percent of its "with estimates ranging from 10 percent of total revenue to as much as one third of its clinic revenue from all sources."

"No service Planned Parenthood provides is irreplaceable," the authors wrote. "Ironically, the elimination of abortion services is the only action Planned Parenthood could take that could be legitimately considered as 'lifesaving,'" they concluded.