Abortion provider Planned Parenthood estimated it terminated 374,155 pregnancies between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, the second-highest number of abortions the organization has recorded in a single-year period.
According to the report, Planned Parenthood provided approximately 9 million services to around 2.13 million people, including 374,155 abortion procedures during fiscal year 2021. The report offers a snapshot of its services before a new U.S. Supreme Court decision, allowing states to set more abortion restrictions.
The Supreme Court ruled in the “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization” case in June of last year that the various U.S. states could regulate aspects of abortion that are not already codified under federal law. Following this Supreme Court decision, several states began imposing stricter limits and even near-total bans on abortions at the state level.
“This was the year the worst happened. We knew it was coming. We were prepared. We had to be,” the report states. “Losing the constitutional right to abortion was still heartbreaking—for patients, for providers, for the communities we serve. But we’ve faced challenges before, and we’ve never given up. We won’t start now. WE’RE RELENTLESS.”
The Planned Parenthood report said that in states where abortions were more heavily restricted, “Patients came to their appointments expecting to take a pill only to learn they were just days or even hours too far into their pregnancy and had to make plans to get that pill two states away.”
“Young victims of abuse were forced to travel hundreds of miles to get abortion care,” the organization said.
It remains to be seen just how heavily Planned Parenthood’s abortion services will have been impacted following the Dobbs decision.
Planned Parenthood’s Other Services
In addition to the 2.45 percent drop in abortions between the fiscal year 2020-2021, the Planned Parenthood report showed a decline in other services like post-miscarriage care and adoption referrals.Planned Parenthood recorded 2,653 miscarriage care procedures in its latest annual figures, compared with 2,793 in the year prior—a 5.4 percent drop.
Planned Parenthood recorded 1,803 adoption referrals in the new report, compared to 1,940 the year prior—a 7.2 percent drop.
The organization’s prenatal service visits dropped 29 percent, with 6,244 prenatal visits recorded in the new report, compared to 8,775 the year prior.
Pregnancy tests conducted by the organization also fell from 949,271 in the fiscal year 2020 to 914,116 in the fiscal year 2021—a 3.7 percent drop.
Planned Parenthood lists a massive 176.6 percent spike in unspecified “other procedures,” recording 256,550 of these procedures in its new report. The year prior, the organization recorded 15,902 unspecified procedures and 17,791 the year before that. NTD News reached out to Planned Parenthood for more details on this particular metric but did not receive a response before this article was published.