Fact check: What percentage of Planned Parenthood services are abortion-related?

1. Summary of the results

Based on the analyses provided, abortion services represent approximately 4.3% of all Planned Parenthood services. This calculation comes from data showing that Planned Parenthood performed 402,230 abortions out of 9,450,743 total services in 2022-23 ^[1]. The organization's services are predominantly focused on other healthcare areas, including:

• 5,132,330 STI testing and treatment services ^[1]
• 2,223,680 contraceptive services ^[1]
• 426,268 cancer screenings ^[1]

Regional data from Planned Parenthood South Texas shows that 7.5% of patients accessed abortion care from 2015-2019 ^[2], which aligns with the national percentage when considering that not all patients receive multiple services.

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

The original question lacks important contextual nuances that significantly affect interpretation:

Pro-life organizations like the Lozier Institute present a dramatically different perspective, arguing that 96.9% of women seeking pregnancy-related help at Planned Parenthood receive abortions rather than prenatal care, miscarriage care, or adoption assistance ^[3]. This organization also highlights that for every adoption referral, Planned Parenthood performed 187 abortions ^[3].

Anti-abortion advocacy groups benefit from emphasizing pregnancy-specific statistics rather than overall service percentages, as this narrative supports their position that Planned Parenthood primarily functions as an abortion provider rather than a comprehensive healthcare organization.

Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights advocates benefit from emphasizing the broader service statistics, as this supports their argument that they are primarily a healthcare provider offering essential services like STI testing, contraception, and cancer screenings ^[2].

The question also omits discussion of policy implications, as restrictive abortion policies have documented effects on health and socioeconomic outcomes ^[4].

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

The original question itself is relatively neutral, but the framing could lead to misleading interpretations depending on how the answer is used:

• Focusing solely on service percentages without acknowledging that pregnancy-related services represent a small subset of total services could minimize the significance of abortion access for those who need it
• The question doesn't distinguish between different types of services, treating a brief contraceptive consultation the same as a surgical procedure in terms of counting "services"
• Missing temporal context - the data spans different time periods, and abortion access has changed significantly due to recent legal developments

The analyses reveal that both pro-choice and pro-life organizations selectively present statistics that support their positions, with pro-life groups like the Lozier Institute emphasizing pregnancy-specific ratios ^[3] while Planned Parenthood emphasizes comprehensive healthcare services ^{[1] [2]}.