Editor’s note. This editorial appeared on page two of the March digital edition of National Right to Life News. Please be sure to read the issue in its entirety and pass stories along to your pro-life friends and family.
It is a truism of sorts that because something is 100% expected, we can easily overlook its significance. Looked at another way, however, it is equally true that because the outcome is wholly predictable, it speaks volumes.
By way of illustration, the New York Times (the anti-life newspaper of record) recently ran a story that talked about informal discussions pro-life President Donald Trump had with the largest abortion provider in the known galaxy, Planned Parenthood. During the campaign, Mr. Trump made clear he was not opposed to federal funds going to Planned Parenthood if the nation’s largest provider of abortions got out of the abortion business.
“Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept,” huffed Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Providing critical health care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable.” So, just to be crystal-clear, decapitating a helpless unborn child is providing a “health care service.”
Even though Planned Parenthood continues to propagate the frequently dispelled falsehood that abortion makes up only 3% of the “services” it provides, it knows–we know–there is a lot at stake for PPFA which obliterates over 320,000+ unborn babies each and every year.
PPFA receives over half a billion [that’s billion with a “b”) dollars each year from the federal government. This helps explain why this $1.3 billion “non-profit” has tens of millions of dollars of “excess of revenues over expenses” left over each year and can afford to pay Cecile Richards in the neighborhood of a million dollars.
The Times reached out to President Trump who issued the following statement:
“As I said throughout the campaign, I am pro-life and I am deeply committed to investing in women’s health and plan to significantly increase federal funding in support of nonabortion services such as cancer screenings,” he said.
“Polling shows the majority of Americans oppose public funding for abortion, even those who identify as pro-choice. There is an opportunity for organizations to continue the important work they do in support of women’s health, while not providing abortion services.”
So how important is abortion to Planned Parenthood? First the raw numbers.
From its latest annual report, which came out at the beginning of 2016, we learned that clinics affiliated with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America performed 323,999 abortions in 2014. Even though the annual number of abortions has thankfully dropped below a million, PPFA continues to control its market share.
How does abortion stack up against the other “services” PPFA provides (and brags about incessantly)? Planned Parenthood said it delivered 11,238,414 patient “services” in 2009. But by 2014, the number was down to 9,455,582, according to the latest annual report.
Cancer screenings? They fell from 1,830,811 to just 682,208 in that same five-year period. “Breast exams/breast care” fell by more than half, from 830,312 in 2009 to 363,803 in 2014 and Pap smear tests dropped nearly two-thirds, from 904,820 to 271,539.
And if that weren’t enough, the “3%” figure also “neatly slides around how much aborting more than 330,000 children fattens PPFA’s bottom line,” said Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon, NRL Director of Education & Research. “At standard rates, that would represent over $150 million in revenues. And that doesn’t even count the additional dollars that accrue when PPFA performs more expensive chemical abortions or abortions later in pregnancy.”
In a nutshell, PPFA aborts and aborts and aborts some more, even though there has been a marked decline in the number of abortions, and those abortions generate over $150 million each year.
In his annual speech last year to the March for Life, pro-life champion Chris Smith (R-NJ) called Planned Parenthood “a significant tip of an ugly iceberg—a multibillion industry that systematically exterminates children and hurts women.”
With your permission, I’d like to quote extensively from one pivotal section of his remarks. They remind us of PPFA’s barbarism, its utter shamelessness, and what you are doing to fight the leader of the Abortion Establishment. Also these January 2016 remarks were 9 ½ months before Mr. Trump defeated pro-abortion heroine Hillary Clinton.
Rep. Smith said, “Subsidized by over $500 million taxpayers’ dollars each year, Planned Parenthood dismembers or chemically poisons a baby to death every two minutes—killing over seven million innocent children since 1973. Planned Parenthood is “Child Abuse Inc.”
“Recent undercover videos by Center for Medical Progress have exposed in numbing candor several high level Planned Parenthood leaders gleefully talking about procuring children’s organs for a price, all while altering gruesome dismemberment procedures to preserve “intact” livers, hearts and lungs from freshly killed babies. Watch the videos yourself at centerformedicalprogress.org.
“This isn’t the first time Planned Parenthood has been caught doing the unthinkable. …
“Far too many politicians including our Nobel Peace Prize winning President [Obama] and much of the media continue to ignore, trivialize—even defend—these gross human rights abuses.
“You are the antidote to the present darkness—the culture of death. So for the sake of women and children, be further involved. Defend life with all the courage, insight, compassion, and love you have to muster. Don’t back down or give up or get discouraged. Ever.
“Ask God for strength. Combine persistent prayer and Esther-like fasting with smart and diligent pro-life work at every level, including the political.
“Someday soon American policies will change and protect the weakest and most vulnerable. And into eternity you will have been an important part of that human rights struggle.”
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
