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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
It was a devilishly clever idea.
On February 2, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin called Paul’s Pantry — part of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a well-respected Catholic charity — and asked if a truck could be sent over to pick up a donation of food.
Regardless of Paul’s Pantry’s response, Planned Parenthood wins. Either Paul’s Pantry sends a truck, which gives Planned Parenthood an astonishingly self-serving photo op, or else Paul’s Pantry refuses, which gives Planned Parenthood the opportunity to unload on them with both barrels and claim that Planned Parenthood is a genuine humanitarian service agency, while this Catholic charity is “extremist” or something and doesn’t really care about feeding hungry people.
Paul’s Pantry smelt a rat from the beginning. [Continue reading ...]
Susan G. Komen for the Cure has been taking a beating from Planned Parenthood’s powerful friends in the media and even in Congress in the wake of their decision not to fund Planned Parenthood anymore. They’ve just released a statement setting the record straight on why they’re no longer giving these grants:
Statement from Susan G. Komen for the Cure
February 1, 2012We are dismayed and extremely disappointed that actions we have taken to strengthen our granting process have been widely mischaracterized. It is necessary to set the record straight.
Starting in 2010, Komen began an initiative to help us do a better job of measuring the impact of community grants. This is important because we invest significant dollars in our local community programs—$93 million in 2011, which provided for 700,000 breast health screenings and diagnostic procedures.
Following this review, we made the decision to implement stronger performance criteria for our grantees to minimize duplication and free up dollars for direct services to help vulnerable women. To support this new granting strategy, Komen has also implemented more stringent eligibility standards to safeguard donor dollars. Consequently, some organizations are no longer eligible to receive Komen grants.
Some might argue that our standards are too exacting, but over the past three decades people have given us more than just their money. They have given us their trust and we take that responsibility very seriously.
We regret that these new policies have impacted some longstanding grantees, such as Planned Parenthood, but want to be absolutely clear that our grant-making decisions are not about politics. Throughout our 30 year history, our priority has always been and will continue to be the women we serve. As we move forward, we are working to ensure that there is no interruption or gaps in services for the women who need our support most in the fight against breast cancer.
Planned Parenthood is trying to bully Komen into giving them those grants again. But they’ve brought this on themselves, with all their lies about doing mammograms and all the other dishonesty and deception that marks how they do business.
Late yesterday evening, news broke that the breast cancer education and research organization Susan G. Komen for the Cure would no longer be donating to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain.
Pro-life groups across the country—including the Pro-Life Action League are applauding Komen for this decision.
Komen had been making large grants to Planned Parenthood since 2005—over $625,000 in 2010, for example—which were supposed to be earmarked for breast cancer screening and education.
Pro-lifers objected to these grants not only because any support for Planned Parenthood ultimately means contributing to their abortion business, but because of the mounting evidence that abortion actually increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer. [Continue reading ...]
Planned Parenthood recently released their annual report [PDF] for the 2009-2010 year, and the numbers revealed some very interesting information.
Jill Stanek reports the downward trend in most of their numbers, making Planned Parenthood look like a company in decline. And, as usual, Jim Sedlak at STOPP has an intricate breakdown of everything the numbers can tell us.
But if you’ve only been listening to Planned Parenthood’s rhetoric for the last year or so, you’d never know they were the largest abortion chain in America. You might think they were a breast exam and cancer screening business who did an abortion once a few years back. [Continue reading ...]
I wouldn’t exactly call it the highlight of Advent, but today marked the return of an annual experience for me since I signed up for Planned Parenthood’s e-mails a few years back: receiving an e-mail from Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards wishing me a Merry Christmas “healthy and safe holiday season.” (See the message in its entirety here.)
Of course, the message was really just a fundraising appeal. It contained three links to their donations page within the message itself, not to mention the big pink “GIVE NOW” button that was impossible to miss. Only one sentence of the e-mail was written in boldface — because, of course, this was the one thing they wanted to focus their members’ attention on, so as to gin up donations:
Opponents of women’s health haven’t given up—day in and day out, they’re attacking Planned Parenthood and every woman’s right to make her own medical decisions.
“Opposing women’s health,” “attacking women’s rights” — same old, same old. We’ve heard it all a thousand times before.
Note also that Richards trotted out the tired old “Choice on Earth” slogan for this year’s Christmas holiday message.
What this tells us is that Planned Parenthood has nothing new to offer.
I have to agree with Richards on at least one point, though. Her opening paragraph reads: [Continue reading ...]
Planned Parenthood in Kansas has been under investigation since 2003, spearheaded by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Kline brought charges in 2007 of 107 counts of falsifying abortion records and committing illegal late-term abortions, 23 of which are felonies.
Today the judge in the case granted prosecutors two weeks to re-work their case based on new evidence that records crucial to the case were destroyed in 2005 under the watch of then Kansas governor and current Obama Administration Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. The League protested Sebelius earlier this month when she spoke at a NARAL luncheon.
It also appears that Planned Parenthood may have falsified records to make it appear that they had complied with record-keeping laws after the fact.
Sebelius was a known ally of Planned Parenthood and notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller, both of whom filled her campaign coffers with large donations, but it’s surprising that even she would sink to the depths of destroying evidence to protect her cronies.
The story is developing and we’ll know more when prosecutors return to court after reviewing the evidence. Until then, get the full story from these reports:
In an interview published yesterday in the Oregon paper Williamette Week, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards was asked about her annual salary — nearly $400,000 — and why Planned Parenthood has shied away from publicly commenting on the widespread belief that such an amount is a bit extravagant for the head of a non-profit organization that receives over $360 million of your tax dollars annually.
Richards’ answer: “I work hard for my salary.”
She continued her dismissive response by proclaiming, “Planned Parenthood is the most cost-effective provider of family planning services in this country.”
The interviewer apparently didn’t ask any follow-up questions. That’s a pity, because it would have been interesting to see how Richards would have responded if she’d been asked how she squares her belief about PP’s unparalleled cost-effectiveness with the recent finding that increasing government funding of Planned Parenthood has had zero effect on the rate of unintended pregnancy nationwide. [Continue reading ...]
Joe Scheidler (right) with St. Joseph Right to Life County President Tom Gill [Photo by Ann Scheidler]
On Thursday, October 6, League Director Joe Scheidler gave the keynote address at the 20th anniversary celebration of St. Joseph County Right to Life in South Bend, Indiana. Joe had also been the speaker at the group’s inaugural banquet in March 1992.
Scheidler congratulated Indiana on its decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood, a move that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius immediately objected to, claiming that Indiana had no right to make such a determination. Scheidler assured the crowd that many other states are watching the drama over de-funding Planned Parenthood, with the aim of taking the same action.
Scheidler emphasized the importance of prayer and action in our battle against abortion. As a former Benedictine seminarian, he still adheres to St. Benedict’s motto, Ora et Labora — Pray and Work. “Prayer is essential,” said Scheidler. “But it is not enough. We have to take action to change the culture.” [Continue reading ...]
Gloria Steinem gave a talk last week at a $100-a-head fundraiser for Planned Parenthood in Princeton, New Jersey, and make no mistake: she didn’t fail to bring the way over-the-top rhetoric:
“There is no organization in this country or the world that is more important than Planned Parenthood” — a proclamation that self-evidently illustrates how out-of-touch with reality she is.
Yet there is another remark Steinem made at the event that merits our consideration. Writer Michele Angermiller reports that Steinem told the crowd “she can’t believe that people in 2011 are still debating such issues as contraception, abortion and a woman’s right to choose.”
Think about that for a minute. [Continue reading ...]
Eric Scheidler’s post earlier this week shone a spotlight on Planned Parenthood’s failure to reduce unintended pregnancy in the U.S., despite receiving ever increasing taxpayer funding.
Following on his commentary, I thought it would be worth taking a closer look at another element of the seemingly endless “How can we reduce unintended pregnancy?” debate: namely, so-called emergency contraception (hereafter: EC).
Today I came across a press release dated September 2, 1998 from a company called Gynétics (which at the time was based in New Jersey, but is now based in Belgium). The release announced that the their product, Preven, had just become the “first FDA-approved product for emergency contraception that can prevent pregnancy when used within 72 hours” after sex.
The press release contained this comment from one Dr. Anita Nelson, an Ob/Gyn professor at UCLA:
It is estimated that nearly 50 percent of all abortions and unintended pregnancies in this country could be avoided if women had access to emergency contraception.
That’s no small prediction. And looking back, it’s turned out to be hopelessly wrong. [Continue reading ...]
