Public Support for Planned Parenthood Sharply Dropping

The decades-long campaign by pro-lifers to teach Americans about Planned Parenthood seems to be having the desired effect; Planned Parenthood’s poll numbers are declining.

A Quinnipiac poll shows that Planned Parenthood is no longer as widely loved as the abortion giant was back in the 1990s.

The Washington Post reports that in 1989, the Gallup poll found 89% of Americans who knew of Planned Parenthood viewed the group positively. Those are numbers even the most wildly popular president would envy.

According to Quinnipiac, that number had dropped to 55% as of February 2012 and dropped even further to 46% this past August. A poll in September showed Planned Parenthood’s favorables dropped an additional 3 percentage points.

As for negatives, those are rising rapidly from 22% in 2012 to 30% in August and 38% in September.

Without a doubt, the new gruesome videos have taken their toll. David Daleiden and his Center for Medical Progress certainly wanted the videos to lead to criminal prosecution. Failing that, the hope would be for a loss of federal money, now half a billion dollars a year. At the very least, the videos would give Planned Parenthood a black eye.

Part of the problem for Planned Parenthood opponents is that most Americans have not known that Planned Parenthood is mostly about abortions. The organization has kept that largely unknown, except for those actually seeking abortions, by repeating the now discredited assertion that abortion makes up only 3% of Planned Parenthood “services.”

It has been shown, even by liberal fact-checkers, that this 3% claim is misleading because it counts a $500 abortion the same as a $3 packet of contraceptive pills. It was revealed during the most recent House of Representative hearings on Planned Parenthood that 86% of revenues for one Planned Parenthood affiliate in Upstate New York came from abortion.

Hearings into Planned Parenthood continue this week. The House Committee on the Judiciary will look into charges that Planned Parenthood affiliates have criminally overcharged the government for Medicaid reimbursement.

Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruse.