Planned Parenthood: One Choice

With over $1 billion in assets and a huge profit of $85 million in 2007¹, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is a worldwide force in providing abortions. Although their 2007 Annual Report provides a disclaimer that their ‘Abortion Services’ are only 3% of their medical services, the 305,310 abortions performed provided (using $625 as the average provided by their site) an enormous revenue of $190,818,750.¹ This is an increase in their 2006 Report which included 289,750 abortions (est. at $181,093,750). Yet this not-for-profit organization, with its ever-increasing profit margin, continues to take U.S. taxpayer dollars–$349.6 million in 2007. Although federal tax dollars (unless changed by current healthcare reform) are prohibited from funding abortions, it is well known by politicians and the abortion industry that the money is completely fungible–six of one, half a dozen of the other. (The recent stimulus bill actually funneled money, in April 2009, to Planned Parenthood here in Georgia to offset state reductions due to a budget deficit.)²

In the title image above, self-described ‘radical feminist’ Gloria Steinem proudly dons the t-shirt proclaiming “I Had An Abortion”.  Although it is the title of a 2005 documentary featuring Steinem¹, the t-shirt was sold, proudly, by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) in a massive campaign to publicly proclaim the liberating act of abortion.³ Herein lies the hypocrisy of PPFA, who claims the issue of abortion is a private matter (and pours millions of dollars into fighting any legislative infringement of the ‘right to privacy’), unless of course, publicity of it generates revenue. The amount of dissonance that firmly envelopes PPFA’s propaganda is staggering, denying even the basics of biology. Faye Wattleton, an African-American, was PPFA’s longest serving president from 1978-1992⁴. She sums up the pro-abortion mentality in a rare moment of candor:

“I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the woman’s body, and therefore ultimately her choice.”

– Faye Wattleton, President of Planned Parenthood in 1997 interview with Ms. Magazine

Human history is replete with movements that placed the rights of a few above the rights of many. It is in this that freedom is often lost, as the tenacious fight for one’s ‘right’ supersedes morality, ignores basic truths, and denies others the most basic fundamental right–life. Sanger’s birth control crusade was about her redefining her concept of society: complete liberation from sexual taboos, from marital fidelity, from a male-dominated civilization that placed women in bondage through childbirth. The operative word in ‘Birth Control’ is control and it was the primary goal of this movement.

“Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.”

–Margaret Sanger, “Women and the New Race”, Ch 18.

In 1962, Alan F. Guttmacher took the helm of Sanger’s Planned Parenthood as the President of the organization.⁵ While practicing in New York, he single-handedly changed the definition of a woman’s health to include abortion while working closely with Planned Parenthood and other promoters of birth control and abortion. Once he assumed control, he shifted the focus of the strategically located birth control facilities toward abortion, promoting the newly crafted “right” promised in the landmark Supreme Court Roe v. Wade case.  The Guttmacher Institute, named after Alan F. Guttmacher, was originally an arm of Planned Parenthood, established to influence reproductive health policy worldwide.  Strangely enough, it is reporting data from this pro-abortion organization that the government (and every other entity) relies on for abortion statistics.⁵ (States are not federally mandated to report abortion statistics to a federal database.)

Since 1973, Planned Parenthood has successfully persuaded women to kill more than 50 million babies. Under the auspices of reproductive health, Planned Parenthood has distributed millions of condoms (that failed Consumer Reports tests)⁶ and birth control pills, and has become the leading supplier of abortions, performing over 300,000 in 2007.  ‘Choice’ denotes that there are options, but it is clear that since 1916, PPFA has enshrined the choice of abortion as the only desirable one.  In 2007, they made only 4,912 adoption referrals yet aborted 305,310 lives.⁷ That’s one adoption referral per 62 abortions.  Since abortion was legalized, the following have experienced exponential growth:  teenage pregnancies, fatherlessness (especially among African-Americans) and child abuse.  Studies show irrefutable correlations between abortion and these other massive social problems.

With everything in life, there comes responsibility.  Abortion is only temporary avoidance.  It brings upon society a demand for the truth, something that the abortion industry refuses to provide.  They use words like ‘comprehensive’ and ’scientifically factual’, just as America’s early eugenists touted, yet their pseudo-science was demonstrably false and incalculably destructive. Planned Parenthood, for instance, in all of its ‘comprehensiveness’ fails to mention most of the baby’s development in its Stages of Pregnancy⁸.  For instance, the following are never mentioned: brain development, hearing (Weeks 17-18), vision, liver making blood cells (week 9), voluntary movement (i.e. open/closing fists), reaction to light (Week 15), unique set of fingerprints (Weeks 13-14), facial expressions (Weeks 13-14), completely developed circulatory system pumping 25 qts of blood/day (Weeks 15-16), respiratory development (Weeks 23-24), identifiable color/texture of hair (Weeks 25), sucking fingers and getting hiccups (Weeks 27-28), reacting to light outside the womb (Week 28)…it goes on and on.  They strip away anything that challenges the unscientific notion that the fetus (Latin for ‘offspring’ or ‘young one’) is actually human.  Notice, too, how much of a burden the entire pregnancy is on the woman, according to their minimally described stages of pregnancy.  This is a direct result of the overriding philosophy of the organization’s founder who stated emphatically: ““Woman’s role has been that of an incubator and little more. She has given birth to an incubated race.” ⁹

Footnotes

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem

² http://www.ppaction.org/ppga/alert-description.tcl?alert_id=17244619

³ http://www.ppaction.org/plannedparenthoodlam/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=2902061

⁴http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faye_Wattleton

⁵https://www.guttmacher.org/about/alan-bio.html

⁶http://web.archive.org/web/20080226151134/http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health-fitness/health-care/condoms-and-contraception-205/ratings/

⁷http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/annual-report-4661.htm

⁸http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/pregnancy/stages-pregnancy-23953.htm

⁹Sanger, Ch 18, “Women and the New Race”