Supply and demand; it fuels our economic engine and determines prices. When demand is greater than the supply, prices go up. When the supply is greater than demand, prices go down. But at International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), there is a different twist to this equation.
Planned Parenthood has become a billion dollar industry by supplying birth control and a message that sex outside of marriage is a good idea. Then, when girls and women inevitably get pregnant, they supply the abortions. Planned Parenthood is creating its own demand.
During the 80’s the Beanie Baby craze occurred when the Tyco Company created a demand for its bean-filled babies. They were considered marketing geniuses. Likewise, Planned Parenthood has created a demand for their wares and services, but these babies are not stuffed with beans–they have souls. Immoral? Of course. Illegal? It should be. Creating your own demand, which leaves behind a wake of dead babies and wounded souls, should certainly be considered a conflict of interest to say the least. But in this politically correct world, which has turned logic on its head, people are blinded into believing that Planned Parenthood only wants what is best for women. Yet, the facts say otherwise.
The Profit Motive
Social work is not what IPPF is about—money is. In spite of our sagging economy, the organization’s profits have never been higher. Its annual performance report for 2008-2009 shows that despite an economic downturn and a slight decrease in annual income, the abortion industry enjoyed increased activity across the board, including condom distribution, advocacy and abortion services.
While Planned Parenthood’s overall income in the United States in 2008 dipped slightly to $119.7 million, down from over $120 million the previous year, its abortion business boomed. According to LifeSiteNews.com, “The organization provided almost 428,000 “abortion services” to young people alone, with a staggering 1,134,549 total number of such services – almost double the number from 2007 – across the globe.”
The numbers (either impressive or horrifying depending on where you stand) are apparently not good enough. LifeSiteNews reports further, “Despite an increase in abortion services, IPPF remains unsatisfied with the figure, arguing that ‘in comparison to other types of services provided by IPPF Member Associations, these figures remain low and indicate that much needs to be done in terms of future investment in this area if IPPF is to meet its objectives of providing women with the choice and right to safe abortion when faced with an unwanted pregnancy.’”
LifeSiteNews further noted that in the report, IPPF boasts of furthering its abortion agenda in traditionally pro-life countries. “IPPF highlights its work in pro-life Ireland, which maintains strict limits on abortion access despite pressure from its EU partners and abortion advocacy groups such as IPPF. IPPF boasts that through its member associations, it has been on the ground helping to provide support for rallies and debates to challenge Ireland’s pro-life laws since “public debate is often dominated by religion.”
Today, Planned Parenthood is responsible for more than a quarter of all abortions performed annually in the United States. While it tries to minimize the part abortion plays in its mission and business, the annual report clearly shows that the promotion and performance of abortion remains at the core. Publicly, Planned Parenthood insists that abortions are a mere 3% of its income, although that is not counting all the other associated services such as ultrasounds.
In the world of business, it’s admirable to be able to increase demand at a time when competitors experience a decline. So what is the secret that keeps Planned Parenthood flush with business? It is very simple: their slick advertising successfully promotes sex and when pregnancies result, they market their abortions to the same “consumers.”
Our country lays claim to the highest teen pregnancy rate in the Western world although the good news is that this rate has been steadily declining. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute’s 2002 report, each year, almost 750,000 teenage women aged 15–19 become pregnant and 215,000 end in abortions. Planned Pregnancy is involved every step of the way.
Those teenagers were primed to be future customers. Planned Parenthood employees visit schools and teen groups to aggressively promote their services. Using flashy advertising and teen appeal on their website, Teenwire.com, young people are targeted and encouraged to enjoy sex.
The message on the website is clear; parental guidance is not necessary. Teens are told to make their own decisions, to determine what is right for them, and then they are lured down the road to promiscuous sex. Sex is treated as fun and expected in a teen’s life. There is advice on how to obtain birth control without parental consent and graphic depictions on how to use it. Abortion is treated lightly; similar to a tonsillectomy…only safer. Candles and aromatherapy are now included in the abortions experience to create a mood of relaxation and comfort. Ironically there are no graphic depictions of abortions or dead fetuses and teens are clearly reminded that many states do not require parental notification.
Their site is an obvious marketing ploy to encourage young people to have worry-free sex. Even though research shows that teens respond positively when encouraged to reject promiscuity, Planned Parenthood encourages the opposite view. After all, where would the profit be for them if teens did not have sex and get pregnant?
Planned Parenthood also diversifies to keep its profits high. In addition to regular birth control, the financial report showed that it sold more than 1,400,000 of it’s highly advertised emergency contraception kits, known as Plan B. Plan B is suggested when artificial contraception was not in place during unplanned sex. Thus, Plan B is the afterthought back-up pill—a way to hopefully stop ovulation or fertilization and provide one stop shopping for all your needs.
Not Playing by the Rules
But Planned Parenthood, while making money hand over fist, is not even playing by the rules of its government benefactor. Guidelines and laws that were made to protect women and children are brazenly disregarded at Planned Parenthood. For example, this agency supports statutory rape. Not wanting to turn paying customers away, Planned Parenthood is repeatedly proven to offer abortions to girls they believe are 15 and younger.
For example, last year Fox News covered the story of Rose an 18-year-old UCLA student who posed as a 15-year-old impregnated by a 23-year old boyfriend. The clinic employee told her that if she was 15, it legally had to be reported. The employee then encouraged the young woman to say she was 16 and then as far as she—the employee was concerned—she knew nothing. When Rose put a video of this conversation captured on her hidden camera on YouTube, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, Mary-Jane Wagle, threatened legal action. The recording involved violating California’s privacy laws because Rose did not have the consent of Planned Parenthood to record it. It is interesting how they cling to some laws while violating others.
Wagle warned that if Rose did not comply, she could be sued for $5,000 or three times more, according to a scanned copy of the letter posted on UCLA’s pro-life magazine’s website: The Advocate’s website.
Not surprisingly, investigators are finding a pattern across the country of Planned Parenthood not reporting sex crimes against underage teens. Time and time again evidence shows that Planned Parenthood is not content to limit its business to just legal abortions. In 2002, The Texas-based pro-life group Life Dynamics conducted an extensive undercover project to prove this suspicion. Using adult volunteers posing as 13-year-olds saying they were pregnant by a 22-year-old boyfriend, 800 clinics across the country were called. Ninety-one percent of the clinics advised the caller to obtain an abortion without her parents’ knowledge and explained how to protect her boyfriend, who would be guilty of statutory rape in all fifty states.
This is not the only area that Planned Parenthood shows blatant disregard for its government regulators. Out of the 6 women who died in this country after taking the abortion pill RU-486, Planned Parenthood clinics had supplied the pill to 4 of those victims. Unbelievably, Planned Parenthood still allows women to take the drug at home rather than at a clinic as the FDA guidelines advise.
The Race Card
News about this big, bad agency gets even worse when you play the race card. In February of this year, The Advocate magazine released tapes of volunteers calling Planned Parenthood centers in seven states and found officials supportive of abortions on black Americans.
Planned Parenthood clinics were offered donations with the catch that the money was to be used to promote abortions on African Americans. Donations were always accepted in spite of knowing the caller was racist and wanted the money to be earmarked to kill black babies. Later, when confronted with this, Planned Parenthood denied that they would accept such donations. Some of these calls were recorded and posted on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch? V=0LJVPVh5Two
Day Gardner, the president of the National Black Pro-Life Union, was quoted on LifeNews.com that she’s upset that Planned Parenthood is willing “to take money specifically earmarked to kill black children.”
When this situation was made public complete with recorded calls to prove Planned Parenthood readily accepted all donations earmarked to kill black babies, spokespersons for the organization said it was a serious mistake. Then they counter attacked that the Advocate magazine was out to discredit them. Well, we certainly can’t argue with them on the last point. But give credit—or rather discredit where it is due. The numbers speak for themselves.
Four out of every five Planned Parenthood clinics are located in minority neighborhoods, with Blacks as the primary target. Even though Blacks account for only 13 percent of the population, approximately one-third of all abortions are performed on black women.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, Alved King, who has suffered from multiple abortions herself, has identified abortion as the new civil rights cause in an article in the Mississippi Daily Journal reported on a speech she gave on April 4, 2008, the fortieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. Just five years after his death, the Supreme Court made abortion legal and according to King, the nation, and in particular the black community, has been decimated. According to the article:
“There are people dying in this country, everyday,” she said, focusing on the plight of a different set of powerless people. “They are unborn children. The fight against abortion is a new frontier in the civil rights movement….My uncle often said that we don’t follow through,” King added. “He said that we admonish black women not to abort their babies but we don’t show them how to care for them, don’t give them options for life.”
The newspaper said King told the audience that African-American political leaders sold out their pro-life views for support from abortion advocates and other political groups for promoting civil rights.
“We didn’t understand how dramatically abortion was affecting our community,” she said. “The tradeoff between concentrating too much on other social issues and ignoring abortion has been a deadly tradeoff.” Ultimately, the newspaper said King wants African-Americans to have a new dream about how life can be for America. “If we’re not speaking for the voiceless, not being strong for those who are weak, we’re not living Martin’s dream,” she said.
America’s second minority, the Hispanic population, is also targeted by Planned Parenthood by translating its literature into Spanish and heavily advertising in Hispanic communities. Spanish speaking “outreach directors” have also been hired. If the profit making motive were not so clear, the organization might be able to convince people that their desire is to help the poor and marginalized. But since Planned Parenthood actually kills the babies of minorities at a greater rate than the rest of the population any claims of trying to help minorities puts them in a “Catch 22.” After all, how would this sound: “How dare you accuse us of discriminating against minorities? We kill far more of their babies than even Whites.”
No doubt about it, Planned Parenthood is an equal opportunity baby killer. If you have an unborn baby, they want it—no questions asked. But even in these turbulent times, it is shocking that their thirst for blood and money is not only allowed by our sleeping government, but also supported. But just as during the civil rights movement, our voices are uniting and the volume is getting turned up. Pro-life organizations and causes have never been more numerous. Leaders in the movement are rising up and their voices are being heard.
Pro-lifers don’t have the big bucks they do, but we do have something this morally bankrupt agency cannot count on—prayer. This is something we should all be banking on with increasing zeal. The dividends won’t show up on a ledger sheet. Instead, more souls will escape the clutches of Planned Parenthood and be given a chance at life.
