America's largest abortion profiteer, Planned Parenthood, is opening new facilities across the country and using deception and dishonesty to do so. In one high-profile example, the organization recently completed construction on a new 22,000-square-foot state-of-the-art death camp in Aurora, Ill., that they readily admit was built with its true purpose and real owner's identity intentionally concealed from the public.

While it is understandable that the pro-life movement would be outraged at the naked corruption Planned Parenthood is using in its expansion plans, we must not allow that outrage to make us blind to the motivation for this expansion. The truth is, in this case, their motives are far more important than their methods.

It is no secret that an ongoing problem for the abortion lobby is their rapidly dwindling number of facilities. From the peak years of the late 1980s, approximately two-thirds of the abortion clinics in America have closed permanently, primarily because the abortion industry has been unable to hire enough employees to keep them open.

The reason most often accepted for this is the increasing stigma associated with abortion. The abortion lobby had always counted on legalization to erase the stigma of abortion. But that never happened, and it now appears that they have resigned themselves to the fact it never will. However, even though stigma is a major problem for these people, it is not the only thing that keeps their death camps understaffed. It is also being driven by a looming financial crisis that has been brewing since the day this battle began.

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In the first few years of legalized abortion, studies were taken to determine the cost of an abortion. The findings were that, generally speaking, the price was between $300 and $350. Interestingly, those figures have changed little since then. That begs the question: With no competition and a seemingly reliable demand, why have they been unable to raise prices in almost 35 years?

The answer is that, contrary to appearances, the demand is not reliable.

In any marketing environment, all decisions fall onto a "marginal/non-marginal" scale. Decisions based on "want" are considered marginal while those based on "need" are classified as non-marginal. A major factor in determining where a decision falls on this scale is its degree of price sensitivity. The more price sensitive something is, the more marginal the buying decision is. This is true about all purchasing decisions, including the decision about whether to "purchase" an abortion or not.

Since day 1, the abortion industry has sold this idea that when a woman does not want to be pregnant, she will crawl through hell on broken glass to get an abortion. In other words, their contention is that the abortion decision is a non-marginal one. For that to be true, it would also have to be true that the cost of abortion does not significantly affect the abortion rate.

The evidence is pretty clear that this is not the case. The financial publication Economic Inquiry, Vol. XXVI, April 1988, produced a study about the relationship between abortion cost and abortion rates and found that, "The significant inverse relationship between the price of abortions and the abortion rate confirms that the fundamental law of demand is applicable to abortions." In other words, as the cost of abortion goes up, the demand for abortion goes down. This group's findings mirror several other independent studies that have documented the identical link between the price of abortion and the rate of abortion.

Perhaps even more revealing is a quote from Colorado abortionist Warren Hern. During a May, 1997, annual meeting of the National Abortion Federation held in Boston, Mass., the subject was the use of ultrasound in abortion. Hern complained that paying for the ultrasound machine would increase the cost of an abortion by $25. In his own words, this would cause the patient load to plummet. What Hern was saying was that not only does price affect the abortion rate, but even small increases in price have an overpowering impact on it. This was real-world confirmation – from someone on the inside – that the abortion lobby's "hell on broken glass" rhetoric is a lie and that, in most cases, abortion is indeed a marginal decision.

The obvious solution to the abortion industry's current financial dilemma would be for them to raise prices to meet their increased costs and simply make more money off fewer killings. But as fiscally reasonable as that may sound, the abortion lobby knows that it is not a viable option. They have long understood that to maintain abortion's legality, they need the political and cultural inertia created by a high abortion rate. So while higher abortion prices might solve their financial problems, the lowered abortion rate produced by these higher prices would threaten their political survivability.

The point is the abortion industry has not raised prices for almost 35 years for one very sound reason. They can't. The problem they now face is that, during those 35 years, the cost of doing business has risen dramatically. That has put them in a kind of "Catch 22" situation. They can't survive without raising prices, but they can't raise prices and survive. So even if they could solve the stigma problem, they still couldn't generate enough profit to pay the salaries needed to attract and keep employees.

Enter Hillary Clinton.

Planned Parenthood's current expansion is its way of betting on Slick Hilly to be the next president. It is also counting on her to install a system of socialized medicine that will include elective abortion. So even though the Choice Mafia rallies their troops with red-meat rhetoric about Supreme Court appointments, what they are most giddy about is the possibility of government-funded abortions. That is the driving force behind Planned Parenthood's current expansion. They see Hillary Care getting larger in the rearview mirror and are positioning themselves to be a major player in it.

You may think I'm just baying at the moon here, but if there is one thing I know for certain it is this: At the moment national health care becomes a reality, the cost to the taxpayer for an abortion that now costs about $350 will, instantly, be many times that amount. And I know this is true because a model for it already exists. All you have to do is imagine two women sitting in an abortion clinic waiting to have identical first-trimester abortions. One is paying cash; the second has a health insurance policy to cover her abortion. The first woman will probably get out the door for the usual $350 or so. But make no mistake about it: The second woman's insurance company will be lucky to escape with anything less than a $3,000 claim to pay.

That scenario is repeated at abortion clinics all across America every day. It is also why the nation's death merchants see Hillary Care as their salvation. They are relying on socialized medicine to solve their current financial problems by converting $350 private-pay abortions into $3,000 government-pay abortions. The icing on the cake is that, since the customers will be offered these abortions for "free," the abortion rate is guaranteed to skyrocket.

Like I always say, if you want to understand the abortion business, just follow the money trail. Right now it leads to Rodham and Gomorrah.

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Mark Crutcher is president of Life Dynamics Incorporated of Denton, Texas.