# Planned Parenthood - Abortion Services 3% of what they do, but 33% of their income?  T/F?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planned-parenthood-abortion-services-3-of-what-they-do-but-33-of-their-income-t-f/611521>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 2, 2012, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planned-parenthood-abortion-services-3-of-what-they-do-but-33-of-their-income-t-f/611521 "2012-02-02T07:30:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![robinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/848f3c/32.png) [@robinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robinson)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planned-parenthood-abortion-services-3-of-what-they-do-but-33-of-their-income-t-f/611521/21 "2012-02-04T03:20:15Z")

</div>

The PP annual report and the right-to-life material are a little hard to follow. Also - statistics are quoted from different years, which vary somewhat and so its not safe to compare or subtract. PP sees about 3 million people a year, each of which on the average gets 3 or 4 “services”. 300,000 abortions divided by 3 million is about 10%. RTL is correct on that. You can’t fairly allocate all the clinic fees to abortion, but RTL does. So they are just being RTL - putting the worst light they can on PP without actually lying in print.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planned-parenthood-abortion-services-3-of-what-they-do-but-33-of-their-income-t-f/611521/22 "2012-02-04T14:05:22Z")

</div>

> [@robinson](#):
>
> The PP annual report and the right-to-life material are a little hard to follow. Also - statistics are quoted from different years, which vary somewhat and so its not safe to compare or subtract. PP sees about 3 million people a year, each of which on the average gets 3 or 4 “services”. 300,000 abortions divided by 3 million is about 10%. RTL is correct on that. You can’t fairly allocate all the clinic fees to abortion, but RTL does. So they are just being RTL - putting the worst light they can on PP without actually lying in print.

Statistics are like Gitmo prisoners - they can be tortured to tell you whatever is convenient.

Whenever you hear a “fact” and a number, the first question is “what exactly is this saying?”. The next question is “where did these numbers come from”? Wording can be tricky too. “Revenue” is a word that can be loaded, that implies to the general public “profit for the fat cats who run the place”; but for a non-profit, it just means covering the rent and utilities and wages. I bet most of the employees there pay more taxes - sorry, higher tax rate - than Warren Buffet. (Notice too, how THAT wording makes all the difference…?)

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planned-parenthood-abortion-services-3-of-what-they-do-but-33-of-their-income-t-f/611521.md?page=1)