Opinion

Planned Parenthood recently wrote on Facebook:

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“Putting restrictions on abortion care does not reduce the need for care.”

But what Planned Parenthood doesn’t want to talk about is this: putting restrictions on abortion reduces the need for Planned Parenthood.

How do I know? The Associated Press is reporting that Arizona’s “Abortion Consent Act” has helped reduce the number of abortions by over 30% since it was enacted:

Abortions in Arizona dropped by nearly one-third in September after a pro-life law went into effect. The state reported there were 729 abortions in Arizona during September — a decline of almost 31 percent from September 2010, nearly 32 percent from August of this year and 39 percent from the monthly average for the last year, the Associated Press reported Oct. 12.

Planned Parenthood did everything in its power to stop this law from going into effect in the first place. As Live Action reported, Planned Parenthood tried to sue the state when the bill was passed and signed into law by the governor (they ended up losing 0-3 at the Arizona Court of Appeals).

Moreover, as we reported, most of the provisions of the “Abortion Consent Act” are supported by a majority of Americans, including a majority of Americans who claim to be “pro-choice”!

Remind me again who represents the “fringe” position? Oh that’s right — Planned Parenthood.

Sure enough, Planned Parenthood has had to slow down its operations in Arizona as the abortion money dries up. As I reported back in August, seven Planned Parenthood locations in three cities have since shut down.

Not content to go quietly into the night, Planned Parenthood officials began to get desperate. Planned Parenthood’s Flagstaff nurse practitioner Beth Otterstein told the Tuscon Sentinel: “I’m very sure we’re going to see illegal abortions crop up, which can be very serious because they can lead to deaths.”

Of course we haven’t seen any reports of Arizona women dying from illegal abortions, and I doubt we will.

Instead, we at least 225 more babies who have a chance at life.

How did Planned Parenthood react to this news of all these babies saved from abortion? In this stunning fashion:

“It means that [225] real children at the end of those pregnancies are going to be born into families that may have, at very realistic levels, said that, ‘We can’t afford another mouth to feed,’ or ‘I can’t afford child care’”

Come again? We have solid proof that a pro-life law has saved and will save hundreds of real children in Arizona, and Planned Parenthood can only complain that they will cost money to feed and protect?

If these are the good things that happen when Planned Parenthood begins to leave a state, imagine what would happen if Planned Parenthood left doing abortions in Arizona completely!

All of which is to remind us: we should never take our eye off the prize or give up fighting for what we know to be right.

Photo: Arizona Right To Life Flickr

This article originally appeared on LiveAction.org. It is reprinted here with permission of the author.