Big abortion is a propaganda machine.  It peddles lies and falsehoods at a rate that would make even Stalin blush.

For example, Planned Parenthood claims that only 3% of its “services” are abortion – a lie that earned it three Pinocchios from the Washington Post Fact Checker. In reality, upwards of 50% of Planned Parenthood’s clinic income comes from abortion.

The latest lie is the absurd claim that “1 in 3” women have an abortion in their “lifetime.”  It’s the newest propaganda campaign, complete with hashtags.

From the folks who brought you #1in3, check out a #RemarkablyNormal play near you!https://t.co/bsaiyk5dtg pic.twitter.com/OxYAuCNSqf

— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) May 9, 2016

Of course, right off the bat, this statistic is overly inflated.  The actual cited statistic from the Guttmacher Institute – the abortion industry’s research arm – is that “30% of U.S. women will have an abortion by age 45.”

Yet this is a projected estimate based off of flakey statistics that even the authors of the report warn, “This study has several limitations.” In fact, the study concludes with this little ditty of a disclaimer that undercuts the entire premises of the projected estimates: “Our analysis assumes that women obtaining abortions were more likely to report previous terminations, but even in this clinical setting some patients may have failed to report them. This would mean that the estimate of the lifetime incidence of abortion is artificially high.”

Here’s the clinker: this 2008 Guttmacher study was done to correct statistics from a 1992 Guttmacher study which claimed that “43% of women will have had an abortion by age 45.”  Yet, that turned out to be completely wrong.

Both the 1992 and 2008 studies rely on the faulty premise that data from one year can be extrapolated out over a 30-year period of a woman’s likely span of fertility to project a likely rate of abortions for all women age 15-45.  As abortion rates continue to plummet, so too does the logic of these projections.

Now the new magic number is 30%.  That’s quite a drop.  Of course, what the abortion industry won’t tell you is that this new statistic is from 2008.  It’s now 2016, and abortion rates have continued to decline to the lowest levels since abortion was legalized.

What these studies represent is wishful thinking on the part of the abortion industry.  If any corporate board provided its investors with such faulty projections, someone would be going to jail for fraud.

Consider this. Between 1992 and 2003 abortion dropped by about 18% in the U.S. Similarly, Guttmacher’s estimated percentage of women age 15-45 who are expected to have an abortion dropped from 43% in 1992 to 35% in 2003 – or by about 18%. As the 2008 study that the misnomered “1 in 3” figure comes from notes, “The proportion of women expected to have an abortion by age 45 declined substantially, from 43% in 1992 to 30% in 2008, and this pattern parallels the substantial decline in abortion rates during that time period.”

Between 2008 and 2011, abortion has declined another 13% to “the lowest rate” since Roe v. Wade.  Assuming this “parallel” drop continues, the rate is likely closer to 1 in 4 women, if Guttmacher’s stats and analysis are to be believed.  But as abortion rates have continued their precipitous decline even in the last few years, the real statistic is likely well under 25%, even using their own logic.

Guttmacher’s statisticians are supposedly working on a new update to this report due out next year, but are playing coy with the results – likely to avoid the inevitable “shock” that will come when they explain that once again their predicted statistics have turned out to be inaccurate.

The Washington Post Fact Checker – no friend to the pro-life movement – warns against “politicians and organizations citing” the “stale” one in three claim without the “appropriate caveat.” The WaPo Fact Checker even gave it two Pinocchios, which signifies that it is based on “Significant omissions and/or exaggerations.”

Yet, the abortion industry (and for the most part the mainstream media) pushes this exaggerated statistic on the American people in an attempt to normalize the slaughter of innocent children.

Abortion isn’t “remarkably normal;” it’s unmistakably tragic.

Matthew Clark is Senior Counsel for Digital Advocacy with the ACLJ and Contributing Editor at RedState. Follow Matthew Clark: @_MatthewClark.