Angela Chininin Buele

My family drives by the Planned Parenthood abortion facility when we go into the city.  We have prayed passing by, and we have prayed standing on the sidewalk outside of their building.  The prayer is simply to lead people to give thanks for life –theirs and others’– and to see an end to abortion.

On one occasion, we even went inside the building to inform the staff that the state flag was hung upside-down on their flag pole.  That was a very stressful event.  Even though we were doing them a favor by letting them know, I was actually a little scared of what the reaction might be when my husband told them that we had been praying for the people in the building when he noticed the incorrectly positioned flag.  The employee questioned us curiously about our sidewalk prayer, but there was no angry escort to the door.

We have not returned since, but I recently decided to fact-check all of the information I am told about Planned Parenthood by my pro-life sources. I’d like to tell you about those findings.

The official Planned Parenthood web site is not pink, surprisingly.  As it turns out, pink is the preferred color for the side of Planned Parenthood that drives the abortion rights political activity.  The official site’s pages is mostly blue, white, and orange.

The Learn page has an alphabetical list of topics, and Abortion is the first item.  On that same list, you can find a link for the Pregnancy page.  Clicking on the Pregnancy Week by Week link takes you to a very informative chronological description of the child’s development and the common symptoms the mother may be going through at that same stage.  I was surprised to find that there are appropriate illustrations showing the child’s growth each month.  But, back on the Abortion page, descriptions are much shorter, and more vague.  And there aren’t any illustrations.  There is a video, but it is just as vague about medical facts and abortion procedures as the written material.

I see that since abortion starts with the first letter of the alphabet, it is accurately placed at the top of the list on the list of topics about which one might learn.  However, if you click on the Pregnancy Options link on the Pregnancy page, the options are given in this order: abortion, adoption, and parenting.  That seems odd to me, but the Abortion page does inform readers at the very top of the page that abortions performed in the first trimester can cost anywhere up to $1,500.  Since that money would benefit Planned Parenthood, it makes sense for their business to highlight that “service” at the top of list.  After all, adoption and parenting don’t profit PP.

The Get Care page has options for finding a PP location, getting birth control, urinary tract infection (UTI) treatment, or sexually transmitted disease (STD) testing, all online.  There is no reference to abortion here.

The Get Involved page leads you to another site that is not bi-partisan, as the official site claims to be, and is actually quite clear about who should be voted for and who should be ousted.

On the Who Are We page, “abortion” appears zero times, while the pledge to help “prevent” or “reduce” unintended pregnancies appears four times.  This makes it sound like they are a group dedicated to preventing unintended pregnancies, not the nation’s largest provider of abortion, which ends the life of a child in order to terminate, not prevent, a pregnancy.

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/pregnancy/stages-pregnancy

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion

Key Question: What is the comprehensive cultural contribution of Planned Parenthood?

Unshakable Truth: “There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death”  (Proverbs 16:25).

While there may be cancer screenings available at Planned Parenthood facilities, is that really a service unavailable at doctors’ offices and hospitals?  Those places accept patients with low incomes who likely qualify for Medicaid.  What else do they offer -sex education, contraceptives, and mammogram referrals?  Planned Parenthood doesn’t corner the market on any of those services.  What they do more of than any other organization is end the lives of unborn children.  But their annual report from 2014-2015 shows that only 3% of their “services” are abortions.  That does NOT say that only 3% of their revenue comes from abortion or that only 3% of the clients they see seek abortions.  I think those would be very interesting statistics to learn.

The truth is that they work to expand access to abortions.  And since I don’t imagine that any of their other services cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, increasing the number of abortions they perform would increase their profit.  It seems right to the CEO, Cecile Richards.  Some pro-abortion advocates saying abortion is right “because it’s legal” seems right to them.  The problem is that the way that seems right to them ends in death, which is, in fact, the goal of every abortion performed.

The Real Choice: Do you “stand with” some people as an abortion advocate or with all people as a pro-life advocate?