Planned Parenthood played a key role in skyrocketing abortions in recent years by popularizing a dangerous and deadly abortion drug regimen used to execute a majority of U.S. abortions, a new study suggests.

Abortion in the U.S. rose steadily from 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade decision, until 1990. For the next 28 years, however, the total number of abortions declined. It wasn’t until 2018 that “this long-term decline veered sharply upward in a new direction,” about a 20 percent increase that lasted through 2023.

The researchers, whose findings were published in Fortune Journals in early June, examined how Planned Parenthood’s “supply-induced demand for abortion,” which they defined as an “attempt to induce demand for their services in order to increase volume and revenues or to promote their own preferred values beyond what would normally be expected,” heavily influenced that statistical turnaround.

“There is no better example of a discretionary, preference sensitive service than an induced abortion,” the study declares, noting that elective abortions, which make up the majority of the life-ending procedures, “cannot in most cases be considered evidence-based medical practice.”

What the researchers discovered was Planned Parenthood “has explicitly chosen to focus on abortion as central to its mission” which led to an “increase in annual abortion totals amidst falling national abortion rates.”

More specifically, researchers determined Planned Parenthood made mifepristone, despite the danger it poses to both women and babies, “an important part of [its] business model” which contributed to the abortion drug’s presence and popularity in the U.S.

“PPFA was an early promoter and advocate of mifepristone starting in the 1980s long before the drug became available in the United States, and Planned Parenthood operated eight of the 17 abortion centers that participated in a U.S. clinical trial to facilitate United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the drug,” the study notes.

As of February 2025, 58 percent of Planned Parenthood’s physical locations offered abortion via a pill only.

The study concedes that mifepristone’s climb in popularity is “due largely to progressively easier access” granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at the direction of Democrat administrations beginning in 2016. It was under the Obama and Biden administrations that the FDA stopped requiring an in-person doctor visit to obtain the drug, allowed more than licensed doctors to prescribe the pill, eliminated reporting standards for non-fatal complications from mifepristone, and permanently allowed the abortion drug to be prescribed via mail.

The researchers note, however, that Planned Parenthood’s embrace and promotion of abortion as “both medical care and autonomous decisionmaking” paired with the abortion pill made ending pregnancies easier to accomplish than in years past.

“In this context, abortion drugs are the perfect instrument by which to enhance demand for abortion when coupled with the motivating euphemisms of autonomy, empowerment and freedom of choice,” the study concludes. “Freedom from standard aspects of healthcare such as reporting requirements, examinations, follow-up monitoring, and even freedom to withhold information about a patient’s medical history during a subsequent emergency room visit are all effective means of supply-induced demand.”

Planned Parenthood has a long history of ending unborn lives (or botching their attempts to do so), allegedly flouting federal law and wasting tax dollars, dispensing castrating drugs to confused minors, reportedly trafficking baby body parts, enabling abusers, allegedly performing unlicensed procedures and violating health and safety standards, opposing free speech, and conducting procedures that have resulted in mothers’ deaths.

The abortion giant’s latest annual report shows it raked in nearly $800 million in taxpayer funds from 2023 to 2024. During that same period, Planned Parenthood also performed a record number of abortions — more than 402,000.

“Planned Parenthood has transformed itself into the dominant provider of abortion in the United States, capitalizing on shifts in both regulation and rhetoric to drive demand. Their strategic pivot toward abortion, coupled with the rise of abortion drugs, has fundamentally reshaped the abortion landscape. This troubling reversal of nearly 30 years of progress in reducing abortions underscores how an industry can actively drive demand for abortions on healthy moms with healthy babies,” Dr. James Studnicki, vice president and director of data analytics at CLI and the article’s lead author, said in a statement.