11 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Planned Parenthood
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Depending on what your perspective is, Planned Parenthood is known either as a women’s healthcare provider or an abortion mill. Whatever your thoughts are, I think you’ll be surprised by the information in this post.
At the time of the writing of this post, there were bunch of undercover videos released implicating PPFA in the apparent selling of infant body parts.
These videos have drawn a lot of attention from both the “pro-life” and the “pro-choice” side, with the pro-life side stating that Planned Parenthood has committed felonies by selling human body parts, and many on the pro-choice side stating that the parts are for medical research, and/or that the videos have been doctored.
I am personally disgusted by these videos, but there are many other things about Planned Parenthood that I think deserve the attention of the media and of all U.S. citizens.
Whatever side of the “life/choice” debate you are on, I hope that you will read these, think about them, and keep an open mind as you do so.
I am more than happy to respond to any and all comments, on both sides of the debate. I did my best to do thorough research and encourage conversation about all of these points.
I’d love to hear what you think about this information.
11 Facts About Planned Parenthood
1. A large amount of Planned Parenthood’s income comes from abortion.
Despite the fact that PP supporters continually claim that abortions comprise only 3% of the services that they provide, abortions are a large part of their income. In fact, Planned Parenthood made approximately $163,826,500 from abortions in the 2013 – 2014 year, assuming approximately $500 per abortion, which is a low-end estimation. A second-trimester abortion can cost well over $1,000. For a more detailed explanation of how the 3% claim is inaccurate, go here or here.
Basically, stating that abortion is only 3% of PPFA’s operation is similar to saying that car sales are only a small percentage of a car dealership’s business. Of course, the dealership provides financing, washes cars, does service on cars, and leases cars, but the primary reason for a car dealer to be in existence is to sell cars.
2. Prenatal Services amount to only 0.27% of all of Planned Parenthood’s services.
One of the big claims that PPFA makes is that they provide all kinds of services, besides just abortions, including valuable prenatal services. However, they provide almost none of these. Only 18,684 in 2013 – 2014.
3. Over 46% of Planned Parenthood’s income comes from taxpayers.
According to Planned Parenthood’s annual report (2013 – 2014), they took in $528,400,000 from “Government Health Services Grants and Reimbursements.” This amount represents 46.12% of their total income.
4. Planned Parenthood has provided low-dose birth control pills, planning for failure and more abortions
See the documentation here, and here. The pills are either received at a PPFA clinic, or PPFA gives out a prescription for the woman to receive them elsewhere.
5. Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, Targeted the Elimination of Blacks, Jews, and More.
Here are some quotes attributed to her:
– Referring to immigrants and Catholics, she wrote: “[They’re] an unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.”
– “We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” — Margaret Sanger’s December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon’s Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.
– “[Slavs, Latin, and Hebrew immigrants are] human weeds … a deadweight of human waste … [Blacks, soldiers, and Jews are a] menace to the race.” — Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review
6. Planned Parenthood’s Founder Advocated Mandatory Sterilization
– “Give dysgenic groups [people with ‘bad genes’] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization. — Margaret Sanger, April 1932 Birth Control Review.
7. Planned Parenthood has Aided Sex Trafficking
PPFA has a history of aiding and abetting sex trafficking of girls as young as 14.
8. Planned Parenthood Has Strong Ties to Euthanasia
There are many ties between The American Birth Control League (which later became Planned Parenthood) and the National Society for the Legalization of Euthanasia.
9. Planned Parenthood Is Independently Wealthy.
In their 2013-2014 Annual Report, they cite over $1,000,000,000 (1 billion) in net assets. I feel that their continuing to receive federal (taxpayer) funding when they have this amount of resources at their disposal is unethical, particularly when our nation is currently $18 trillion in debt. Here is the current debt clock so you can see the current status of our debt to other nations: https://www.usdebtclock.org/.
10. Planned Parenthood Does Not Provide Mammograms
Contrary to popular belief, the organization only refers for mammograms but has no mammography equipment in any of its clinics.
11. Planned Parenthood’s President, Cecile Richards, Earned Almost $600,000 in 2013.
Cecile Richards, PPFA’s President earnings in 2013 were $590,928.
The average of the Top 10 PPFA Affiliate’s CEO salaries is over $300,000. You can see several charts detailing this information here. (Note — this article was removed after the publication of this post, but you can see information on high-paying jobs at PPFA here.)
UPDATE 8/8/15:
12. Planned Parenthood Targets Minorities
PPFA is willing to accept donations that are earmarked for specific minorities. Listen to the recordings at the bottom of this article.
Conclusion:
This is, of course, not a debate about whether or not abortion is right or wrong, though I am fine talking about that issue. This is merely about concerns I have about Planned Parenthood. About them as a corporation and about what they and their supporters say about them in defense of their practices.
Did you know about any of these facts?
Please share to get the truth out.
Thank you!
You are welcome.
PP is and always will be baby butchering business.
Tax payer dollars should NOT be helping to fund murder. I find it quite hypocritical that women scream, “it’s my body, it’s my business, “stay out of my vagina””, but then expect us to pay for their “choice”.
Not only should pp be defunded, but every one of them shut down and the murderers be sent to prison.
I think their point, when they ask for taxpayer money, is that they think they are in distress and that we should either pay for the abortion or to take care of the child. But I get your point. The sexual relations were almost in every single case a choice on the part of two people. Our culture is making that choice more and more common.
I live in a town where PP does not offer abortion services AT ALL. There is one abortion provider in our small town. When I was young and poor and uninsured, I did get my birth control there and could also get basic gynecological services (pap, etc) at sliding scale prices. It breaks my heart to think about where all those young women will go if the war on PP succeeds. I am pro-choice, and I believe that the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancies (and abortions) is to make sure that access to all these services is EASIER, not HARDER. BTW, I am consistent here, I do believe in a right to die with dignity, and find nothing repulsive about euthanasia as printed in your list.
Hi Heather. Thanks for sharing. Interesting that they don’t do services there for abortion. I assume you don’t wish to share your location? I would assume that they refer for them. Here is my thinking. I am glad that you were able to get the care you needed. However, I think that given the magnitude of the number of lives that have been terminated by Planned Parenthood, I think that making the analogy to the Holocaust isn’t out of line. There were approximately 11 million people killed by the Nazis. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/27/holocaust-non-jewish-victims_n_6555604.html From 1973 – 2011, there have been about 53 million legal abortions in the US alone. https://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/
I have a question for you – if Hitler was offering free healthcare in a clinic, would you support him knowing what else he was doing?
The reason I ask is this — Planned Parenthood is essentially an abortion provider. It is the reason they exist and the main thing they provide. If abortion isn’t murder, then when do you think human life really begins? And since you state that you think euthanasia is OK, when do you think it is OK to kill someone? When they are in pain? When they aren’t thinking clearly? Who makes the decisions about who should die and when?
Also, what do you think about PPFA providing low dose birth control pills in order to have more abortions occur? I think that if you are going to have sexual intimacy you need to be open to the life that might result. It’s like if you are going to get in a car you have to take responsibility for driving it responsibly. Otherwise sex is just for pleasure with no responsibility. That, I think, is one of the biggest problems in today’s world. We want pleasure without responsibility. I would like to hear what you think about that.
Thanks much again for taking the time to share.
I don’t mind sharing my location. Santa Fe, NM has one abortion provider and it isn’t planned parenthood. Our PP offers BC, normal gyno services, wide range of family planning options, but does not perform abortions.
As for your holocaust analogy, you touch on the very contentious issue of personhood and the point at which a zygote/fetus becomes a human being. Everyone will give you a different answer, and the medical community also has many medical opinions on this. My personal view is that “life” does not begin at conception or implantation. I also believe that by the time 16 weeks gestation passes, unless there are severe medical issues facing the baby or the mother that there is definitely a “baby” to be considered. NM, in particular, has very lenient abortion laws. A clinic in neighboring Albuquerque actually performs very late term abortions and this does make me squeamish (by the way, they are also not a planned parenthood clinic). Still, I do believe that women having these late-term procedures are 1) a very small percentage of the total abortions performed in this country and 2) overwhelmingly have very compelling medical reasons to do so. Why do I say that? Well, these procedures for late-term are complicated……and expensive. You cannot convince me that women who are 6 months pregnant wake up one morning in large numbers and say ‘I think this isn’t a good idea. I’m going for an abortion today.’
The pro-life movement does paint this picture. A country full of women that are heartless murderers and make decisions based on selfishness. I DON’T BUY IT! And, as a woman, and knowing the large array of things that can go wrong in a pregnancy, it is completely insensitive of me, or anyone else, to make such a generalization. I suspect that if you spoke to a few women that had such procedures that you would find that a great number of them have heart-breaking stories of medical issues that drove them to that decision; not because they are monsters but because their own health or the health of the baby was in grave danger. For that reason, I think we need to stop the judgement and let women make decisions for themselves. I am sure that most of these decisions are hard enough without a wagging finger of a self-righteous, self-proclaimed do-gooder telling a mother how she’s gonna rot in hell for her decision. Medical decisions should ALWAYS be made between a patient and a doctor.
I’m not going to directly answer your Hitler question, mostly because I don’t see the parallel. I have been to a concentration camp, and I have a specific and very emotional view of the Holocaust and Hitler which need not be explained here.
I understand what you are going for, so I pose this ethical dilemma to you. If you could offer a drug addict cash to be sterilized, thus saving babies from being born hooked on drugs, would you support that? It actually happened here in ABQ and made the Catholics in the area nuts. And for me, the question then becomes, who are we looking out for? What does it mean to be pro-life? Are we supporting children, or are we supporting birth? A nun named Joan Chittister I think said it best:
“I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”
You have offered a long list of questions on euthanasia…….
“when do you think it is OK to kill someone?” — Without commenting on the obvious slant of your question, making the decision that a person’s quality of life is less than what they would have wanted for themselves should be up to families, with the aid of advanced directives and medical powers of attorney. I have clearly told my husband and my immediate family the conditions under which I wish to remain alive. I do not want to be on life support or in a vegetative state that would offer me know value of life. Period. Everyone should have this conversation and ultimately put it into an advanced directive in order that their wishes be kept in case of severe illness.
“When they are in pain?” — Could be, but just like the choice to abort a baby, I believe that each of us should make that decision for ourselves. What is your threshhold? I imagine it would be a lot different than mine. Either way, we are each entitled to end our lives in the way we want, IMHO.
“When they aren’t thinking clearly? ” — People live with dementia and Alzheimer’s all the time. Still, most of these folks have good days and bad, lucid moments and not-so-lucid moments. I am not proposing that we euthanize the elderly simply because they are forgetful. There is quite a difference between an elderly lady that has some days in which she cannot remember her name and the young woman who is fed through a tube and placed on a ventilator for years (Schiavo) with NO HOPE of recovery and no good days to speak of.
“Who makes the decisions about who should die and when?” — You do! By writing an advanced directive, appointing a medical power of attorney and TALKING TO YOUR LOVED ONES about what you want.
“what do you think about PPFA providing low dose birth control pills in order to have more abortions occur” I do not believe that life starts at conception, so I disagree with your painting this as “abortion”. Abortifacients are a very specific medical terminology, but since I support early-term abortions, it should come as no surprise that I would also support these methods.
“think that if you are going to have sexual intimacy you need to be open to the life that might result. It’s like if you are going to get in a car you have to take responsibility for driving it responsibly. Otherwise sex is just for pleasure with no responsibility. That, I think, is one of the biggest problems in today’s world. We want pleasure without responsibility.”
Ahhhh, so much judgement in these few sentences. let me qualify my comments by saying I am not religious, although I was raised religiously, and that as an adult I have wholly rejected the idea that a supreme being is up there judging me for each misstep. Yes, sex is a responsibility. No, sex isn’t just about procreation. It is sometimes just fun for many people and we need not be judge and jury to want to paint a big red ‘R’ on each of them. Plus, one important thing. We are humans, and we make mistakes. We are all sometimes impulsive and do things that we want to take back.
The 20th century and BC in general has changed the way that women live their lives. It has given them the power to plan a family and a career without worrying that biology will take over and make those decisions for them. I think this is, quite possibly, the most world-changing invention of our time. We can tell our daughters, without hesitation, that they can be what they want to be. They can go to college, pursue a career, and, yes, they can also get married and have children, IF THEY WANT TO! So, we live in a new time, when women choose their destinies. They don’t just live for the day that a nice young man comes along to take care of them and give them children. What an amazing time we live in!
I fully support the idea that women are smart enough to make these decisions for themselves and that I have very little to do with those decisions. I want children born into this world that will have love and stability, not resentment and instability. And, for that reason, I am pro-choice.
It’s been a pleasure chatting with you.
Hi Heather. Thanks for the thoughtful response – I appreciate your willingness to dialogue about such difficult issues. I will do my best to respond but I will copy and paste your answer so it’s easier to follow along:
I did check on Santa Fe. They don’t perform surgical abortions, but they do perform medical abortions with abortifacients.
Yes, I do believe that human life begins at conception. For if it isn’t a human life, what is it, then? And may I ask how you came to decide upon the 16 week point? There are many different answers of course, but there is only 1 truth about it. If we don’t believe that life begins at conception then it becomes a mere guessing game with clear ramifications. If we say 14 weeks is too young, why is that? Or perhaps I should just ask you why you think a 14 week old baby isn’t a human? If it isn’t a human, then what is it?
As for your comment about the later term abortions being a smaller percentage, are you OK with just a small percentage of 3 year olds being killed? And regarding the medical conditions you are referring to, I used to work for a long time in the life and health benefits field and I know how the medical issues work. Those can be anything from a mother is very stressed out to life-threatening issues. This data from the Guttmacher Institute might be of interest. Only 4% of women who had abortions cited their own health as the primary reason for wanting the abortion. And of course, with more and more medical advances, life-threatening issues, that were already rare, are more rare as time goes on. https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.html The following article is on a pro life site, but it has several resources cited. Note that here, including from a 2006 study on abortion by again, the Guttmacher Institute (which is affiliated with PPFA), health reasons were never the case for late term abortions.
It seems that of course, they didn’t just wake up and decide to go for an abortion that day (though it could be possible), but that health for sure wasn’t the reason that they went.
I don’t think that the pro-life movement paints women as monsters. I think those in the pro life movement know that there are a number of reasons why women choose abortion, but that regardless of the reason, a baby is killed. I never personally have thought of a woman who has had an abortion as a monster. I am friends with some and I don’t ever think that. The sources I cited above respond to your comments about how many of them are going for health reasons. And if the health of the baby is in grave danger, why is killing the baby the best thing? I am sure it is hard for a woman to deliver a baby with bad health issues, but of course, sometimes those diagnoses are incorrect. I’m sure you have heard of that kind of thing where someone was recommended to abort due to a Downs diagnosis, but the baby was born and turned out not to have Downs after all.
You stated that the decision of an abortion should be between a woman and her doctor. Do the women considering abortions talk to the abortion doctor or just the counselor? My understanding is that sometimes it is a doctor. Sometimes it is a nurse and sometimes just a counselor.
I can tell you have a very intense view of pro life people. Perhaps this interaction with me has helped to change that? I am not a finger wagger at all. At least I hope that I am not. I sin all the time. It’s the killing that I am upset about – not the mothers making these decisions.
By the way, I visited a concentration camp as well – Dachau. It was horrible. I do see a clear connection between abortion and Hitler. Hitler viewed those whom he advocated killing as being non human. That is the same viewpoint that those killing babies have. Hitler’s victims died horrid deaths. The same for the babies who are burned, surgically torn apart, have scissors jabbed in their skulls or necks, etc. Hitler had medical experiments performed on his victims. I don’t know if you are aware of the PPFA videos, but I linked to them in my post. All in the name of experimentation. I just wish we could have the same emotional response to abortions that we do to Hitler.
Regarding the sterilization, I am not Catholic, although I was. That is a different matter b/c now you are talking about birth control. So that is totally different in my opinion. One is talking about killing babies and the other is preventing their conception. So it’s a different topic altogether.
As far as the statement about some being pro birth but not pro life, I think that’s a really hard question, but here are my thoughts. I am pro life and pro birth. I just think you can’t just spend tax dollars (citizens’ dollars) on everything and expect it to solve the problem. We have a huge problem with poverty and fatherlessness but the answer, in my humble opinion, isn’t to throw more money at it. We’ve been doing that for a long long time and it isn’t working. I know this sounds “holier than thou” but I don’t mean it that way. The problem is the family and morals. We can’t sponsor tax codes that punish marriage and reward fatherlessness and illegals and continue to have a country that works. We have to rebuild families gradually and promote morality so that fathers stay in the homes more and kids aren’t looking to gangs and extramarital sex to meet their needs. We need less junk on TV and in movies and video games and less gambling (that causes a huge financial drain on the economy via rehab and crime) and get the government out of people’s lives. So I do not agree w/ the main thinking of the socialistic viewpoint that the government should be taking care of more. I think they should be taking care of less and less and the churches and communities and families should be doing it. I have done a lot of reading and thinking … and living about this.
I have been on government aid. For a short time. But the answer wasn’t staying there. My husband worked his tail off to get a different job and get us out of our situation. Now we have very large medical bills due to a high deductible and special care that isn’t covered. I pay for that now w/ this blog’s income and we skimp where we need to. I feel really bad that I took the gov’t aid when we did, actually. I wish we hadn’t. I don’t mean that to judge others who do — I just think we could have made it somehow. We are about $18 trillion in debt. There is no more money to spend on anything. There just is no money. So more taxes is just not the answer.
You keep mentioning the obvious slant of my question. I don’t know what is slanted about it. It is a plain and simple question that needs to be answered. So I am just going to respond to you this way. Honestly. I have been through so much garbage. Not to the extent of others, for sure. Different problems. But I have had debilitating pain and fatigue. A special needs kid who has been tormented w/ anxiety. A father who was totally absent. Family members disowning my mother. I have felt like giving up many times but I would not be here if I had done that. Not here to hear my youngest say today, “What I want is more time with my Mommy!” and then we had a long long hug. Or to here to hug my oldest when he struggles with fear again. Not here to help others who are struggling. Not here to try to bring about good change. My quality of life has been “less than what they [sic] would have wanted for” myself, but I held on. Oh, natural childbirth was another. Possibly due to my son’s size it was about the hardest thing I ever did. An advanced directive is very different from euthanasia or abortion. Again, this is another topic.
Again, this is most likely cutting short life that could be a blessing to others. I am not an ethicist although I studied medical ethics some in college (quit the course b/c I broke my collarbone and it was the one that I ended up dropping just to make it through the semester), but these are all tough questions. I think you do whatever you can to deal w/ the pain and don’t cut life short unless it’s severely extreme. And again, this is different from the abortion issue, but related. I hope and pray I don’t have to go through these things, but I think we focus on healing rather than termination.
I disagree on this one. Schiavo was a horrible situation. She clearly responded when her family walked in the room and she was killed in an inhumane way. Just disgusting. And decided by her ex husband. The videos of her responding to family members still haunts me. No, not the life I would have asked for but still not right to kill her.
So then we are back to the question. Why does the mother get to make the decision for the life inside of her? These are connected.
I will still ask then, how did you get the 16 week determination of being when life begins? And do you think it is ethical for them to prescribe that kind of dosage in order to make more money? Should I put a partially broken part in your car knowing you’ll be back for a repair soon?
How is their judgement there? If you mean stating what I think is right and wrong, then you are correct, but you are doing the same thing. You think it is right to kill an unborn baby. I do not. You think it is OK to have sex outside of marriage. I do not. You think that you can decide when life begins. I do not think so. I think you look at the evidence. Here is one quote: “”Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed…. The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.”” {[O’Rahilly, Ronan and M?ller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists “pre-embryo” among “discarded and replaced terms” in modern embryology, describing it as “ill-defined and inaccurate” (p. 12}]} Scientists accept this b/c it doesn’t make sense any other way. If the fetus at 15 weeks isn’t a human, then what is it?
I guess now we are on another topic as well. If you think there isn’t a supreme being, then how did we come about. Think of it this way. Think of the most complex project that a PhD student could possibly work on in the field of neuromedicine. Let’s say that PhD project’s complexity is 10 to the 1st degree in complexity. Now think of the universe. In comparison, how complex is the universe to that student’s project? Maybe 10 to the millionth? 10 to the billionth? more? I mean this humbly but really it takes more faith to not believe in God than to believe in God. The complexity of the universe just screams the existence of God. I would love to hear what you think about that. My youngest asks me all the time about his reflexes and the wonder of his body. And he can tell himself that there is no way that any of this happened by chance.
I think that having biology and a child make decisions is a wonderful thing. I am not a “quiverfull” banner waver, but I think that children are a blessing whenever they come. They are hard. In fact, the hardest thing I have ever done. But they are so worth it and I wouldn’t give them up for anything. I think that honestly the movement of birth control and abortion has not given women freedom but the opposite. The ability to kill their unborn children and not be told that they should grieve about it. I am not saying women shouldn’t aspire to careers should they wish to. I was on an equity options floor and have taught options theory in a large bank and have been a manager of employee benefits for an insurance agency and taught English overseas. But what I most am proud of is my boys.
So I guess, by your last statement, that I shouldn’t have been born. My mother did love me, but she was not stable often. My father wasn’t around. I was conceived out of wedlock. My grandparents wanted me to be aborted and didn’t approve of my parents’ eventual marriage. So I guess you think I should have been killed. My life hasn’t been peachy all the way around, but I disagree.
I would be interested in your response. Thank you.
I really, really want to continue to this conversation, but with work and life I just don’t have a moment today. I promise to revisit this!
Sure thing. I’m swamped too so I completely understand. Look forward to hearing from you later.
BTW, I was sure I posted a long reply to your reply, but it was apparently lost to the ether. If I ever get my thoughts together again, I’ll share.
Hi Heather. I did get it and noticed it again when going through older comments to reply. I’ve been under a pile here but I think I started a response to you …. hope I can find it :)!
Wow, how incredibly disappointing! You are citing totally biased conservative sources to make anti-woman claims about an organization that stands by women at times when no one else will. Had I known you’re an anti-woman pro-life blogger, I never would have subscribed! Unsubscribing immediately. Good bye! (Wow…. And I thought this was a wellness blog…. )
Hi Paulina and thanks for commenting.
I hope you will keep an open mind reading my responses to your comment. We can’t (either of us) find the truth if we just walk away and refuse to dialogue.
I did not cite merely conservative sources. I cited Planned Parenthood’s annual reports and Margaret Sanger’s original writings. May I ask if you think that simply because a source is conservative that it is necessarily inaccurate? I checked the sources and think they are. I even had a source cited that was a liberal site (Media Matters) that showed PPFA’s income from abortion, but a reader pointed out why the post was inaccurate – and it was. There are just so many ways to analyze their income but the information that I wanted to cite was better cited directly from PPFA’s annual statement so I removed that link.
Of course, for many of the things that I was writing about, liberal sites won’t report on it because they don’t want these things exposed so I really didn’t have a choice. Of course I am sure you understand that sites like those wouldn’t cite PPFA’s sex trafficking issues nor the salaries of their executives.
I read numerous sources weekly and try to be on top of what is truth and what isn’t. It’s hard and I do make mistakes, but how about this? Do you see something in my post that seems inaccurate to you? I am happy to check into it.
As for my being anti-woman, that is not true at all. I am a woman whose grandparents wanted her aborted. I am alive and want other women to have that opportunity to live as well. I have shared many posts on my Facebook profile page about women being tortured and raped and murdered by ISIS – it disgusts me and shouldn’t be going on and our administration should be doing more than it is to stop them. Just my sharing about PPFA abetting sex trafficking shows that I am not “anti-woman.”
It bothers me that anyone who stands up for unborn babies not being killed is called “anti-woman.” Could you explain that please? Approximately 50% of the babies killed by abortion are girls.
I am sorry you are leaving and hope you will respond to my questions and comments.
Finally – as for your statement that this is a wellness blog — it is. Death is the worst kind of un-wellness and killing of course has to do with not being well. Pro-choice people say that PPFA is about women’s wellness, so I sought to write about things that people likely don’t know about this “women’s wellness” organization. If I had written something similar exposing concerns I had about EWG, would you have said the same thing to me and claimed that I wasn’t a wellness blogger?
I hope to hear back from you.
Thanks for this. I’m always open to learn more. You’ve invested a lot of time in this posting, both w/research as well as moderating comments. I did not know that abortions increased a woman’s risk of breast cancer–maybe that bit of information should be discussed more so those considering an abortion are aware of their increased health risks down the road. Thanks Adrienne.
You are so welcome, Amanda. I still have more comments. Some of them are taking a lot of time and I have been under the weather.
I think you are right about the breast cancer. Moral issues aside, it’s important that women know what the effects could be. I will work on that.
Hi.
I wanted to comment a bit. First, I have been to Planned Parenthood. A lot. I was very promiscuous when I was younger. Thank God I never had an unwanted pregnancy. I would probably have had an abortion. Or it would have been a wake up call. I can’t really say.
But my point is- I’m the type of person planned parenthood targets. I need to just get this out there- where I am, birth control itself is NOT cheaper at planned parenthood. At least it wasn’t ten years ago. It honestly was nowhere near as great of care as I had gotten on the couple of occasions I went to a standard OBGYN back then or in the years since. There was ZERO education on anything, which is supposedly why they exist. I knew nothing.
The racist comments by the founder are absolutely something I want to know. I don’t fly a confederate flag because of what it represents, I certainly don’t want to support an organization that was founded on working to wipe out blacks! It’s disgusting. I don’t care is if is from the 1930s. It needs to stay as a dark stain on America’s PAST, and not be carried into our future.
Second, as for the morality issue- I get really tired of the entire “What kind of life would a child have if…” They would have a life. It might not be the ideal life, but it would be life.
I have a dear cousin who was the product of rape. She, by almost everyone’s estimation, should have been aborted. But my aunt could not stand the thought. My grandmother supported her (she was 14 at the time) and they got through the early years together.
They were incredibly poor. My aunt ended up dying young of a rare cancer. My cousin had a life in poverty (at least as ‘in poverty’ as a child can be in America) until she was in her late twenties. She’s had a good , despite the challenges. I thank God she was born.
Additionally, I was a kid who wasn’t wanted. I can’t pretend it didn’t affect me, but I can tell you this- ask most unwanted and abused kids if they would rather die than see tomorrow. Most of them would choose to live.
Anyway, I apologize for any typos. I am responding to this on my phone and I can never get things right on here!
Hi there. I really appreciate your comments – and the relating of these difficult situations. I completely agree with you. Alive is better than dead. There are very few instances where someone would really mean that they wish they hadn’t lived at all. Poor or not. The answer isn’t killing babies to prevent a tough life — it’s changing the culture and lives one at a time.
Blessings on you. I hope to see you around again!
Dear Adrienne,
I just wanted to say that I think it was very courageous of you to do this post. You have obviously done a lot of research, and your calm in the face of some very angry comments is to be applauded. I so enjoy your blog and, like you, grew up in a standard American family, trusting my maintstream-medicine doctor and the FDA to the hilt. One child with autism/vaccine-induced encephalopathy and thousands of hours of research later, my life, too, has been turned around. However, I also wanted to share with you another area in which my views were altered. I was always very much against abortion, simply due to the fact that I could not get around the scientific conclusion that it is human life that is at stake. If it has its own unique human DNA, and it is growing, I cannot think of any other scientific qualification needed to be called “a human life”, not just a “potential life”. So simply from a logical point of view, I felt strongly that abortion could not be termed anything less than the purposeful ending of another human being’s life. From a personal perspective, I was against it because my younger sister could have easily been aborted, since my parent’s marriage was breaking up at the time she was conceived. My sister is one of the lights of my life and I can’t imagine my existence without her. So you can imagine how very against abortion I had been all my life.
I felt that way up until I became pregnant with my second child. Adrienne, my pregnancy, even though it was with a child I joyously wanted, was so painful and complicated that I began to pray for death. Every day, I cried with the pain, wished to go to sleep and never wake up again, lost all care for the life inside me and even the lives of those I loved, and how they would be ruined. I have always been a strong-willed person, and I fought against the pain like you wouldn’t believe. I tried everything- meditation, self-hypnosis, supplements, acupuncture, homeopathy, anything I could think of, and nothing worked, until I was in so much torment that all I could think about was wanting to die to escape the physical pain. It is a sensation that I had never before experienced, and something I think you can only understand if you have been tortured systematically.
Somehow, I managed to hang on and endure the pregnancy, but the birth was also complicated and I nearly died (in fact, I spent a week afterwards hooked up to a defibrillator) as a result. My second pregnancy and birth, so unlike my first (which was nearly effortless), was an excrutiating and traumatic experience (I was in therapy for a year to deal with post-traumatic stress, as I kept experiencing flashbacks of the birth and near-death experience) that I would never want to wish on another human being. It also made me incredibly aware of how important it is to have the choice in controlling what happens to your own body. I agree with you wholeheartedly that there is another person, a voiceless one, who must be considered. But being voiceless, I believe, does not necessarily make that person’s life worth more than another person’s.
Using your toddler analogy, I asked myself: if I was in a burning building, my body on fire and about to die, and I ran out of the building to save myself out of desperation, leaving the defenseless toddler behind, does that make me a murderer? It would certainly be something that haunted me and would be a guilt that I carried for the rest of my days, but I just cannot think that the act of saving oneself at the expense of another equates to murder, even if the other person is defenseless, even if the other person is someone for whom I am responsible. Our own lives, for we are also human beings, must matter, as well, and if the act of self-preservation can be thought of as murder, what does that say about the value of our own lives? It reminds me of the argument for forced vaccination- that other lives are at stake, and that we must be willing to sacrifice people, despite their objections and what it will do to them, “for the greater good of others.”. I absolutely do believe that using abortion simply as a form of birth control is morally wrong. But I can no longer condemn those who choose abortion because they cannot endure what *pregnancy* (not parenthood) will do to them, both physically and psychologically. Much like watching your child get injured from vaccines, you cannot know the agony and the importance of having a choice until you have experienced it.
I believe that, much like vaccines, where there is risk, there must be choice about what happens to your body, even if that choice is a terrible one, between saving yourself or saving the life of another.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my story with you because I know you are person of great sensitivity and compassion, and wanted to help you glimpse perhaps one more side to this issue. Ironically, I know it wasn’t even the issue you meant to write about, and I do, by the way, completely agree with you that Planned Parenthood, like any for-profit corporation that takes our tax dollars, must be held accountable for any deceptive practices. And the truth is always important, so brava to you, again, for having the courage to state your convictions in such a public arena. That takes guts and you are to be commended for it.
Hi Dee. Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I’ve been under the weather and swamped. I really hear you. My kids and I have been talking about this, actually. Would I abort a baby if my life were at stake?
My 2nd pregnancy was horrid. I was nauseous all 9 months. I almost never left the house. Similarly, my first childbirth was horrid and I wanted to die. But I knew somehow I could make it and I did. Since my oldest had his autism diagnosis, so many days I have wanted to give up. But I can’t.
Anyhow, I do think that there is room to discuss options when the mother’s life is truly at risk. But emotionally I think personally (and this of course, comes with great compassion from someone who has been at the end of her rope plenty of times…including with my own past chronic fatigue that was so severe I could barely function) that pushing through is the only option you have, and getting help as needed.
I appreciate your kind words. Do you think I understood your thoughts well enough? Thanks for sharing such a difficult thing.
If I wanted to read extreme political views I would go to different sites. I came here for a few recipes, not to be preached to.
This post really undermines your credibility. I read your ‘About Me’ section before signing on for your emails and again after I read this. It says nothing about imposing your political beliefs on your readers or I wouldn’t have subscribed.
As it stands, I have a bad taste in my mouth and am not interested in another bait and switch campaign.
Hi Debra.
Thanks for commenting.
I am sorry that you feel this way. I am not preaching to anyone, but merely sharing facts about an organization that pertains to health. I think these facts should be made known. I have written about ISIS, about GMOs, about gluten, autism, vaccines, and other health issues and then more.
I think this is a matter of health and of life and death. Everything is political. Vaccines, GMOs, organic foods, the EPA. Would you prefer that I not write about those things too? I have actually not posted a recipe in quite awhile and have been writing more about health, so I am not sure what recipes you came here for, but more will be coming.
And I did write this in my About Me page: “– Health topics: toxins, GMOs, vaccines, autism, food allergies, special diets, essential oils – kind of “you name it”. If it’s in the health news, I probably have something to say about it–I just might not have time to blog about it :-).”
So I am writing about something in the health news which is PPFA.
If you have further thoughts I am happy to respond. But I would ask that you consider what I am writing. That everything is political and why should these hot topics be off limits? I think it is to the detriment of our society that they are considered taboo. We should all be seeking truth.
Thank you.
Sounds like preaching to me.
Hi Debra. I guess it depends on your definition of preaching, but typically sermons that I hear pastors preach have scripture references. I didn’t mention any, though I could have, and additionally I didn’t even make any moral statements about almost anything in the post, with the exception of taxpayer funds in light of the assets that Planned Parenthood has.
Could you tell me why you think this sounds like preaching? And if I might ask, what is the main reason for your being so opposed to what I have written, since almost all of it is merely facts showing that a lot of the way that PPFA has been portrayed is inaccurate. I am aware that many who are angry about things like this perhaps have been touched by abortion in some way and I really want to be sensitive to that. I am not about ranting – but want to dialogue and find and bring up truth. I think we all need to be willing to talk about tough issues and be willing to think deeply about beliefs we hold.
Hope to hear back from you. Thanks.
Well put! I agree completely!
Debra–how does Adrienne being concerned about Planned Parenthood constitute an “extreme political view,” as you call it? The majority of people who have viewed these videos find them disconcerting, and PP has a lot of other issues, as her post made clear. I fail to see how being concerned about such matters is an “extreme political view.” “An organization that Kills babies and sells their body parts should get millions of dollars of government funding each year”–seems like a more extreme political view than anything written in this post.
Your statement on “imposing your political beliefs” disgusts me. That is a huge reason why so many things are wrong with this nation. People are so afraid to stand up for what they believe in. They are afraid to “offend” someone. Our children are especially being taught this. Why is someone expressing what they stand for such an insult? Why do people take offense that someone thinks differently than them? I would EXPECT someone to stand for what they believe in…..if not…..what is your purpose in life, what do you exist and/or live for? To just live your life to acquire more things and just glide by is a waste. Ever heard the term ” if you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything? It is good to debate issues so that we do know where we stand, if you never hear what someone on the opposing side has to say how do you know that you agree or not. As far as you only coming here for a few recipes, its just like turning the channel on the television, just skip this post and look up your recipes. Having an opinion is not imposing, its expressing an opinion. America is supposed to be a place where we can express our opinions.
I am often bothered by the fact that many people who are anti-choice seem to also be against programs and initiatives that help children once they are born. Such as raising the minimum wage, increasing sick days, supporting the Affordable Care Act. Or often are against gun control and against Marriage Equality for all loving couples. All of these, except the gun control perhaps, brings strength to a family and thus to the quality of life for children. And how can someone be pro-life but anti gun control?? It just seems contradictory to me.
Hello Genevieve and thanks for your comment.
I think the issue here is that “helping” is subjective while killing is not. You are either killing someone or you are not, but some might think that welfare is a good way to help someone whereas others think job training is a better way.
From your comment, for example, raising the minimum wage has been shown to reduce jobs available as small business owners simply hire fewer people. The Affordable Care Act is something that I have many issues with. First of all it didn’t even do what it was supposed to as many many are without care. Also, if you make something free, then it gets abused. Think of this – if groceries in a certain store were free, wouldn’t you load up on all kinds of things that you didn’t need just b/c you could? And then the store owner would charge a huge fee knowing that the gov’t would reimburse him. It’s just a terrible system favoring Big Government and Cronyism.
As for gun control – that is a very complicated topic but the crux of the argument for someone who is anti-gun control is that they are pro freedom. And our freedoms are being eroded very quickly.
Why shouldn’t we have free food for everyone? Isn’t that more of a basic right than healthcare?
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Thank you so much for sharing this information. I have posted to my facebook in hopes the information will continue to be widely shared. I appreciate your standing up to share truth!
Thanks so much, Ruby. I am just trying to get the truth out and engage with others. Thanks!