Birth Control = Abortion

According to their own website, Planned Parenthood is all about birth control, access to birth control, funding for birth control, helping women by providing birth control. 

Sanger is presented as a heroine, rather than as a successful proponent of eugenics, the belief that overpopulation among 'inferior races' must be reversed. 

PP presents its founder as a liberator of women and The Pill as the tool that achieved that liberation. In this paradigm, making abortion illegal would mean reversing a century of work, the capstone of which freedom for women and the right to self-determination is the supposed right to abort.

We pray and fast for an end to abortion. It's clear to me from this presentation of history that abortion won't end until contraception does.  


Planned Parenthood dates its beginnings to 1916 when Sanger, her sister, and a friend open America's first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. In Sanger's America, women cannot vote, sign contracts, have bank accounts, or divorce abusive husbands. They cannot control the number of children they have or obtain information about birth control, because in the 1870s a series of draconian measures, called the Comstock laws, made contraception illegal and declared information about family planning and contraception "obscene."

Sanger knows the tragic toll of such ignorance. Her mother had 18 pregnancies, bore 11 children, and died in 1899 at the age of 40. Working as a nurse with immigrant families on New York's Lower East Side, Sanger witnesses the sickness, misery, and death that result from unwanted pregnancy and illegal abortion. The clinic she opens provides contraceptive advice to poor, immigrant women, some of whom line up hours before the doors open. Police raid the clinic and all three women are convicted of disseminating birth control information.

Undaunted, Sanger founds The Birth Control Review, the first scientific journal devoted to contraception. She also appeals her conviction, which leads to a new, liberalized interpretation of New York's anti-contraception statute. In 1923 Sanger opens the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in Manhattan to provide contraceptive devices to women and collect accurate statistics to prove their safety and long-term effectiveness.

That same year, Sanger incorporates the American Birth Control League, an ambitious new organization that embraces the global issues of world population growth, disarmament, and world famine. The two organizations subsequently merge, and later become Planned Parenthood^® Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA^®).

Early Triumphs

In 1936 Sanger and other birth control proponents win their first major judicial victory. Sanger is arrested after leaking information to postal authorities that she illegally ordered birth control products through the mail. Her case triggers a review of the issue by the courts. Judge Augustus Hand, writing for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, orders a sweeping liberalization of federal Comstock laws, ruling that contemporary data on the damages of unplanned pregnancy and the benefits of contraception mean that contraceptive devices and birth control could no longer be classified as obscene. Because Judge Hand's decision applies only to New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, it is almost 30 years before married couples throughout the country have the right to obtain contraceptives from licensed physicians.

Two other early victories for women's health come one year later:

• The American Medical Association officially recognizes birth control as an integral part of medical practice and education.
• North Carolina becomes the first state to recognize birth control as a public health measure and to provide contraceptive services to indigent mothers through its public health program.

THE 1960s: A NEW ERA FOR WOMEN

By the 1960s, Planned Parenthood is a respected and powerful voice in the movement for women's rights, fighting successfully for increased access to birth control, pushing for the creation and funding of domestic and international family planning programs, and playing a crucial role in the development of the pill and IUD (intrauterine device).

In 1948, Planned Parenthood had awarded a small grant to Gregory Pincus, a research biologist who undertook a series of tests leading to the development of the birth control pill. On May 9, 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the sale of oral pills for contraception. The pill is an instant hit and has enormous consequences in freeing women to control their lives. Finally women have an easy and reliable means to prevent unwanted pregnancies and plan their families.

Love that knows no bounds

God seemed so distant, so cold. Why had he allowed me to be raped in my own home as my babies slept in the next room? And why had he allowed my third child to be conceived in this way, instead of within the sanctity of marriage, as Steve and I had planned?

 

But God was there. Although sin had its run, God was there. We just had to be reminded that He is not a God of easy fixes. Steve and I became desperate, and sometimes it’s that human desperation that drives us to God. We know Him; we love Him; we say we trust Him. But sometimes, we do not cleave to Him as the lover of our souls until we find ourselves completely helpless.

 

As for the fairness of being victimized, we have to realize that ever since sin began there have been victims. Cain slew Abel (Gen. 4:1-8). Amnon raped Tamar (2 Sam. 13:1-22). But what should the victims and their families do with their pain? Do they resort to their own devices, or do they give it to God and His will?

 

An Innocent Life

 

Gradually, as the child in my body grew, both Steve and I began to change. It was a spiritual work. We grew attached to the little life inside me and delighted in its movements, just as we had marveled at the evidence of life when I carried Chad and Simon. This child was alive! It was a miracle that the child had escaped death.

It became clear that the baby was God’s child first, and it was as innocent as those conceived any other way. We grew astonished and ashamed that we could have ever imagined not keeping the baby.

Fallout

from the coming Demographic Winter has already begun to hit us.

Learn more.

Overpopulation is a myth.

Fertility Implosion

Already, nearly half the world’s population lives in countries with birthrates below the replacement level. According to the Census Bureau, the total increase in global manpower between 2010 and 2030 will be just half the increase we experienced in the two decades that just ended. At the same time, according to work by the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, the growth in educational attainment around the world is slowing. 

This leads to what the writer Philip Longman has called the gray tsunami — a situation in which huge shares of the population are over 60 and small shares are under 30. 

as reported in the NY Times

Duplicity isn't the half of it

In his piece Riler demolishes the notion that Planned Parenthood isn’t in the abortion business, and shows the duplicitousness of some commonly-repeated defenses of the organization:

o Planned Parenthood claims that abortion “constitutes 3%” of the company’s services. While technically true, an unorthodox calculation underlies that statistic. Planned Parenthood’s 3% calculation equally weights all products and services; for example, the calculation counts a condom, a pregnancy test and a $468 abortion the same. This is misleading and, as in any financial exercise, the correct assessment is a dollar-weighted one.
o At an average of $468 a head, Planned Parenthood collected $155 million in abortion revenues in 2009, or 38.4% of its health centre income.
o In the face of nationally falling abortions, down to 92% in 2009 versus 2000 levels, Planned Parenthood succeeded in growing its abortions by 68%.
o Planned Parenthood’s 2009-2010 Annual Report describes 329,445 abortions as compared to 841 adoption referrals. (!)
o Planned Parenthood’s average customer repeated business four times in 2010. That customer bought contraception, disease testing, pregnancy tests and abortions. Four times a year is a repeat rate more characteristic of a high-end retail business than an annual well-woman exam.

While some of the report’s assertions seem more debatable than others, that last tidbit about repeat customers is particularly worth noting because it  gets to Riler’s most important point: namely, that Planned Parenthood is a corporation, and one with a highly-refined business model at that. Though the organization likes to portray itself as the last refuge of single mothers and enlightener of the naive, it could not exist without a large amount of cynical acumen. Far from being a neutral observer or a Good Samaritan bystander, it has growth goals, well-tested methods, and a target audience.

Perhaps, though, a corporate analogy is overly generous, for it says nothing about the morality of the firm’s goals. To that end, near the conclusion of the article, Riler makes a more accurate, unsettling analogy: “Planned Parenthood’s effective business model was pioneered by drug pushers–give away freebies in anticipation of bigger-ticket sales when the customer is desperate.”

found at First Things

News from Natl.Right to Life

Temporarily thwarted in their efforts to build a clinic in Auburn Hills, Planned Parenthood will be opening a clinic in a different location in Oakland County, Michigan, one of the Detroit area’s northern suburbs.  Scheduled to open the first week of April, the new clinic in Ferndale will not offer abortions at this time, although abortion minded clients can be referred to the Planned Parenthood clinic in downtown Detroit which does offer the abortion pill.

The clinic planned for Auburn Hills was to be somewhat of a joint venture between Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan (PPMSM) and local, state, and federal governments (see April/May 2010 NRL News).  The Auburn Hills City Council met in December of 2010 to discuss plans to direct $200,000 in state  funds to open new 17,000 square foot Planned Parenthood facility in the area so that federal family planning dollars would not go elsewhere (Detroit News, 12/9/10).

Local opposition to the clinic ended up in court after owners of a hotel adjacent to the property who claimed that both city ordinances and a covenant signed prior to purchase of the land prohibited its use as a medical facility (Detroit Free Press, 6/24/11).   Though a judge upheld Planned Parenthood’s right to build at the Auburn Hills location in January (Detroit Free Press, 1/11/12), the hotel owners have appealed the decision.
While the Auburn Hills project languished in legal limbo, PPMSM looked around for other “opportunities” in Oakland County.  “It’s not either or,” Desiree Cooper, spokesperson for the local Planned Parenthood told the Ferndale Patch.  “With Auburn Hills, we prefer to think of it as not happening yet.  We just have to wait for the legal process to lend its way before we can go forward” (Ferndale Patch, 3/26/12).

City and county officials were very supportive of Planned Parenthood and the clinic’s opening.  Craig Covey, Ferndale’s previous mayor and currently an Oakland County commissioner, said on his blog that Ferndale was “proud” to be the new location. 

Covey said that “Political pressure from religious ultra-conservatives had kept Oakland County bereft of a formal Planned Parenthood presence for years.”  Covey repeats the popular Planned Parenthood mantra that 97% of its services are for “essential life-saving cancer screenings, pap smears, breast health services, STD treatment, health counseling, and education, but neglects to tell people how abortion is the huge money maker that keeps Planned Parenthood in business.  Covey says that “We are thankful that an organization like Planned Parenthood provides health care for so many people.  The alternative is much higher health costs in emergency rooms and for advanced disease that would be borne by us all” (Ferndale Patch, 3/26/12)

Current Ferndale Mayor David Coulter says that the clinic’s opening is “good news,” pointing out that Ferncare, the free local clinic, has been overwhelmed, with a waiting list that is months long.  That free clinic does not provide any ob-gyn care, says Ferncare board president Ann Heler, though she says that women ask for help with mammograms, Pap smears and birth control “all the time” (Detroit Free Press, 3/26/12)
That the new Ferndale clinic, like other Planned Parenthoods, will not actually offer mammograms, but only referrals for mammograms, that they will refer for abortions, that they will either charge clients for services or bill the state or federal government, so that taxpayers pay for the services, does not seem to trouble the clinic’s local allies.

What PPMSM saw in Ferndale, Auburn Hills, and Oakland County was an economic opportunity.  Its clinics in surrounding communities were already seeing what the Free Press called “about 5,000 Oakland County residents” (3/26/12)  PPMSM spokesperson Desiree Cooper told the Ferndale Palch that “Oakland County does have a particular reputation for (higher incomes),” but argued that there were many pockets of the community that “have really been suffering a really long time” (3/26/12).

According to a PPMSM factsheet, its clinics performed 1,333 surgical abortions and 991 chemical abortions in 2010, for a total of 2,324 (see www.plannedparenthood.org/midsouthmi/files/mid-south-michigan/FactSheet_PPMSM_v3.pdf).

Does anyone really expect that number to go down with a new Planned Parenthood clinic in the area referring (for now) for abortions and a new clinic slated to go up at the other end of the county as soon as the remaining legal hurdles are overcome?

--written by Randall K. O'Bannon

More than just abortions

The Planned Parenthood facility in Cedar Rapids does
not currently do surgical or RU-486 abortions. But the
40 Days for Life volunteers praying on the sidewalk
outside know they're making a difference.

"The response from people driving by has been very
positive lately," said Jim in Cedar Rapids, "and we've
seen some success."

When volunteers talk to clients about the things
Planned Parenthood does in other places, they start
to think about getting routine health services from
somewhere other than America's leading abortion chain.

They're also able to give information about local
pro-life resources to women who go there for
pregnancy tests.

They also heard from a teenager who had an appointment
to remove a contraceptive implant. "She said she would
rather be abstinent and not return as a client," Jim
said. "How often do you hear that from a teen that's
used Planned Parenthood's services for several years?"

Jim said with continued prayer, "we hope webcam (RU-486
distributed via the internet) and surgical abortions
never make it to Cedar Rapids -- or your community."

You can bet that once Planned Parenthood gets established in the largest facility in the state, they will be doing surgical, chemical, and webcam abortions. They will be infiltrating Lake Orion High School, Pontiac Northern, Adams, and Rochester High. And they will be talking to your teens without your consent!