{"id":155360,"date":"2016-10-26T08:46:57","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T13:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=155360"},"modified":"2024-09-20T12:42:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:42:12","slug":"1-in-3-women-has-had-an-abortion-claim-gets-four-pinocchios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/1-in-3-women-has-had-an-abortion-claim-gets-four-pinocchios\/","title":{"rendered":"“1 in 3 women has had an abortion” claim gets four Pinocchios"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Washington Post writer Michelle Ye Hee Lee, who previously debunked<\/a> Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortions make up only three percent of their services, has just debunked<\/a> another pro-abortion myth: that one in three women has had<\/em> an abortion.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot from 1in3campaign.org<\/p><\/div>\n

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Screenshot from Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Services page<\/p><\/div>\n

An earlier fact check of a\u00a0similar claim made by abortion advocates — that one in three women (or one-third)\u00a0will have<\/em> an abortion by age 45 — received two Pinocchios<\/a>\u00a0from the Washington Post.\u00a0This hasn’t stopped Planned Parenthood or others in the abortion industry from making the claim.\u00a0In fact, Planned Parenthood not only\u00a0makes this claim<\/a>\u00a0on their “Abortion Services” web page, but also links to the\u00a01in3campaign.org<\/a>\u00a0website\u00a0— a site which claims\u00a0at the very top of its\u00a0home\u00a0page: “1 in 3 women will have an abortion in her lifetime.” (Indeed, this is the entire theme of the site.) The website was created by\u00a0Advocates for Youth<\/a>, a Planned Parenthood\u00a0partner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For her latest fact check, Lee takes on\u00a0a letter<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0NARAL Pro-Choice America and other pro-abortion groups. In this letter, the groups make the claim that one in three women has had<\/em> an abortion. Lee says the data relied upon to make this erroneous claim was\u00a0gathered from 9,500 women in 2008<\/a> — nearly a decade ago. The Guttmacher Institute (originally formed as Planned Parenthood’s research arm) released a\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0in 2011 that was based on\u00a0this data.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot of NARAL’s letter<\/p><\/div>\n

Lee writes:<\/p>\n

Researchers used survey data to find the first abortion rate for age subgroups, multiplied the rate by the number of years in each age group, and added up the number of first-time abortions that had taken place by the time women were 45 years old. This was called the \u201ccumulative first abortion rate,\u201d through which they came up with the \u201clifetime incidence\u201d of abortion, or the \u201cone in three\u201d figure.<\/p>\n

The study found that 30 percent of women (effectively, one in three) would have an abortion by age 45, if the 2008 abortion rate prevailed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The problem is, no one knows if<\/em>, in fact, this abortion rate prevailed. It is based on a projection, admitted\u00a0Guttmacher spokesperson\u00a0Rebecca Wind. “At the time those data were published,” she told Lee, “it was an accurate statement to say that one in three women would have an abortion by age 45 (not has had an abortion, it\u2019s a projection by the end of their reproductive years),” but, “…\u00a0at the moment, there is no current data to support that statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

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