A regional CEO for US abortion giant Planned Parenthood has said that her colleagues find working in the industry “no fun anymore”.
Betty Cockrum, CEO of Planned Parenthood Indiana and Kentucky, made the comments after State Representative Curt Nisly recently proposed a Bill to ban abortion outright in Indiana.
Nisly’s proposals come after a flurry of pro-life legislation in US states over the past two years.
‘No fun anymore’
Cockrum told a student newspaper at Indiana University: “When your fellow CEOs say, ‘It’s just no fun anymore. It just gets harder by the day,’ that’s tough.”
She added: “You got to talk to yourself to even get out of bed right now”.
Cockrum also said that the mood surrounding Planned Parenthood has changed dramatically since the recent election.
‘Protection at Conception’
Vice President-elect Mike Pence signed a law which bans abortions on the basis of sex, race, disability or gender during his time as Governor of Indiana.
Nisly’s proposed ‘Protection at Conception’ Bill is set to be debated in the Indiana House of Representatives in January.
“My goal is to cut out all of those regulations and just ban abortions,” Nisly said.
Significant drop
A report released last month revealed a significant drop in the US abortion rate in the past decade.
Research carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the abortion rate for 2013 was 12.5 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years.
From 2004, this represents a 21 per cent decrease in the rate of reported abortions. The number of abortions in this period fell from 817,906 to 652,582.
Both these reported statistics are at their lowest levels since 2004.
Closures
The total number of abortion clinics has also fallen rapidly in recent years.
In May, US media company Bloomberg reported that since 2011, more than 160 abortion clinics have been shut down across the country while just 21 have opened.