Planned Parenthood

A new estimate published by the National Right to Life Committee indicates that there have been an estimated 55 million abortions since the Supreme Court handed down its 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision allowing virtually unlimited abortions. This number means that there are more than 3,300 abortions daily and 140 abortions per hour, every hour in the United States.

Most of these abortions were done by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. According to its website, Planned Parenthood is “America's most trusted provider of reproductive health care.”

Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood’s history is not as impressive as its website. The vision of Margaret Sanger, one of the two founders of the movement paints a picture of a racist with clear intentions to systematically exterminate black people in America.

In an interview with the New York Times (1923), Sanger said, “Birth control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced. It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocks – those human weeds (blacks) which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”

Sanger established her first full-service “clinic” in Harlem in 1929. Why Harlem, New York - that’s where a lot of the black people, she often referred to as “human weeds”, lived. Sanger described it as “an experimental clinic established for the benefit of the colored people.” In this case, she defined “benefit” as the overall reduction of the black population.

On average, 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States. This incidence of abortion has resulted in a tremendous loss of life. It has been estimated that since 1973 Black women have had about 16 million abortions – 30% of abortions done.

Although this information is known by civil rights leaders and politicians, no one attempts to abort the largest abortion provider in this country. Instead, Planned Parenthood receives more than $500 million annually from tax payers – that means it receives an average of $1.5 million a day to conduct its business.

In order to augment its income as a not-for-profit organization, Planned Parenthood now sells body parts from babies. 

Recently, Planned Parenthood was caught in a firestorm of well-deserved controversy after two undercover videos, released by the Center for Medical Progress, seem to implicate them in horrific crimes against the unborn. The videos show two top Planned Parenthood executives discussing the best methods to extract baby body parts intact, and haggling with undercover investigators over the prices of these body parts – how disgusting.

Whereas Planned Parenthood calls the organs of murdered babies “fetal tissue,” they call unborn babies “clumps of cells” until labeling their organs as “human” helps their bottom line. And they call their murder of millions “quality family planning.”

Most the body parts are sold to Stem Express, a California-based biomedical company that provides “qualified research laboratories with human cells, fluids, blood and tissue products for the pursuit of disease detection and cure.” 

There are a number of things that upset me about the disgusting practices of Planned Parenthood. From its inception, the founder showed a disregard for a group of persons, seen as “defective stocks and human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.” That racist premise was the foundation of the movement.

In responding to the recent sale of body parts, Planned Parenthood wants us to believe that this is a good business practice. No, this is repulsive, sickening and ghastly. After looking at the Consolidated Balance Sheets for 2014, Planned Parenthood does not need to sell body parts to augment income. The company is a victim of its gruesome practices.

Thankfully, the company’s attitude to abortion is not the same to a wide variety of human services. I would love to see many of those services retained, but under a different banner. The stench and the sigma of a sordid history must be removed. Until that happens, I will support the move to defund Planned Parenthood. 

In attempting to close the door on disgusting practices, Christians must ensure that we do not close our compassion to “the least of these”, to whom Jesus referred.

An Appeal for the Unborn

This column is the third in my trilogy on abortion. Last week, my guest discussed the need for compassion to be shown to the woman who chose to terminate a pregnancy. As a medical doctor she took the position that she would rather provide the woman with the opportunity to have an abortion “in an informed, medically safe and legal way”, rather than suffer the consequences of unprofessional intervention.

Agreed, unprofessional intervention or botched abortions have an ugly history of barbaric procedures often leading to tragic consequences for the mother. It is believed that one woman dies every seven minutes around the world due to an unsafe illegal abortion. In the United States the death rate for abortion is currently 0.6 per 100,000 procedures. Hence, it would be safe to say that in the U.S., legalizing abortion has reduced reproductive barbarism significantly.

However, with safer procedures has come increasing frequency of abortions and casual sex. Researchers tell us that some 22% of the 1¼ million pregnancies in America will be terminated in abortion. More than 48% of these women would have had at least one previous abortion. But why would a woman want to abort her baby? The most common reasons women consider abortion are:

- Birth Control – more than 50% of all women who have an abortion used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant;
- Economics – inability to support or care for a child/to end an unwanted pregnancy;
- Birth defects – to prevent the birth of a child with severe medical problems;
- Physical or mental conditions that endanger the health of the mother; and
- Pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. 

Although much has been said of the mother’s health and forced sex as legitimate reasons for abortion, many analysts are reluctant to tell us that such cases are rare among women seeking abortion. Actually, fewer than 3% of all women who abort fall into these categories.

So often we forget that the biggest victim in abortion is the child that is aborted. For convenience, we sometimes ignore that the child is a person. Legally, one is charged for double homicide when a pregnant woman is killed. Already, 29 states practice fetal homicide laws. The law grants personhood status to a fetus, thus affording legal rights for a fetus, separate from those enjoyed by the mother. The killer is usually charged for double homicide.

In addition, the use of ultrasound in early pregnancy enables medical personnel to examine the gestational sac within the uterus as early as the fourth week of pregnancy. There should be no doubt then, that an abortion is the surgical removal of a person from a woman’s womb.

The purpose or method of removal does not legitimize the act of removal. Fearful young women sometimes attribute their pregnancies to rape in order to avoid possible condemnation. For instance, Norma McCorvey was the young woman called “Roe” in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade case of legalizing abortion. Norma elicited sympathy in the court and media because she claimed to be a rape victim. However, years later, she admitted that she lied and was not raped.  

The courts and the media fell for that lie because we have been led to believe that abortion should be expected whenever someone is raped. Under no condition should rape be trivialized. It is a horrible crime for which rapists should receive the full extent of the law.

Rape traumatizes women and as a society we should do everything to reduce the impact of that pain. However, is abortion the only option and does it bring authentic healing to rape victims? Feminists for Life contend that “some women have reported suffering from the trauma of abortion long after the rape trauma has faded.” 

In their book Victims and Victors, David Reardon and his associates draw on the testimonies of 192 women who experienced pregnancy as the result of rape or incest – and 55 children who were conceived through sexual assault. Nearly all the women interviewed in Reardon’s anecdotal survey said they regretted aborting the babies conceived via rape or incest. Of those giving an opinion, more than 90% said they would discourage other victims of sexual violence from having an abortion.
Today Jennifer Bowman has three beautiful children. However, looking at her one could never tell that she was a victim of rape. Her passion for this forgotten group of victims is evident on her website.

The impact of such stories is not merely statistical for me. I thank God daily, that although a victim of rape, my mother-in-law did not opt for an abortion. The child that resulted has changed my life forever.

Two Views on Abortion

There were at least two kinds of responses to last week’s blog on the anniversary of legalizing abortion in America. Because of limited space I can only share one view this week. The other I will share next week. The first comes from a medical doctor in the Caribbean. The second, from a religious scholar who lives in the United States.

I mulled over your latest blog and thought I would share some thoughts with you based on my work with young, and not so young, women in the Caribbean and Latin America. This piece is not intended to sway you but to present another perspective on the issue.

Like you, I wish we never had to have abortions - that no woman would ever make the decision to terminate a pregnancy - even if that decision might place her at physical, emotional, or moral risk. But, abortion has been with us as far back as 1550 BCE – the first recorded case of abortion was found in the Ebers Papyrus. Even before we had medically safe ways of terminating pregnancies, women found ways to do the procedure themselves – whether by drinking noxious potions, or striking themselves in places that they hoped would dislodge the fetus, or inserting herbal tampons or sharp implements into their uteruses expecting to remove the fetus. These practices persist even today among poor women.

In the absence of medically safe and legal abortion services, women who try to abort a pregnancy either die or end up in hospital with morbidities that render them infertile or worst. (Until recently, the majority of poor women on the gynecological ward of public hospitals in many Caribbean countries were women seeking post abortion care.) I should mention that there is an inverse relationship between maternal mortality and morbidity rates (related to abortions) and access to safe abortion services – that is, where access is poor, rates of abortion-related mortality and morbidity are high. Please note that ‘safe’ abortion is not the same as ‘legal’ abortion. In much of the Caribbean, not including Barbados and Guyana where terminations are legal in certain circumstances, women can get safe abortions from private practitioners. The so called ‘back street’ practitioners persist – they are more affordable for poor women.

Who are these women who will go to these lengths to terminate a pregnancy? The literature will tell you that a minority (less than 10%) of women who seek abortions are “repeat offenders”. They are women who, although they are sexually active and do not desire a, or another child, are not doing anything to prevent a pregnancy. The remaining 90% of women who seek abortions have: experienced a failure in their contraceptive method; been raped; or - mistimed or inconvenient pregnancies (woman has many children, woman is in school, woman has to protect a career, relationship with husband or partner is not healthy, woman is pregnant for a man who is not her husband, etc.); or pregnancies which, if carried to term, would place them at physical risk; or pregnancies that would result in a physically ‘defective’ child; or a fetus that has died.
When we read this list we may be tempted to make the judgment that the women who have abortions are women of loose morals. After all they have not followed the prescribed way – they may not have waited until marriage to become sexually involved, or may not have been faithful to their marriage partner, or committed some other moral infraction.

I have counseled single and married women who are ardent Christians who made one stupid decision and now are faced with carrying a pregnancy they rather not have. I have watched them struggle. Many would rather commit the sin of abortion (for which they can ask and receive forgiveness) than face the unforgiving wrath and vengeance of the church family. There have been cases, where the woman has kept her baby but left the ‘church’.

In my limited experience, contrary to conventional wisdom, the decision to terminate a pregnancy is not a decision that the majority of women make easily or cavalierly –in fact, the majority of women who have abortions have only one. A woman’s motivation to have the procedure is personal and most times outweighs the immediate, as well as the perceived long term consequences. What I’ve observed, however, is that where a woman has access to pre-termination education and counseling and post abortion services that are non-judgmental, she can make a decision about her pregnancy outcome that leaves her with no regret.

As a public health practitioner, I take the position that I would rather provide the woman who chooses to terminate a pregnancy the opportunity to do that in an informed and medically safe (and legal) way than have her dead or ill /damaged because of a self-directed or poorly executed intervention. As a Christian, I pray I will not be in a position to have to make that decision and for humility and the spirit of non-judgment for those who feel that they must.

The writer agrees that most abortions are as a result of lifestyle choices. However, she believes greater compassion and forgiveness are necessary. Please read last week’s blog. You must also read next week’s response to this perspective.

An Unpleasant Anniversary

My wife and I are among many who will be celebrating fortieth anniversaries in 2013. Unfortunately, the insidious 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion is also on that list of anniversaries. Some 55 million babies have been killed since that January 22nd ruling. Seventeen million of those babies came from predominantly black communities.

To commemorate the 40th year of this scourge, tens of thousands of people showed up in Washington and other cities for a “March for Life.” Such support for anything would be big news – not this time. The reporting was sparse. Why? Simply put, the lack of coverage was consistent with the media bias for the pro-abortion perspective.

The media will quicker cover stories of a few hundreds showing-up for minor liberal issues. The absence of coverage of the recent “March for Life” by the major broadcast networks should be big news - news of bias and cronyism in the media.

Where is the media outrage about the following? After 40 years, it can be confirmed that some 80% of the facilities run by Planned Parenthood are located in minority communities. After 40 years, it is now evident that African Americans represent the only ethnic group whose numbers are declining. After 40 years, it can be verified that more than 1,200 babies die daily in African American communities. Why is the media silent?

Dr. Clenard Childress, a pastor and national advocate for life, believes, “for every two African-American women who get pregnant, one will choose to abort.” Imagine, about 60% of abortions done in New York City are done on black women. The Pennsylvania Department of Health reports that about 50% of black babies are aborted each year since 1973. Like me, the major networks have access to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – then, where is the outrage?

Like many in America, I was of the opinion that cases of rape provided a valid ground for abortion. That opinion was formed by the media’s portrayal of the abortion narrative. Well, I now know that less than 1% of abortions is as a result of rape.

Studies conducted by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute indicate that 14,000 abortions per year are due to rape or incest – that figure represents only 1% of all abortions.

From that same Guttmacher study (2005), women were asked to provide reasons why they chose to have an abortion – 74% of these women felt “having a baby would dramatically change my life.” Some women felt that an unwanted child would interrupt their education or interfere with careers. Others cited their unmarried status and their inability to afford childcare or basic needs of life.

Those reasons provide enough reason for outrage. The decision to abort would never have been necessary had our lifestyle choices been different. Because of those choices the medical industry is faced with an increasing variety of sexually transmitted diseases. Honestly, we have been duped to believe that abortion enables our women to correct errors and to move on with their lives.

But that is not true – what about the post-abortion trauma issues? One British researcher described legal abortion as the best predictor of breast cancer trends. Actually, abortion is the single most avoidable risk factor for breast cancer. A black woman in America has a 10% risk of contracting breast cancer during her lifetime. However, black women under 40, who had an abortion, have a 50% increased risk of contracting breast cancer. The risk jumped to 370% for black women over fifty, who have an abortion. 

In order to protect the abortion industry from litigation, women are not being told the truth about the relationship between abortion and breast cancer. Somebody needs to demand objective investigative journalism on this matter.

On this 40th anniversary of legalizing abortion, we must ask ourselves if we are better off as a nation. We have ignored the rights of the unborn and championed the rights of the woman. We have been dishonest in suggesting that abortion brings healing to victims of rape and incest. We have been led to believe that pregnancy due to rape is common, rather than rare. 

I wish I did not have to celebrate the nobility of marriage at the same time with the scourge of legalized abortion. Whereas one event celebrates life, the other honors death. Whereas one recognizes the sanctity of life, the other destroys life for convenience.

AN ANNIVERSARY OF Ethnic Slaughter

The abortion industry has had a greater impact on African-Americans than any other ethnic group in America. According to Dr. Clenard Childress, “Blacks represent the only ethnic group in the country whose numbers are declining.” 

According to the current issue of Christianity Today, the disproportionate number of abortions among African Americans has spurred prolifers to charge that abortion providers are systematically targeting blacks and other minority groups for abortion. “Presently, for every two African-American women who get pregnant, one will choose to abort” (Rev. Dr. Clenard Childress Jr., the founder of (www.blackgenocide.org).

As the nation celebrates another anniversary of that 1973 landmark decision by the Supreme Court (Roe v. Wade), the African-American community should be in tears. Since that time the community has lost more than 18 million lives, some one third of the present African-American population. In other words, the community is losing more than 1,300 babies a day.

Statistics from The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirm that abortion is the leading cause of death in African-American communities. As a matter of fact, since 1973, more African-Americans have lost their lives to abortion than to heart disease, cancer, accidents, violent crimes or AIDS combined. This means that although African-Americans represent only 13% of the population of the United States, they account for some 36% of the abortions performed in the country (Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm).

The city-by-city statistics are staggering. For instance, about 60% of abortions done in New York City are done on black women. The Pennsylvania Department of Health reports that about 50% of black babies are aborted each year since 1973.

To whom do we turn to avert this genocide? We cannot depend on the politicians in Washington to respond to this phenomenon. Currently in Congress, every member of the Black Caucus can be identified as pro-choice. The result of this ideological position means that there are almost no African American voices raised in defense of the unborn in the nation’s legislative branch.

Within the church, some are afraid to touch the subject – they believe “this world is not my home…I’m just a-passing through.” The attitude, leave it alone, we are pilgrims.

Thankfully, that has not always been the attitude of the church. The late Dr. James Kennedy, in his book, What if Jesus Had Never Been Born, contends that “it was a dangerous thing for a baby to be conceived in classical Rome or Greece. In those days, abortion was rampant. It was common for infirmed babies or unwanted little ones to be taken out into the forest or the mountainside, to be consumed by wild animals or to starve or to be picked up by rather strange people. Parents abandoned virtually all deformed babies.”

In ancient Rome, Christians saved many of these babies and brought them up in the faith. Abortion disappeared in the early Church. Infanticide and abandonment disappeared. The cry went out to bring the children to church. This was the environ-ment in which orphanages and nursery-homes were started to care for the children. These new practices, based on a higher view of life, helped to create a foundation in Western civilization for an ethic of human life.

It was that higher view of life, often referred to as the sanctity of life, to which many Christians were committed throughout history. As a result, women were treated with dignity. The most recent issue of Christian History reminds us of the role of the church in establishing hospitals and health care centers in the first century.

It was that Christian understanding of the sanctity of life that challenged slavery, cannibalism, animal rights and sati, as was practiced for centuries in India.

I share the view, that if you remove the teachings of Jesus from the history of the world, life would be devalued. Janine Simpson illustrates this in her story, published in the current issue of Christianity Today. Janine and her girl friends didn’t think twice about having abortions. In her all-black Detroit neighborhood, teen abortions were the norm…the local abortion clinic was a fixture.

After Simpson’s own abortion in her freshman year of college, things changed. She became a Christian and after graduation developed a passion to help other women with unplanned pregnancies. Today she is an ordained minister assisting hundreds of teenagers to value healthy sexuality and the sanctity of human life.  

Honestly, I still believe Jesus makes a difference! We have almost 2,000 years of history with stories like Janine Simpson to prove the point.