Evil in the World: Thoughts about Planned Parenthood. This is my link to my Theological THU 7/30 blog entry.

My first "official" interaction w/Planned Parenthood was as a first-time administrator. The Lincoln, NE, United Way coordinator paid me a visit to drop off United Way envelopes, which we had been getting for several years. He just wanted to introduce himself to me, since I was the new principal, & give me a pep talk about distributing the envelopes & brochures & encouraging my faculty & staff to contribute; also taking the lead by setting a good example. It was a cordial conversation, & I distributed the envelopes & brochures in mailboxes, which had been the tradition.

I don't know if anyone else ever contributed. I know that I never contributed, because I had my own charities that I supported. I do know that I had never taken the time to browse through the information & find out which community charities benefited from United Way. This time, however, after I had already distributed the materials, I took the time to glance through the material. 

I discovered to my dismay that one of the "charities" that benefited from United Way was Planned Parenthood. I pulled the envelopes & brochures back out of the mailboxes [I was younger & more self-righteous] & sent off a letter to the United Way coordinator, explaining that I could NOT support United Way because of its partnership with Planned Parenthood. I was specific about my reason. Planned Parenthood was involved in the abortion industry. Our school was an educational ministry of the LCMS, which was very public in its stand against abortion. Therefore, our support for such an organization was incompatible with our mission & ministry.

I received a phone call from a Planned Parenthood representative several days later. He was very polite & explained to me that (1) I was undoubtedly misinformed about the nature of the mission of Planned Parenthood; & (2) although he admitted that Planned Parenthood was involved in abortions, it was a very, very small part of its overall mission, which he painted as performing very necessary health care services for the under-served women of southeast Nebraska. 

My response:  

• I knew a lot more about Planned Parenthood than he realized.
• It seemed to be common knowledge that PP provided a van, which traveled to the high schools & possibly junior high schools of the community, in order to transport young women under the age of consent to abortion clinics in order to have abortions.
• What did he have to say about that?

He said he would get back to me, but once again he assured me that I was sadly mistaken about my perceptions of PP. I don't remember that he ever got back to me.

Excerpt from Lincoln Journal Star (7/26):  "Planned Parenthood's work is worst of the world's atrocities." By Christine M. Flowers, a lawyer & columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. "When I started doing asylum work almost 20 ears ago, the comfortable cocoon that had been built around me by the nuns & then Bryn Mawr & then my first few jobs in the courtroom & then the classroom began to crumble. It was only when I started handling the cases of people who had been tortured for their beliefs, or their ethnicity, or their political principles, or simply because they wanted more than one baby to love, that I realized the depth of humanity . . . 

          "Asylum work heightens your perception of evil & at the same time teaches you to expect it in unexpected places . . . 

          "By now you must know I'm talking about Planned Parenthood. If you support that organization because of all the 'good' it supposedly does for women, you might want to stop reading now.

          "By now, we've all seen at least some parts of the videos filmed by the Center for Medical Progress, an admittedly anti-abortion organization. They are not the work of unbiased scientists or documentarians interested in creating informative but bland features about the ins & outs of medical research. Clearly, these videos were designed to anger, to incite, & to indict an entire industry that has grown exponentially since 1973, when Roe v. Wade made it legal to mutilate a fetus in each of the 50 states. Not even the most dedicated anti-abortion activist would deny that these videos are a cinematic 'J'accuse' against a practice that dehumanizes what is inconveniently human:  the 2nd-&-3rd trimester fetus. [My comment:  First, I believe that human life begins at conception. Two, that's why I always prefer talking about unborn babies, not fetuses, but this isn't my editorial.] I would personally argue that the moment egg meets sperm a human life is created, but the point of this column is not to convince you that life begins at conception. That is wasted breath, & I have a more urgent obligation.

          "The point of this column is to scream that what is depicted in both the edited & full-length videos that came to light this week transcends the horrors that I've studied in my office, presented to judges & tried to extinguish with the help of a benevolent government

 . . . [Anybody else remember the video, "Silent Scream?"]

          "No amount of obfuscation about how this 'tissue' can help cure cancer or give sight to the blind or restore paralyzed limbs to grace changes the fact that Planned Parenthood engages in the most repulsive & hideous of practices:  exploitation of a mutilated human body. And all of the editorials, written by skittish eugenicists, & all of the tap dancing done by self-righteous feminists will not hide that grisly fact." [emphasis added]

Abortion is evil. Millions of unborn children have been slaughtered since Roe v. Wade became the "law of the land" in 1973. Read through the Old Testament prophets & you can't help but be chilled by God's repeated judgment on those who oppress the most vulnerable of society. And why wouldn't that include the unborn?

Scripture warns us that we are not to judge what's in the hearts of others, for we will surely be judged by the same measure. I confess that it is hard for me not to hate Planned Parenthood, those who promote & practice & encourage abortion, & those who legislate & lobby & rule on its behalf. That's a sin, & it's one I must continually repent of.

However, what is in our heart is known by the fruit we produce, & the fruit produced by Planned Parenthood is evil. Need more proof? When Lois was working on her Masters in Family Life Ministry, she had to take a course in Sexuality & the Family. This required a lot of research, & I must say, a lot of it was very, very depressing.

In the course of her research, Planned Parenthood was thoroughly vetted. See for yourself. Go to their web site, but don't stop at their home page. Keep digging. Keep following the links, & I think you will be surprised, no, I think you will be outraged at what this organization sincerely believes & practices.

I have more to say about Planned Parenthood & abortion, but this entry has gone on long enough, so I'll bring it to a close. My prayer is for Christ to soften the hearts of those who have been blinded by Satan & the culture of our day to turn a blind eye to the horror of abortion & the evil of this organization.