Planned Parenthood is a Scam

Washington DC, February 11, 2017 - Getty Images

APOLOGIA

By Hendrik van der Breggen

The Carillon, May 31, 2018

Planned Parenthood is a Scam

Planned Parenthood (PP) is North America's largest abortion provider, known for promoting abortion as a major means to help and show compassion to women and children. PP is also known for selling body parts of aborted fetuses.

Let's bracket discussion of PP's sale of baby parts for another column [update: Planned Parenthood Leaders Admit Under Oath to Harvesting Body Parts from Babies Born Alive]. Here are three (other) reasons for thinking PP is a scam.

1. Mother's Day

Last Mother's Day (May 13th), PP tweeted the following messages:

“Happy #MothersDay! Planned Parenthood is proud to celebrate mothers in the U.S. and around the world. We're committed to fighting for a world where all mothers can live healthy lives, and raise their children in peace.”

“Every woman should be able to decide if and when to be a mother.”

“All women should have the choice to do what they want with their own body.”

In response, Micaiah Bilger of LifeNews.com astutely offered the following critique:

“Though Planned Parenthood pretends otherwise, women who have abortions already are mothers. At the moment of their unborn child’s conception, they became mothers.”

Bilger adds: “And the abortions that Planned Parenthood sells by the hundreds of thousands a year do not give women a choice about 'if and when to be a mother.' They merely make women the mothers of dead babies.”

I would add: Yes, women should have the choice to do what they want with their own body, but abortion kills someone else's body.

PP promoting motherhood by killing children is like Habitat for Humanity reducing homelessness by killing the homeless.

2. Euphemism

The words “planned parenthood” are a euphemism.

A euphemism is a nice way of describing what is in fact not nice. My wife and I taught our young sons to say “I'm going to the washroom” (which is a euphemism) instead of “I'm going to take a ….” (you get the picture).

Because of PP's embrace and promotion of abortion (according to former PP employees, PP even has abortion quotas to help the PP organization stay financially flush), the name Planned Parenthood disguises the reality that “planning” one's family includes DESTROYING unwanted children.

Brutally.

Abortion tears babies' limbs from torsos, crushes babies' heads, and sucks babies' body parts through a tube that could probably serve as a shop-vac.

If the euphemism “planned parenthood” justifies killing one's children, then does “planning dinner” justify poisoning one's dinner guests?

3. Three percent

PP defends itself by arguing abortion is only a tiny bit—3%—of what PP does. But pro-life activist Lila Rose casts serious doubt on PP's claim:

“Planned Parenthood would like you to believe that abortion is only 3% of the total services they provide. 3%. Doesn't sound like very much, does it?”

“But here's how they get to that 3%. They count every 'discrete clinical interaction' as its own service.”

“What is a 'discrete clinical interaction'? Pretty much anything you do from the moment you walk into one of their clinics.”

“I'll give you an example. Let's say a woman comes into Planned Parenthood for one service: an abortion. Before providing an abortion, Planned Parenthood has to confirm that the woman is pregnant, right? So they administer another service: a pregnancy test. That's two services. Then, after the abortion on your way out the door, they hand you a prescription. That's three services.”

“And there are many other services provided during the abortion process that Planned Parenthood claims as 'discrete clinical interactions.'”

“In this way Planned Parenthood is able to rack up 9.5 million of these so-called services each year. Divide the number of abortions—321,000—by 9.5 million, and you get 3%.”

Rose continues: “Even the Washington Post, a Planned Parenthood ally, declared this 3% figure 'very misleading.'”

“Rich Lowry of National Review nicely illustrated this phony statistic: 'It would be like major league baseball saying they sell 20 million hotdogs, but only play 2,430 games, so baseball is only 0.012% of what they do.'”

PP is a scam.

For additional thought: 

• Alexandra Desanctis, What Planned Parenthood's Annual Report Proves (article)
• Calvin Freiburger,  BREAKING: New undercover videos expose Planned Parenthood covering up child sex abuse (article)
• Abby Johnson, unPlanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line (book)
• Carole Novielli,  Former Planned Parenthood board member: Defund this ‘racist’ organization (article)
• Lila Rose, Exposed: Planned Parenthood's Cover-Up of Child Sex Abuse (video series)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, Pro-Life Replies to Pro-Choice Arguments (column/s)

Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Providence University College. The views expressed in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.