Hardly Surprising
By: Administrative Account | Source: Today's News and Views
August 9, 2004 4:41PM EST
August 02, 2004
Dave Andrusko can be reached at dandrusko@nrlc.org
Hardly Surprising
I thought about this at considerable length, asked for opinions from a number of people, scanned the horizon to see if/how other pro-lifers addressed the question, and finally decided I needed to say something about Planned Parenthood's "I had an abortion" tee-shirt. The subject matter is so disgusting, however, that the comments will be brief.
The New York Post cut to the chase in the first two sentences of its story:" Proud of having had an abortion? Planned Parenthood has a shirt for you."
The shirts were designed by pro-abortion activist Jennifer Baumgardner, who claimed that the shirts were needed to counteract “anti-choice counseling outfits” such as the Rachel’s Vineyard ministry. Writing in "The Nation" magazine, Baumgardner described these selfless ministries as offering “misleading medical information and propaganda from women who describe being coerced into abortion by controlling older boyfriends and Planned Parenthood ‘salespeople.’”
The Tee-shirts are sold online at PPFA's Web site. We are told by way of further explanation, "The T-shirt delivers a message that is intended to confront and subvert the sense of shame surrounding abortion that has been so deliberately created by the anti-choice movement." In anticipation of the storm, the explanation/justification goes on, "'I had an abortion' is a statement that breaks a silence, and not a cavalier declaration."
The psychobabble never ends. Running around with apparel announcing that you have offed your kid is "to take ownership" of "personal experiences." Almost as disgusting as these transparently phony protestations is the ugly attack on women courageous enough to come forward to admit their abortions and to express their regret.
What to say? Just a couple of things. PPFA is proud, proud, proud of its association with---make that immersion in--abortion. Its facilities enthusiastically kill unborn babies and, where they don't personally, they refer to others who will.
Its 2002-2003 annual report (complete with a couple of babies on the cover and smiling babies sprinkled throughout the text) reminds us that PPFA continues to be the nation's largest abortion chain, with 125 affiliates, 866 "health centers," and "a presence in all 50 states" and the nation's capital. "Tell Your Story, Change the World" tells us that 2002-2003 represented yet another year in which Planned Parenthood clinics recorded a record number of abortions. PPFA takes in over three quarters of a billion dollars in revenue, a good portion coming from abortion.
And of course PPFA's political arm has drawn a bead on pro-life President George Bush. There is no language too incendiary, no charge too outlandish for PPFA's Action Fund.
So, sell a bunch of shirts, generate some always-desirable "buzz"--so what's not to like, from their morally scrunched viewpoint?
From their morally scrunched viewpoint, nothing. From just about anyone else's point of view, everything.
Whatever happened to that "private" decision? Whatever happened to the old canards about "reluctant, deeply agonizing choices”? Why the need to rub the annihilation of over 44 million unborn babies in our faces?
Because all these murmurings were, and are, patently insincere. PPFA and its cohorts don't agonize over abortion, they fret that not enough abortions take place.
Is it really an accident that there has never been a category of abortion that Planned Parenthood has found unacceptable? That PPFA traffics in the blood of unborn babies and the misery of desperate women?
In her explanation why PPFA was continuing sales, in the face of a lot of opposition, PPFA President Gloria Feldt captured the essence of its mindset. "Women who have abortions are the same women who have children, and they make both of those decisions with thought and heart and moral deliberation."
Even taken at face value, Feldt tells us that abortion and childbirth are moral equivalents. But the entire history of Planned Parenthood tells us that abortion is always the preferred option when the "wrong" people are having lots of children.
That they would peddle these Tee-shirts tells us in many ways all we need to know about the death peddlers.
Dave Andrusko can be reached at dandrusko@nrlc.org
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