December 17, 2010

Please send me your comments!

By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. Good evening and thanks for taking time to read TN&V and National Right to Life News Today. Part Two brings you up to date on "The Pro-Life Week in Review." Part Three reminds you us how desperate pro-abortionists are to hide that abortion DOES hurt women. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), we write about the thoughts of a British writer with MS as he contemplates what will happen when every genetic anomaly can be screened for. David Prentice offers a humorous take on the power of adult stem cells, and I end the week by reflecting on a wonderful email I received. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.
 

As dreadful as the contents are, Planned Parenthood's 2008-2009 Annual Report makes for compelling reading. [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/PPFA_Annual_Report_08-09-FINAL-12-10-10.pdf ]

Having gone through it twice, and aided immeasurably by the work of people who are far more knowledgeable about PPFA than I am, let's see what can be said about "The Promise of Change: Planned Parenthood Federation of America Annual report 2008-2009."

Some of the highlights, so to speak, include…

What is missing--the number of abortions (and the number of adoption referrals and prenatal clients), customary in prior years. Perhaps that's because, as we reported back in September, PPFA's Factsheet's revealed that abortions had jumped a whopping 6% to 324,008 while the number of adoption referrals had dropped by more than 10%.  We don't have reliable national count yet for 2008, but considered as a percentage of the latest national annual abortion figure the Guttmacher Institute reported for 2005, this would make Planned Parenthood responsible for 26.8% of all abortions performed in the U.S. This easily cements their place as America's top abortion chain. [See pie charts below.]

• The massive amounts of money PPFA receives from the government (in the form of grants and contracts): $363 million. While PPFA's 2008-2009 Annual Report does not break out  what portion of that $363 came from the FEDERAL government, the attached chart does show the correlation between increased government funding to PPFA and increased abortions conducted by PPFA.

• We see that PPFA was energized by the results of the November 2008 elections. "With the election of President Barack Obama, a self-described pro-choice President, Planned Parenthood launched reinvigorated advocacy campaign for ambitious policies" to…
  
  "achieve affordable, quality, comprehensive reproductive health care as part of health care reform" ; "expand access to reproductive health care through Medicaid in advance of health care reform"; "increase government funding for family planning programs": and [my description] stifle the conscience right of health care workers who oppose (among other things) abortion.

• Many pro-lifers may not realize the determination with which PPFA seeks to massively expand abortion internationally, particularly in countries that have protective laws. In the Annual Report we read (to pick four examples)

(1) "In Kenya, we worked with advocates who developed a grassroots campaign to increase public support for decriminalizing abortion." [For what that really means, see www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Oct10/nv100410part3.html]

(2) "Latin America and the Caribbean, we offered training for health center security and tracking groups hostile to women's health and family planning."

(3) "In northern Nigeria, we overcame the reluctance of a large religious organization to introduce basic reproductive health care through its more than 100 health centers.  Now, more than 60 of those centers offer birth control and refer women to private medical providers if they need a safe abortion."

(4) "We worked with the Obama administration to protect women's health and promote sexual and reproductive rights around the world, including overturning the global gag rule [Mexico City Policy] and restoring U.S. reproductive health and safe motherhood funding to the United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA]. 

There's much more that you can read at http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/PPFA_Annual_Report_08-09-FINAL-12-10-10.pdf, so let's finish up with two other salient points.

First, under the category 'Agents," the report lists Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who received the PPFA Margaret Sanger Award (named after its founder). "You may remember that under persistent questioning from pro-life Rep. Chris Smith Clinton finally admitted the truth. "We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women's health," Clinton told Smith. "And reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal, and rare." [http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/April09/nv042309.html]

Second, PPFA's power within pro-abortion circles grows and grows. After a series of recent mergers and disaffiliations, the group now has 95 affiliates. The group is said to have had more than double that number in 1979 (see NRL News, March 2008). Many of the larger, more profitable affiliates have gobbled up the smaller ones as the organization becomes leaner and quite literally, as the record number of abortions shows, meaner.

Part Two
Part Three