Pennsylvania's abortion rate rises

For the second year in a row, Pennsylvania’s abortion rate has risen slightly, surprising activists on both sides of the bitter abortion debate.

…Still, Pennsylvania’s uptick in 2001, the latest year for which data are available, went against the tide. National abortion rates have crept down, and Pennsylvania’s pregnancy and birth rates have declined for more than a decade.

..Linda Hahn, president of Planned Parenthood of Bucks County, said, “It’s my great hope that this is a fluke and that the numbers go down.”

Isn’t that statement a little bit like McDonald’s decrying an increase in hamburger sales?

…One thing that may have played a role in the 2000 numbers was the opening of the first abortion clinic in Bucks County. The number of abortions in that county jumped from 60 in 1999 to 685 in 2000 – almost all because of the Warminster clinic, operated by Planned Parenthood. (Since then, Hahn said, the clinic’s annual abortion total has been in the 800s.)

Statewide, however, the list of registered abortion facilities shrank by four between 1999 and 2001, when there were 110 providers – 17 clinics, 14 physicians’ offices, and 79 hospitals. (The number of clinics was stable.)

Despite this picture, Vitale speculated that the higher abortion rates are because “the abortion industry is targeting Pennsylvania.”

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If this is a true correlation is just goes to show Banned Parenthood’s massive hypocrisy in bemoaning increased abortions.