GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — Representatives from Planned Parenthood say there are frequent misconceptions about the group's primary goals.
While abortions are offered at some of the nation-wide clinics, it's not the only service provided.
Patients can ask for anything from contraceptives to STD testing and treatment. Some locations also offer abortions, however not all do. Yet many believe abortions make up the majority of services that patients seek at the clinic.
We wanted to verify if abortions are the number one or vast majority of services Planned Parenthood staff is responsible for.
To do this, we spoke with Angela Vasquez-Giroux, the Director of Communications and Media Relations for Michigan.
She pointed to the planned parenthood website which offers supplemental education, studies and annual reports of the clinic.
The most recent nationwide report available is from 2017 to 2018.
Out of the 9.6 million services offered during this time frame, 332,000 abortions were performed. That makes up roughly three percent.
Factcheck.org also found that abortions represent 3 percent of total services provided by Planned Parenthood, and roughly 10 percent of its clients received an abortion.
So we can verify that abortions do not make up the majority of services patients receive.
The most common is STD testing and treatment which makes up nearly 50 percent of the services sought.
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