Monday, March 28, 2011

Planned Parenthood -- Getting the Facts Straight By Monica Migliorino Miller, Ph.D.

Last April 2010 Lori Lamerand, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, publicly announced in the Detroit News that her group intended to open a clinic in Oakland county and that the facility: “is likely to include abortion services.” In pursuit of this goal Planned Parenthood purchased a 17,000 square-foot building in Auburn Hills in November of that year.

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States thus, naturally and quite justly, their plan to open a facility in Auburn Hills has stirred significant controversy. Literally thousands of Oakland County residents oppose the opening of an abortion clinic. Now Lamerand, caught in the fire-storm, is stating “we don’t even know if we will be providing abortions.” Well, which is it? Last April such “services” were likely—now PP, after purchasing their building, isn’t sure what they are going to do? I believe Lamerand’s more recent statements are design to confuse and deceive the public in the face of growing opposition.

Lamerand also tries to diffuse opposition by stating that abortion is only 3 percent of PP’s overall services. It is very important to understand that this 3 percent actually represents 332,278 abortions for the year 2009, the latest year for which statistics are available. This is not just a statistic. These are 332,278 human beings who were put to death in PP abortion clinics nationwide. This figure, while it might be “only” 3 percent of PP’s services, is a huge 27 percent of all the abortions performed in the United States. In addition, this so-called tiny 3 percent accounts for no less than 40 percent of the organization’s total clinic income. In other words, abortion is a major source of PP’s clinic revenue—a revenue without which they could not survive.

While 332,278 unborn children were killed by PP in 2009, only 7,021 women were provided prenatal care and a mere 977 women were referred for adoption. Abortion is the primary “service” PP provides to pregnant women. PP said that it provided 11,383,900 services in 2009. These are services and not the number of people served. The number of people served is approximately 3 million according to PP’s own website. If the 332,278 abortions represents 332,278 individual women—abortion services are a lot more than simply 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s activity. It is 9 percent—three times the number they constantly quote.

Planned Parenthood’s primary objectives are the dispensing of contraceptives, even to minors without parental notice, sexual transmitted disease testing and sexual education—education based on an ethic that promiscuity is morally acceptable, sex need not take place in committed relationships, but may be for pleasure and recreation alone. Such behavior breeds a “need” for abortion. Even should readers of this editorial support PP’s sexual ethics—this new abortion clinic should be protested. Planned Parenthood has complete disregard for the sanctity of human life. An abortion clinic is a place of death, a place where innocent human beings are annihilated by violence—ripped from their mothers’ wombs and literally thrown away. Abortion is a horrific injustice. As long as PP promotes this injustice, let alone actually committing it, any Planned Parenthood facility that causes the deaths of innocent human beings must be opposed.

As someone who has retrieved the broken bodies of aborted children from Michigan trash dumpsters, I hope and pray that you will.

This is the Original Editorial your CPLS director sent to the Oakland Press They published an edited version in their print edition, March 17, 2011, Online edition, March 16, 2011