Lent begins tomorrow, so I hope you are celebrating Fat Tuesday in style! The spring national campaign of 40 Days for Life also beings tomorrow—we pray for the success of all 130 campaigns that will be taking place worldwide.
Lenten Prayer Guides
Even if your town is not participating in this spring’s campaign, you can direct your prayers towards saving babies and converting abortionists. You can register for daily devotionals focused on these themes at the 40 Days for Life website.
And in case you’re still looking for other Lenten prayer guides, a friend sent me a great link called Praying Lent from Creighton’s Online Ministries. I hope you dive into this time of Lent and use it to more deeply understand just how much Jesus loved us.
Participating in pro-life activism can certainly remind you of this. As I stood outside the Eola Community Center in Aurora earlier this month for an hour I realized that my Savior hung on the Cross for three times that long. That thought made me stop whining instantly!
FRC Seeks To Defund Planned Parenthood
The Family Research Council (FRC) has launched a new campaign to get state governments to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. Tom McClusky, vice president for government affairs, commented that with a $1 billion budget and $114 million operating surplus, “Planned Parenthood has proven that they don’t need federal or state handouts.” He continued, “During these economic times, when states are rethinking their investments, subsidizing abortion is probably not the kind of thing that they want to be known for.”
Guttmacher Institute Study Urges Increased Funding For Planned Parenthood
The FRC campaign, and other efforts taking place at a national level, are probably the reason the Guttmacher Institute has released their latest study. Their study claims that “publicly funded family planning prevents nearly 2 million unintended pregnancies and more than 800,000 abortions each year.” This despite the fact that their past research has shown that 54% of women seeking abortions were using contraception when they became pregnant. Hmmm.
Even more interesting is the description the Chicago Sun-Times gave of the Guttmacher Institute is “a think tank whose research is generally respected even by activists who don’t share its advocacy of abortion rights.” Using their research on how many abortions are performed each year does not mean we “respect” their research, but that’s another story.
Now, jumping to the last two sentences of the story, we see the real problem: “The report also endorses legislation that would increase funding for Title X family planning. Some conservatives dislike Title X because one of its big recipients is Planned Parenthood, a major provider of abortions.”
Nowhere does this Associated Press story mention that Guttmacher is Planned Parenthood’s research arm. There is no mention of the intimate ties these two organizations have to each other. And Planned Parenthood isn’t just “a major provider of abortions”—they’re America’s #1 abortion provider! So should we be surprised when their research says that we should support their parent organization? Yet this is reported as if it’s an unbiased study! It’s enough to make my head spin.
