The abortion “industry”

Finally, someone has spoken of the profits of the abortion “industry” as the driving force of the abortion lobby. After all, if it were only about “rights”, there would have been no need to oppose legislations such as parental notification. (Isn’t it ridiculous that for girls to get ears pierced parental consent is needed, but not abortion, which is a medical operation.) In my class notes for a Sunday school class on Christian ethics (dated August 2000), I remarked that the abortion industry’s size was about $700 million to $1 billion and therefore could be a potent political force:

當然, 墮胎也牽涉到金錢 (及政治) 上的利益: 『墮胎市場』每年有 7-10 億美元 (US$700m–1b) 的『營業額』.

Manuel Miranda, former counsel to Sen. Bill Frist, writes in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Roe v. Wade is not just the source of a right; it's a business license for abortion clinics. This comes best into focus when we consider that in the next term the Supreme Court is likely to hear cases involving not the right to abortion but laws regulating parental consent and notice of abortions for minor girls. These are laws that, according to a Los Angeles Times poll, over 80% of Americans support.

Miranda goes on to quote Sen. Orrin Hatch, in a little-publicized speech in September 2002 when Democrats blocked the nomination of Judge Priscilla Owen:

I fear the opposition to Justice Owen from the abortion lobby is not at all about abortion rights, because abortion rights are not affected by a mere notice statute. The opposition to Justice Owen is not really about abortion rights, it is about abortion profits. Simply put, the abortion industry is opposed to parental notice laws because parental notice laws place a hurdle between them and the profits from the abortion clients--not the girls who come to them but the adult men who pay for these abortions. These adult men, whose average age rises the younger the girl is, are eager not to be disclosed to parents, sometimes living down the street. . . . At nearly one million abortions per year, the abortion industry is as big as any corporate interest that lobbies in Washington. They not only ignore the rights of parents, they also protect sexual offenders and statutory rapists.

Follow the money, as they say.

On a separate note, Planned Parenthood is probably the most visible and infamous name in the abortion industry. I have always thought, what a misnomer it is! Shouldn’t it be Planned Non-Parenthood? But then the abortion industry is full of euphemisms, which ironically show that there is something inherently objectionable about abortion.