Lying With Charts, Anti-Abortion Edition

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During this morning’s Planned Parenthood hearings, Rep. Jason Chaffetz displayed a chart that seemingly showed a huge increase in the number of abortions they’ve performed. Actually, though, the number has increased only about 2 percent per year since 2006. How did this happen? Well, it turns out that Americans United for Life, which made the chart, decided to ignore the y-axis. But I’m sure it was an honest mistake, probably due to poor math skills from a lifetime spent in the liberal public education system. So as a public service, I’ve replotted the data using conventional “numbers” and “slopes.” You’re welcome.

POSTSCRIPT: And why has the line for cancer screenings gone down? According to Cecile Richards, it’s because “some of the services, like pap smears, dropped in frequency because of changing medical standards about who should be screened and how often.”

UPDATE: Tim Lee helpfully points out that Planned Parenthood also provides STD testing and contraceptive services. If you add everything up, you get the rather boring chart below. I guess that doesn’t make very good TV, does it?

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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