LIFE DIGEST: Planned Parenthood finds way to use Mother’s Day
- May 13, 2008 - 1
The country’s leading abortion provider celebrated Mother’s Day by asking for donations in honor of mothers. Inconceivable, you might say—not if it is Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).
PPFA, which recorded nearly 290,000 abortions at its affiliates in 2006, promoted Mother’s Day giving on its website in the days leading to May 11. Under the home-page heading “Planned Parenthood Celebrates Mother’s Day,” PPFA told visitors to its website they could make “a gift in honor of your mother or someone else you love this Mother’s Day.”
A link took visitors to a form on the web site for credit card donations. The form included a space for the name of the person in whose honor or memory the gift was to be given. It also enabled the donor to include a person to whom a Mother’s Day card could be sent from PPFA.
“For Planned Parenthood to ask for ‘Mother’s Day Gifts’ is beyond appalling,” said Janet Morana, co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness campaign, in a written statement. “This is an organization that has turned Mother’s Day into a painful reminder of terminated children for millions and millions of women. To ask for money on this day so that it can traumatize even more women is the ultimate in insensitivity.”
Silent No More describes itself as the world’s largest network of women and men harmed by abortion.
PPFA President Cecile Richards and pro-choice actresses Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow wrote emails asking for Mother’s Day gifts to Planned Parenthood, according to LifeNews.com.
“We think that Mother’s Day is the perfect time to think about what it means to support mothers in this country,” Danner and her daughter, Paltrow, wrote in their email, LifeNews reported. “There is no organization that we know of that supports motherhood and all that it means more than Planned Parenthood.”
It does not appear PPFA lacks funds. It surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time last year, more than $336 million of that coming in government grants and contracts.
Human-chimp hybrid possible under British bill, bioethicist warns
A pending British law could pave the way for the creation of a human-ape hybrid species, a Scottish bioethicist has warned.
The draft version of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in Parliament does not prohibit human sperm from being implanted into animals, said Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, in an interview with The Scotsman. The bill bars, however, the placement of animal sperm in a woman, according to the Scottish newspaper.
When MacKellar asked the Department of Health to revise the draft, it acknowledged the bill does not block human insemination of an animal, The Scotsman reported. The department, however, said it was impossible for a human-animal offspring to result.
MacKellar disagreed.
Humans and apes are related closely enough chromosomally that insemination of a female chimpanzee with human sperm could possibly produce the birth of a hybrid, he said.
“The chromosomal difference between a goat and a sheep is greater than between humans and chimpanzees,” MacKellar told The Scotsman.
It is “very likely” scientists would try to produce such a human-ape hybrid if such experimentation is not banned, he said. Scientists may use the method in an effort to provide greatly needed organs for transplant into human beings, he said.
Archbishop warns pro-choice Kansas governor about communion
A Roman Catholic archbishop has again asked pro-choice Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius not to receive communion.
Joseph Naumann of the archdiocese of Kansas City, Kan., wrote Sebelius, a Democrat, after learning she recently had received communion in a parish, repeating a request he had made of her in August. In his most recent request, Naumann asked the governor “to respect my previous request and not require from me any additional pastoral actions,” he said in a column in the May 9 edition of the archdiocese’s newspaper. He has asked her to renounce her support of abortion, the archbishop said.
He has met with Sebelius “several times over many months to discuss with her the grave spiritual and moral consequences of her public actions by which she has cooperated in the procurement of abortions performed in Kansas,” Naumann said. “The spiritually lethal message” sent by Sebelius, “as well as many other high profile Catholics in public life, has been in effect, ‘The church’s teaching on abortion is optional!,’” he said.
The archbishop said he hoped his request “will provoke her to reconsider the serious spiritual and moral consequences of her past and present actions.”
In his column, Naumann referred to Sebelius’ several vetoes of pro-life legislation, including, most recently, an April 21 rejection of a bill that would have strengthened restrictions on second- and third-term abortions.
He also cited the governor’s acceptance of campaign donations from George Tiller, the country’s best known late-term abortion doctor.
Tiller’s Wichita clinic, Women’s Health Care Services, advertises on its website it has “more experience in late abortion services over 24 weeks than anyone else currently practicing in the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Australia.” Tiller’s clinic is a major reason Kansas has been described as “the late-term abortion capital of America.”
Appeals court upholds ruling on Plan B
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined May 1 to overturn a lower-court decision protecting the rights of pro-life pharmacists for the time being.
A three-judge panel voted 2-1 to uphold federal judge Ronald Leighton’s November opinion that blocked enforcement of Washington state rules requiring pharmacists to fill prescriptions for Plan B, also known as the “morning-after” pill. Leighton had said the regulations appeared to violate the free exercise of religion. He also ruled, however, a pharmacist who objects to dispensing Plan B must refer the customer to another pharmacy.
The appeals court panel, however, granted the state’s request for the oral arguments to be expedited, setting June 3 as the date.
Plan B, also known as emergency contraception, is basically a heavier dose of birth control pills, but it has abortifacient qualities. The drug works to restrict ovulation in a woman, but it also can act after conception, thereby causing an abortion, pro-lifers point out. This mechanism of the drug blocks implantation of a tiny embryo in the uterine wall.
Prescriptions for Plan B are required only for minors in the United States. The federal government’s Food and Drug Administration approved in 2006 the non-prescription sale of Plan B for use by women 18 and older.
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
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1 On May 19th, 2008, at 9:32am, Lynda wrote:
I find it apalling that Planned Parenthood would try and endorse thier pro-abortion stance by apealing to one’s love and devotion to ones’ mother who by the way did choose life or they would not be alive to celebate Mother’s Day! Isn’t it interesting that these people are trying to promote heir Mother’s by giving more mother’s the opportunity to get rid of their own children through abortion. What is a Mother? One who bears her children and loves them before they are even born. She protects and nutures her children. I cannot fathom using Mother’s Day at the expense of hundreds of innocent babies who will never get a chance to wish their mom’s Happy Mother’s Day because their mother’s chose abortion over giving their baby a chance to live.
I think the whole things smells of hypocricy.