Planned Parenthood tells Supreme Court of abortion risks
On November 8, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in challenges to the law that is intended to restrict partial-birth abortion. Eve Gartner, general counsel of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, gave testimony opposing the law. In her testimony, Gartner refused to call the procedure a "partial-birth abortion" and even refused to use the medical tern of a D&X procedure. Instead, she referred to it as an "intact D&E" procedure.
At one point in the questioning from the justices, she was trying to explain why bringing the baby partially out of the woman's body and then killing it was safer for the woman than killing the baby in the womb and extracting the dead baby.
She told the justices:
I think the important point, Your Honor, is that this, that the intact D&E procedure, and the testimony was overwhelming to this effect, that -- in some cases this procedure averts catastrophic health consequences for the woman. It averts uterine perforation, it averts the spread of sepsis or infection; it averts the spread of --potentially the spread of malignant cancer throughout the woman's body.
The next time Planned Parenthood in your community talks about its safe abortions, perhaps you should read them Ms. Gartner's testimony.
Get activism training and protest at Planned Parenthood's DC abortuary
Regular readers of the WSR know that we always encourage a peaceful, prayerful presence outside of Planned Parenthood facilities. In January, American Life League is holding a training and activism weekend in the nation's capital.
Part of the weekend will be a prayerful presence outside Planned Parenthood's DC location on January 20. It is a fantastic, non-threatening way to find out more about public witness against Planned Parenthood.
More information on the Training and Activism Weekend is available online.
Read the 'Celebrate Life' series on Planned Parenthood
During 2006, American Life League's Celebrate Life Magazine did a series of articles on Planned Parenthood. Taken together they make a great primer on the organization and why people need to oppose it.
You can read the series of articles online:
- Planned Parenthood's abortion business
- Planned Parenthood's attack on our children
- Planned Parenthood taxpayer funding
- Planned Parenthood's anti-Christian agenda
- The basics of the fight against Planned Parenthood
We will continue to bring you information on Planned Parenthood in Celebrate Life magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine online.
American Life League makes brochures available FREE online
American Life League has taken some of our most popular brochures, including three pamphlets on Planned Parenthood, and converted them into PDF fliers. The fliers are available as a free download from our web site.
You will find a list of twenty fliers that can be easily printed out and then taken to a local copy shop. Fliers #1, #2 and #6 are specifically about Planned Parenthood. Many of the other fliers will also make good handouts at Planned Parenthood functions.
As indicated on the fliers, we will continue to make the full length, color brochures available, but we want you to have a quick way to printout and copy material if you suddenly find there is a Planned Parenthood event tonight and you don't have any brochures on hand.
Planned Parenthood's national numbers
If Planned Parenthood is true to form, sometime in December we should be able to bring you details of the newest numbers concerning its business. In the meantime, the latest numbers we have are from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America 2004-2005 Annual Report.
You can view those numbers at:
- "Service" data (including abortions)
- Financial data
We have compiled a one-page Word document on the last five years of financial and service data from Planned Parenthood. If you would like a copy e-mailed to you, just send us an e-mail.
Bedford, Texas city council warns citizens about Planned Parenthood
On November 14, the city council of Bedford, Texas approved, by a 5-2 vote, a resolution to make residents aware that the local Planned Parenthood office distributes contraceptives and refers minors to abortion clinics without parental consent.
The actual resolution stated:
Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the City of Bedford does hereby encourage parents to be knowledgeable that Planned Parenthood is the largest distributor of contraceptives to unwed minor children without parental consent and the largest referring entity of unwed minor children for abortions.Further, the City of Bedford encourages Planned Parenthood to take immediate voluntary action to notify the parents of unwed minor children who seek contraceptive information or devices and notify parents of unwed minor children prior to referral for any abortion counseling.
Further, the City of Bedford encourages Representative Todd Smith to introduce legislation in the next session of the Texas Legislature making it mandatory that Planned Parenthood and similar organizations in the State of Texas notify parents of unwed minor children who seek contraceptive information or devices and, in addition, notify parents of unwed minor children prior to referral for any abortion counseling.
Bedford councilman Charles Orean put the resolution on the agenda. "It's the right thing to do," he said before the meeting. "Parents of minor children need to know what their children are doing, and this is an attempt to provide them with the kind of information to raise and direct their children."
STOPP received a report from an attendee at the meeting that even the mayor said a few words in support of the resolution before the council voted. He told everyone he doesn't usually do that, but this time it was a different matter.
Although some argued that the resolution has no binding effect, the media reported that Bob Bland, a professor at the University of North Texas and chairman of the Department of Public Administration, said cities approve resolutions to show their displeasure with federal and state governments, whose laws trump city government. For example, dozens of cities made resolutions opposing the Iraq war in 2003. "It's a way of communicating a local preference," Bland reportedly said.
Congratulations to Mike Perez, Neil Adams, Angela Walters and the members of Catholics Respect Life and the Northeast Tarrant County Right to Life Educational Association for working so hard to get people to the meeting and to get this resolution introduced and passed.
We encourage all our readers to work to get similar resolutions passed in your towns and cities. We must oppose Planned Parenthood wherever it is found and this is a good way of showing the lack of community support for the organization.
Planned Parenthood cites our work in its fundraising efforts
In the October 25 and November 1 issues of the WSR, we brought you the details of Planned Parenthood's new strategy and what you can do about it. Over this last weekend, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, sent a fundraising e-mail to PP's supporters. In the P.S. of the e-mail, Richards said:
We must be doing something right. The American Life League, one of the most stridently anti-choice, anti-contraception groups in the country, recently sent out an urgent message to its supporters, alerting them to our Strategy for Moving Forward. Let's stay on the offensive, proving at every turn that our values are America's values.
We've got Planned Parenthood's attention. It now knows that it will not be able to work this new strategy without opposition. Now is the time for all of us to step-up our efforts against Planned Parenthood.
In this issue of the WSR, we have given you links to a tremendous number of resources on fighting Planned Parenthood. Take advantage of the activism training, the literature and other resources.
Earlier this year, we gave you a list of resources available to fight Planned Parenthood. In addition, remember that we have our new four-CD set of talks on Planned Parenthood as described in our September 13 WSR.
Whatever you need in your efforts to fight Planned Parenthood, remember that we are here to help. Just e-mail us at stopp@all.org or call us at 540-659-4171.
If you don't have a Planned Parenthood in your community, but would like to help others fight this insidious organization, you can send a contribution to help fund our work
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