Planned Parenthood: Anti-Life, Anti-Family, Anti-Woman

Planned Parenthood, an organization fully endorsed and publicly supported by President Obama and his administration, is far from the noble organization the President would have us believe.

From the time of its eugenicist inception, Planned Parenthood (PP) has been committed to a radical ideology of abortion on demand, an ideology that tramples down any other societal interest that gets in its way, including the role of government in preserving and protecting innocent human life, providing women with full knowledge of the facts relating to the abortion procedure and the growing unborn child, the right of parents to counsel and raise their children according to their religious and moral beliefs, and the interest of communities in creating a culture of life that respects both mother and child.

In short, Planned Parenthood is anti-life, anti-family, anti-woman.

According to its annual report published earlier this year, PP revealed that it performed 329,445 abortions in 2010 alone. If this number isn’t alarming enough, consider the number of referrals for adoption reported by PP during this same period: a mere 841 (the smallest amount of adoption referrals by PP in the last ten years). In other words, in 2010, PP performed close to 400 abortions for every one adoption referral.

PP also reported distributing nearly 1.5 million emergency contraception (EC) kits. EC can work in at least four different ways: (1) suppressing ovulation, (2) altering cervical mucus to hinder the transport of sperm, (3) slowing the transport of the ovum and (4) inhibiting implantation of a newly conceived human embryo. If one accepts the truth that human life and pregnancy begin at conception and not implantation, then PP is responsible for a larger number of abortions in 2010 than its reported 329,445.

Over the course of the last ten years, and excluding any abortions as a result of EC, PP has performed close to 3,000,000 abortions. That’s a number larger than the current population of twenty individual states, and five times the population of Washington, D.C.

To call PP anti-life is actually an understatement.

PP does not just attack the vulnerable life of the unborn, it attacks the integrity and dignity of the family. For decades, PP has consistently fought tooth and nail against legislative efforts to require parental notice for minors considering abortion. PP obviously thinks it’s in a better position to counsel a young girl thinking about abortion than that child’s parents. Given the statistics from its latest annual report – 391 abortions for every one adoption referral – one can fairly surmise the choice PP most often counsels the pregnant minor to make. PP doesn’t just drive a wedge between a mother and her unborn child, it drives a wedge between a young girl and her parents regarding a decision of immense significance.

And just as it has fought hard against parental notification laws, PP has consistently opposed state efforts requiring informed consent and waiting periods. If abortion is a grave choice, as almost all would agree, then why oppose providing women with the necessary facts, details, and specifics relating to the abortion, not to mention facts relating to the life of the unborn child, in order for them to make a fully informed choice? If abortion is supposed to be a serious and deliberate choice, as again almost all would agree, why oppose a waiting period of 24 hours for women to think and seek counsel about this choice after becoming fully informed about their options?

PP would have women exercise what it believes to be a core, constitutional right in the dark and without pause for contemplation. PP’s opposition to informed consent laws amounts to opposition to a woman’s right to know the implications and consequences of her choice - hardly a position in support of women’s rights. PP’s opposition to waiting periods amounts to encouragement for women to make an abortion decision in haste, possibly without full knowledge of the choice they are making. This doesn’t put “women first.”

Several early feminists, including some of the most noteworthy and famous, understood that the “right” to abortion is not an intrinsic part of women’s rights. Far from it. Susan B. Anthony referred to abortion as “child murder.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton spoke of the “murder of children, either before or after birth.” Victoria Woodhull, the first female presidential candidate, wrote that “the rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the foetus.” These pioneers of the women’s rights movement recognized that the dignity of women is not advanced or honored by aborting one’s child. To the contrary, in the words of Alice Paul, the author of the original equal rights amendment of 1923, “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” In fact, in various countries around the world, sex-selective abortions are used on a widescale basis to kill countless “unwanted” unborn girls, directly thwarting the most precious of all women’s rights: the right to life.

In light of its anti-life, anti-family, and anti-woman ideology, Planned Parenthood shouldn’t be entitled to a dime of taxpayer funds -- whether from the federal government, Texas, or any state in the union. The time to defund Planned Parenthood is now. In fact, it was yesterday.