This is 1 of Those Times I Wish Iowa Wasn't a Leader

Anyone who knows me knows that I am proud (in a good sense) to be an Iowa Boy. However the other day when I was reading the March 2011 issue of the Iowa Right to Life News, I came across some statistics that made me more than a little ashamed of my home state. 1 of those stats had to do with the number of Planned Parenthood sites in Iowa as compared to surrounding states. Except for Wisconsin, Iowa had more PP sites than any other site. While I was not surprized to see more sites in Iowa than in the sparsely populated state of South Dakota or even the less populated states of Kansas & Nebraska, I was shocked to see that we outdid Illinois, Minnesota & Missouri, all of which have a much higher population.

But was the biggest shocker was the number of PP sites that did abortions, Iowa lead the pack with 17, followed by 6 in Illinois. In fact, Iowa has a greater percentage of PP sites that do abortions (chemical/medical mostly, but a couple do surgical) than all the states arround us.

Some of the numbers can be explained. The Western states have a more scattered population. & the larger states may have more competition (yes there are some independent abortion mills in Iowa like Emma Goldman in Iowa City), but that still doesn't explain the almost monopolistic looking hold PP has on Iowa.

The only explanation I can come up with is that Iowa is in the lead due to its use of telemed abortions. Something IRTL also thinks is the reason. & if that is true, which it likely is, then what the article in the IRTL newsletter said is correct, we are becoming the abortion capital of the Midwest.

& despite their claims that PP's use of telemed is to help those in rural Iowa have access, the truth is something different, par for the course with PP. If you include Burlington with about a population of 27 Thousand, 1o clinics are in towns of 15,000 or less & 9 of them are 11,000 or less. 4 of those are run by PP South East Iowa & only do referals. The other 6 are run by PP Heartland & do the telemed abortions. Then you have 16 of them in cities of 25,000 or more, 5 in Des Moines metropolitan area alone (4 Des Moines, 1 Urbandale). That goes up to 6 if you count Ankeny which is all but a suburb of Des Moines. Throw in nearby Ames & you are up to 7.

Then we have the fact that 4 of the 5 PP sites run by PPSEI are within a 3 county area.

All these numbers don't exactly make for as huge a rural presence as claimed. & even if you ignore the raison d'être of PP these days, expanding access to abortion, PP isn't exactly providing the otherwise, as they claim, absence of health care like mamogramms to people where it would otherwise be inaccessable. I am curious as to exactly what is meant by "referrals for abortion-related counseling" that shows up on the PPH sites that do abortions of any form.

As for exact numbers, the last stats I was able to find about abortion numbers was found on the Abort73 website. The Iowa Abortion Facts were from 2006. That year Iowa ranked 29th in the number of abortions done, an abortion rate of 11.5 per 1000 women aged 15-44 years. But what was a more revealing number was that 16.9% of those abortions were on women from out of state, putting it in 9th place for out of state. Of the total number of reported abortions 28.5% were medical. I suspect that last number has gone way up with the advent of telemed abortions. The latest numbers out from the CDC are from 2007. Iowa was slightly down from 6722 to 6637. But since the more recent stats are yet to come out, I suspect in recent years the number has gone up & that we will see Iowa is the abortion capital of the Midwest. & that is NOT something to be proud of.

It also leads back to another question, if all this higher presence of PP arround Iowa is to provide birth control so that there is less need for abortions, why is there this huge need for so many abortion mills? & why the need to expand the sites if birth control works as well as PP claims. Oh wait, it has recently come out that Tax-Funding Planned Parenthood Not Proven to Reduce Abortions.

Everything boils down to 1 simple fact, PP wants to increase the number of abortions it does. & it wants to increase the profit it makes on them as well. & it has turned Iowa into its testing ground for both those goals. For me that is just another reason to defund PP.

Here are the comparisons of all the states. the 1st number is the number of PP sites, the 2nd, the PP locations that do abortions, the 3rd is the percentage that do them. The last 2 numbers are the 2010 population of the states (in millions except SD), finally we have their ranking:
Iowa: 26 - 17 - 65% - 3.05M - 30th
Illinois: 18 - 6 - 33% - 12.8M - 5th
Wisconsin: 27 - 3 - 11% - 5.7M - 20th
Missouri: 17 - 2 - 11.7% - 5.99 M - 18th
Minnesota: 24 - 1 - 4% - 5.3M- 21st
Nebraska: 4 - 1 - 25% - 1.8M - 38th
Kansas: 3 - 1 - 33% - 2.8M - 33rd
S. Dakota: 2 - 1 - 50% - 814T - 46th