Author Archives: Micaiah

Yesterday I discovered two strong pro-life columns in, surprisingly, the New York Times. Pro-life columnist Ross Douthat expertly tackles some tough questions that are often thrown at pro-lifers, questions about men and abortion, poverty, back alley abortions, and the criminal implications if abortion becomes illegal again.

Douthat answers a series of questions posed by abortion activist Katha Pollitt. Though long, his thoughtful columns are worth reading.

For example, Pollitt asks: “Men. You want to force women to carry every pregnancy to term, but the fact that men can easily walk away does not seem to interest you much. What are the responsibilities of men to avoid getting women pregnant, to support them while they are pregnant, to provide for mother and child? And what measures would you promote to enforce those responsibilities?”

Douthat responds:

“… one of the more commonplace pro-life arguments is that the current abortion regime is itself a gift to men who want “to easily walk away,” itself a legal and cultural enabler of male irresponsibility, on a profound, society-altering scale. Here pro-lifers are fond of citing (as I’ve been known to do) the famous Janet Yellen and George Akerlof paper linking legal abortion and rising out-of-wedlock birthrates, which suggested — quite reasonably, I think — that Roe dramatically changed male incentives around sex and marriage, and significantly weakened the relational power of women when they do get pregnant: “By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother,” they wrote, “the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father.” That argument obviously need not imply pro-life conclusions; indeed, Akerlof and Yellen are themselves pro-choice. But it lends the pro-life view of things a certain coherence on this front: We believe in male responsibility, and we think that your preferred policies, not ours, are the ones that made it far too easy for men to wash their hands of their most primal, powerful, essential responsibilities.”

The abortion issue does involve some tough questions, and they deserve serious consideration and thoughtful responses from us. It’s these questions that often influence people on the fence to hop to one side or the other. Douthat and great pro-life thinkers like Francis Beckwith provide strong, thoughtful pro-life answers that help those fence people see the truth about abortion.

It’s important that we learn from them so we can respond to the tough questions, too. Because we’re not just defending beliefs or philosophies here, we’re defending LIVES.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health responded this week to pro-lifers’ calls to investigate Planned Parenthood.

“… there is no evidence that any Planned Parenthood site in this commonwealth is involved in the buying or selling of fetal tissue,” wrote State Secretary of Health Karen Murphy in a letter publicized by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Instead, the Pennsylvania sites contract with medical waste vendors to dispose the aborted babies’ bodies, according to Murphy’s letter.

Pro-lifers asked Pennsylvania officials to investigate the abortion giant after a series of undercover videos call into question whether it illegally profits off the sale of aborted babies’ body parts. Other states and two federal Congressional committees also are doing investigations.

Planned Parenthood aborts more preborn babies than any other group in Pennsylvania and the U.S. That’s more than 17,000 babies a year in Pennsylvania and more than 330,000 preborn babies in the U.S., dead at the hands of Planned Parenthood.

Whether Planned Parenthood’s Pennsylvania affiliates are selling aborted babies’ body parts or not, it’s important to remember: They are making a profit killing babies in the womb. And that’s a tragedy we all should be working to end.

I’m always on the lookout for good pro-life teaching resources for parents.

Teaching pro-life values is something I often emphasize when I give pro-life talks. I think a lot of it has to do with my own experiences.

My parents taught me to respect and value every human being. They took me to the March for Life. They adopted my youngest sister after their four older children left the nest. They actively support our local pregnancy resource center and homeless shelter. They help and show love to people who are outcasts – and so much more.

My parents have made such a positive impact on my life and my work in the pro-life movement, and I don’t take that for granted. It’s a huge task to teach children good values; and the issue of abortion, as personal and political and emotional as it is, can be a difficult topic to breach.

The other day, a friend sent me a great resource for parents that’s particularly relevant as summer ends and students head back to school or college. The short teaching guide by Students For Life gives six suggested ways parents can talk with their teens about life.

It’s critical, Students for Life says, because “47% of women entering college identify themselves as pro-life, however, only 27% remain pro-life at graduation. Furthermore, college-aged women obtain approximately 46% of all abortions nationally.”

If you’re a parent or grandparent, please consider taking a few minutes to read, “6 Ways to Keep Your Kids Pro-Life.” Then, have a conversation with your student about the value of every human life.

Planned Parenthood’s reputation is on shaky ground after a whistleblower claimed that its facilities take aborted babies’ bodies without the mother’s consent.

In a sixth video released by the Center for Medical Progress, a former StemExpress employee shared shocking details about when she worked with Planned Parenthood to harvest aborted babies’ body parts. Watch it here.

Holly O’Donnell said part of her job with StemExpress was to go into Planned Parenthood facilities and ask women to consent to donate their aborted babies’ bodies.

In one case, a woman who was later in her pregnancy refused to donate, but O’Donnell said the abortion center took her baby’s body anyway.

“If there was a higher gestation, and the technicians needed it, there were times when they would just take what they wanted,” O’Donnell said. “And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”

How would women ever know? It seems so simple, so plausible that Planned Parenthood could be quietly filling orders for aborted babies’ body parts without the mother’s knowledge or consent. Planned Parenthood must be investigated to find out if this is true.

This new revelation isn’t that surprising. Planned Parenthood has long been betraying women by lying to them about their preborn babies, covering up sexual abuse, denying all abortion risks, and telling women they can’t handle motherhood yet.

And their business is killing preborn babies – 330,000 a year.

This week, in the midst of newly released undercover videos of Planned Parenthood, a friend reminded me of how the news is affecting people who’ve experienced abortion.

These videos show the terrible reality of what happens in abortion centers: preborn babies are crushed and torn apart and their body parts are harvested. These videos are hard enough for me to watch. I can’t imagine how difficult they must be for women and men whose babies were aborted.

Karen Perez, who had an abortion just after she was married, told a Texas news channel that the past few weeks have been very difficult for her as she watched the Planned Parenthood scandal unfold.

“These videos are just opening up a lot of memories for a lot of women. For me, it’s memories that I never imagined I’d see,” Perez said.

Perez said she originally believed the lie that her preborn baby wasn’t a baby yet.

“It was just a blob of tissue. And I believed that, I believed that it was just a blob of tissue,” Perez said, “until five years later when we had a child — we had three more children — and I saw the ultrasound, and I saw the little hands and the little feet.”

Today, Perez helps other women like herself find healing from the pain and regret of their abortions. Watch the full story here.

Theresa Burke, Ph.D., founder of the post-abortion healing ministry Rachel’s Vineyard, recently wrote a column in response to the horrific undercover videos, calling for our society to help families grieve the loss of their preborn babies to abortion.

“I know the women and men I serve never bargained for the assaultive flashbacks and nightmares they suffer as fragments of trauma shear into their consciousness,” Burke wrote. “The images that constitute their waking and sleeping hours are like fortress prisons of guarded depression, anxiety, avoidance, numbing behaviors, and grief. This is what I have witnessed from a lifetime of listening to stories of abortion from all over the world, as women and men, grandparents and siblings grieve the members of their family who are not here anymore.”

If you know someone who is hurting after an abortion, tell them about Rachel’s Vineyard, a confidential, caring post-abortion healing program for women and men. Learn more at RachelsVineyard.org.

Dear Senator Casey,

A book on our office shelf bears the noble title, “Fighting for Life.” It tells the story of one man’s heroic defense of the sanctity and dignity of human life. The book bears the signature “Bob Casey.” But it was not written by you. It was written by your father, whose name you share. What an honor that is.

Governor Casey wrote of the challenges he faced as a pro-life Democrat. As he recounted an appearance before the Democratic platform committee, he wrote, “How, I concluded, could this party, which claimed to leave no one out and no one behind, abandon the most vulnerable and defenseless member of the human family—the unborn child?”

Gov. Casey requested an opportunity to speak at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. He wrote a letter to the party chairman to make the request: “The platform committee draft…has the effect of placing the national party even more squarely within the abortion-on-demand camp. I believe this is a serious mistake for the party and would like the opportunity to present this point of view, shared by many Democrats, to the convention.”

He eventually saw a letter, which was not even addressed to him, saying his request to speak was out of order and would be denied.

Also in 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld most of the provisions of Pennsylvania’s landmark Abortion Control Act, which provides for parental consent, informed consent, and a 24-hour waiting period for abortions. The court case was titled, “Planned Parenthood v. Casey.” Planned Parenthood took on your father and, for the most part, the abortion giant lost.

More than 20 years later, you have embraced the very organization that took your father to court. In announcing your decision not to vote for the federal defunding of Planned Parenthood, you were quoted as saying, “Planned Parenthood facilities provide vital services, like cervical and breast cancer screenings and primary health care, to millions of low-income women, and it’s important that those services continue.”
But those services would have continued under the defunding measure, because the money was being redirected to community health centers which, according to published reports, do provide mammograms, which Planned Parenthood does not. The issue was not health care for women, because that would continue to be funded. The issue was whether a half-billion dollars of hard-earned tax money should be channeled to a morally bankrupt organization where a doctor blithely discusses harvesting baby body parts while sipping wine and eating salad…where another doctor haggles over the price of an unborn child’s lungs, liver, or head.

The Planned Parenthood officials appearing in these undercover videos speak about changing abortion techniques to harvest intact organs, which would be a violation of federal law. They do so unapologetically and without remorse. Do you condone such actions? Have you even viewed the videos? And if not, why not?

While secular news reports describe you as pro-life, the defunding bill was not a pro-life/pro-choice issue. It was a question of fiscal accountability, concerns about legality, ethics, and common human decency.

Included in Governor Casey’s book is a commencement address he gave at Franciscan University. There, he stated, “The world will try again and again, in a thousand different forms, to sell you power, popularity, acceptance. But look very closely because usually the price is a high one. The price is to surrender the greatest power and freedom any man or woman could ever have—your conscience.”

With your vote to stop the defunding of the nation’s largest abortion operation, Senator Casey, you won accolades from Planned Parenthood. If you toured their facilities—the ones you champion—I wonder if they would show you where they pick through the body parts of a dead unborn baby and exclaim, “Another boy!”

What do you think your father would say about that?

Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director
gallagher@paprolife.org

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director
Gallagher@paprolife.org

U.S. Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, told the Associated Press that he will not support the effort in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, despite the recent controversy over the embattled organization.

Casey told the AP he would oppose legislation to end government funding for Planned Parenthood because “they provide all kinds of primary health care” for women and because of the federal ban on using federal money for nearly all abortions.

While Planned Parenthood has touted its breast cancer screenings, the organization does not provide mammograms. A recent Fox News report noted that the health care services provided by Planned Parenthood would also be available from primary care physicians under Obamacare.

Planned Parenthood has been embroiled in controversy for weeks following the release of undercover videos showing high-ranking Planned Parenthood doctors talking about financial compensation for aborted baby body parts. The videos also show Planned Parenthood doctors discussing manipulating abortion techniques to harvest baby organs, which would be a violation of federal law.

Casey has described himself as pro-life, but National Right to Life says his pro-life voting record is only 20 percent.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s other U.S. Senator, Republican Pat Toomey, is co-sponsoring legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and preserve federal funding for women’s health services.

“Recently, we have seen horrific videos further demonstrating that Planned Parenthood has an appalling disregard for human life,” said Sen. Toomey.  “While I support women’s health, there is no reason why taxpayers should be providing hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies each year to this organization.  Those dollars should instead be used to help community health centers or other organizations that provide affordable health care services to women. In addition, I hope the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services will investigate whether, indeed, the law banning the sale of body parts was broken by Planned Parenthood.”

Toomey circulated a letter to HHS Secretary Burwell and Attorney General Lynch asking the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Department of Justice, to conduct an investigation to determine whether Planned Parenthood violated any laws. Toomey also helped to circulate a letter to Burwell asking that she fully cooperate and assist with any investigation into Planned Parenthood as a result of the recent video revelations.

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director
gallagher@paprolife.org

The soundbite machine at Planned Parenthood just isn’t working as well as it used to.

There was once a time when Planned Parenthood officials could deliver a focus group-tested soundbite to a news-hungry media and rest easy. Just repeat a few catchy phrases —“war on women,” “trust women,” “trusted health care provider,” and it was onto the next question.

But that was before undercover videos showed Planned Parenthood doctors nonchalantly discussing over salad the harvest of and compensation for baby body parts. Livers? Lungs? Legs? Heads? The American public had never heard Planned Parenthood talking about human organs, heads, and extremities before. What’s all that got to do with choice and women’s rights and breast cancer exams? I mean, those lunchtime conversations were just way off script.

We have been told there are more undercover videos to come, and that these will depict situations even worse than what we’ve seen so far.

Planned Parenthood has promoted itself as advancing the cause of women, but one has to wonder: How does it help a woman to illegally manipulate an abortion procedure to make sure that certain baby body parts remain intact? When the doctor is talking about crushing above or below to ensure that a specific part is preserved, it is clear that the abortionist is not thinking about the woman at that moment. The focus has completely shifted from the woman’s body to another’s body — the body of the baby. But the baby is treated as an organ factory rather than the distinct human being he or she is.

Planned Parenthood does not empower women. It tries to make them dependent on a non-profit with assets of more than $236 million. If a woman keeps coming to Planned Parenthood for her birth control and then she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, they can sell her an abortion, which boosts their clinic income. By giving presentations in schools, they can attract clients when they are young and hold onto them throughout their reproductive years through the emotional pull of brand loyalty.

Planned Parenthood consistently fights right-to-know laws, which require women to be told of the risks of abortion and its alternatives. If women are fully informed, they may in fact not want to patronize Planned Parenthood, and that would be bad for business.

In her recent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Planned Parenthood chief Cecile Richards tried repeatedly to return to the old talking points: “highest standards,” “1 in 5 women depend on Planned Parenthood for health care,” “Planned Parenthood does not ever profit,” etc., etc.

But the trouble is, those soundbites just don’t work anymore. The national conversation has shifted to what actually happens to a baby’s body during and after an abortion.

And that’s not something Planned Parenthood wants to talk about.

A second undercover video of Planned Parenthood officials adds further evidence that the abortion giant may be profiting off aborted babies’ body parts and changing the way they do abortions to harvest them.

In the video, Dr. Mary Gatter, the president of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors’ Council, sits down with undercover investigators posing as fetal tissue buyers. Watch the new video here.

First, Gatter explains that Planned Parenthood may be willing to change the way they perform abortions for the purpose of harvesting intact body parts. Gatter describes it as a “less crunchy” abortion technique and admits that it would violate their treatment agreement with patients. Then she dismisses the violation as a “specious little argument.” It also may violate federal law, which says no alteration in the timing or method of abortion may be done for the purposes of fetal tissue collection (42 U.S.C. 289g-1).

Gatter also claims, “I don’t think the patients would care one iota” about changing the abortion procedure. That’s a dangerous assumption.

The top Planned Parenthood official also seems to contradict herself about whether they profit from harvesting fetal tissue. At one point Gatter says they are not in it for the money, but later she emphasizes that they need a reimbursement cost that’s “big enough” to be “worthwhile for me.”

Gatter haggles with the company about the price per specimen. She ends by saying she wants to check with other Planned Parenthoods to see what prices they are getting per specimen before settling.

The exchange raises several questions:

• If Planned Parenthood is really just receiving reimbursement for the costs of labor and storage, why doesn’t Gatter mention checking on those costs? She seems to be more concerned with making sure they receive a good price for babies’ body parts.
• Is Planned Parenthood illegally changing the abortion procedure in order to harvest the tissue? Does this put women at greater risk of complications?
• Are the women fully informed before they choose to donate their aborted baby’s body parts for research? Do women receive information about what will happen to their baby during the abortion? Are women told that Planned Parenthood may change the abortion technique in order to harvest their baby’s organs?

From an organization that aborts more than 300,000 babies and receives half a billion of our tax dollars each year, these questions deserve answers.