Planned Parenthood. Some math observations.
Updated July 2018 for new numbers. Scroll to bottom.
If you don't have a little bit of a grasp on strange statistical anomalies, and picking out a different story from Planned Parenthood's own figures than they might intend, you won't find this interesting.
If you might think: "Gee, why would they present the numbers like they do?" then read on.
This sort of analyzation is useful for all statistics. As the saying goes: there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
So, let's compute.
All numbers are from PP's own material in the 2013-2014 Annual Report:
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/6714/1996/2641/2013-2014_Annual_Report_FINAL_WEB_VERSION.pdf
Planned Parenthood's own 2013-2014 numbers say 3% (actually 3.09 so I'd round that to 3.1) of their *services* are abortions. Which is true.
But if you divide number of abortions by number of PATIENTS, then it's 12.1% So they're off by a factor of 4 if you look at it that way.
Yes this has been noticed and reported on elsewhere.
Planned Parenthood likes to say 3%, but they really should say 12% since we're talking about people here, and not services.
Read on though because it's even higher than 12%. They left out a potentially big detail.
And I couldn't find that number ANYWHERE.
They count things like UTIs and referrals as services, so one patient could have several services performed along with their abortion.
Like a pregnancy test. So a pregnancy test and an abortion doubles the number of services without changing the number of patients.
Convenient if you are trying to downplay abortion rates.
So out of every 8 people in the waiting room, one is there for an abortion.
If you like, they abort the entire city of Santa Ana, CA every year.
But here's something I haven't seen mentioned in as many places: We didn't take out the services performed for men.
They don't have abortions of course.
They get treated for UTIs, STDs, etc. All this: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/men
And the number of male patients doubled between 2003 and 2013. How many is that? Don't know.
I could not find out how many patients were men, or how many were women. From the listing of all the men's services, you'd think it might be a lot but who knows. Maybe not even Planned Parenthood.
Other notable numbers: Pap smears were done only SLIGHTLY more than abortions. It's almost one for one.
1.2 Pap smears for every abortion. I would have thought if we're emphasizing women's health, that number would be a lot higher.
Breast exams? About 1.5 for every abortion.
Pregnancy tests: for every woman who had one done, 1 in 3 got an abortion. There's also no figures on how many were positive vs negative. So that 33% figure could be even higher.
Prenatal services: 17.5 abortions for every prenatal service. So care for the unborn baby seems underemphasized.
Another interesting number: Vasectomies numbered 4166. Women sterilizations number only 822.
So men are 5x as likely to get sterilized at PP as women.
In summary, there is no way to tell the true rate of abortions (i.e. what percentage of women are there for abortions) because you can't take the men's services out of the total number of services.
And also: if you're doing 327,000 abortions which is 150% of the population of Shreveport, La (third largest city in Louisiana) then maybe the vasectomy/sterilization options need to be discussed more.
1 vasectomy for every 75 abortions seems low.
At the very least, I find this interesting and my 'spin' detector reading is elevated.
Update for 2016-2017 Annual Report
You can check the numbers here: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/facts-figures/annual-report
About the same.
Practically no one gets a vasectomy or a form of sterilization. Just over 1 in 8 patients gets an abortion. For every 3 pregnancy tests done, there's one abortion. For every TWO Breast exams/Pap smear/HPV vaccination (combined total), there's one abortion.
Issues of note with this report:
Still no breakdown of men vs. women, so you can't see what percentage of women patients get an abortion. Close to 10 times as many men get sterilized here vs. women. Yes, I know it's an easier procedure.
If you don't have a little bit of a grasp on strange statistical anomalies, and picking out a different story from Planned Parenthood's own figures than they might intend, you won't find this interesting.
If you might think: "Gee, why would they present the numbers like they do?" then read on.
This sort of analyzation is useful for all statistics. As the saying goes: there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
So, let's compute.
All numbers are from PP's own material in the 2013-2014 Annual Report:
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/6714/1996/2641/2013-2014_Annual_Report_FINAL_WEB_VERSION.pdf
Planned Parenthood's own 2013-2014 numbers say 3% (actually 3.09 so I'd round that to 3.1) of their *services* are abortions. Which is true.
But if you divide number of abortions by number of PATIENTS, then it's 12.1% So they're off by a factor of 4 if you look at it that way.
Yes this has been noticed and reported on elsewhere.
Planned Parenthood likes to say 3%, but they really should say 12% since we're talking about people here, and not services.
Read on though because it's even higher than 12%. They left out a potentially big detail.
And I couldn't find that number ANYWHERE.
They count things like UTIs and referrals as services, so one patient could have several services performed along with their abortion.
Like a pregnancy test. So a pregnancy test and an abortion doubles the number of services without changing the number of patients.
Convenient if you are trying to downplay abortion rates.
So out of every 8 people in the waiting room, one is there for an abortion.
If you like, they abort the entire city of Santa Ana, CA every year.
But here's something I haven't seen mentioned in as many places: We didn't take out the services performed for men.
They don't have abortions of course.
They get treated for UTIs, STDs, etc. All this: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/men
And the number of male patients doubled between 2003 and 2013. How many is that? Don't know.
I could not find out how many patients were men, or how many were women. From the listing of all the men's services, you'd think it might be a lot but who knows. Maybe not even Planned Parenthood.
Other notable numbers: Pap smears were done only SLIGHTLY more than abortions. It's almost one for one.
1.2 Pap smears for every abortion. I would have thought if we're emphasizing women's health, that number would be a lot higher.
Breast exams? About 1.5 for every abortion.
Pregnancy tests: for every woman who had one done, 1 in 3 got an abortion. There's also no figures on how many were positive vs negative. So that 33% figure could be even higher.
Prenatal services: 17.5 abortions for every prenatal service. So care for the unborn baby seems underemphasized.
Another interesting number: Vasectomies numbered 4166. Women sterilizations number only 822.
So men are 5x as likely to get sterilized at PP as women.
In summary, there is no way to tell the true rate of abortions (i.e. what percentage of women are there for abortions) because you can't take the men's services out of the total number of services.
And also: if you're doing 327,000 abortions which is 150% of the population of Shreveport, La (third largest city in Louisiana) then maybe the vasectomy/sterilization options need to be discussed more.
1 vasectomy for every 75 abortions seems low.
At the very least, I find this interesting and my 'spin' detector reading is elevated.
Update for 2016-2017 Annual Report
You can check the numbers here: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/facts-figures/annual-report
About the same.
Practically no one gets a vasectomy or a form of sterilization. Just over 1 in 8 patients gets an abortion. For every 3 pregnancy tests done, there's one abortion. For every TWO Breast exams/Pap smear/HPV vaccination (combined total), there's one abortion.
Issues of note with this report:
Still no breakdown of men vs. women, so you can't see what percentage of women patients get an abortion. Close to 10 times as many men get sterilized here vs. women. Yes, I know it's an easier procedure.
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