Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice - Part 5 - Decision

Pro-Life vs. Pro Choice
Part 5 A Decision

Margaret Sanger wrote in her publication, Voluntary Motherhood, “The world is full of undesired babies and every undesired baby represents a terrible infringement of the personal rights of a mother. Women do not desire to spend the whole of their adult lives in bringing children into the world.” Her answer to this “infringement of the personal rights of a mother,” was contraception. Sanger’s work continues today through Planned Parenthood health clinics and sex education programs.

 Though Planned Parenthood feels that contraception is the answer, others contend it might be the problem. “Most abortions are the result of unwanted pregnancies, most unwanted pregnancies are the result of sexual relationships outside of (or prior to) marriage and most sexual relationships outside of marriage are facilitated by the availability of contraceptive. Contraception made sex outside of marriage “doable” in an unprecedented way.” (Dr. Janet Smith)


Has Planned Parenthood the nation’s leading sexual health care provider and educator been successful in their objective to lower abortion and unplanned pregnancy?

Between 1994 and 2001, the steady decline in the U.S. unintended pregnancy rate stalled… As progress in reducing unplanned pregnancy has stalled, so has progress in reducing abortion. The U.S. abortion rate declined by 3.4% each year between 1992 and 1996 and by 1.2% each year between 1996 and 2000. Since then, the decline has slowed sharply…. If the picture for American women overall is one of progress stalled, the picture for poor women is one of progress turned back….Between 1994 and 2001 the unintended pregnancy rate for poor women shot up by 29%. Abortion levels show a similar trend. From 1994 to 2000, abortion rates…increased among poor women...In 2000, the 13% of reproductive-age women who are poor accounted for 27% of all abortions. (Guttmacher Policy Review Summer 2006, Rekindling Efforts to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy: A Matter of ‘Equity and Common Sense’)

For the first time since the early 1990’s the overall U.S. teen pregnancy rate increased in 2006, rising 3%, and continues to be one of the  highest in the developed world. (Guttmacher Institute, Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health, December 2011)


Abortion rates are highest among African American and Hispanic women (Trends in Abortion in the United States, 1973 – 2008, Guttmacher Institute January 2011)

By their own statistics, the answer would be no, Planned Parenthood has not been successful, but people, in general, believe what they want to believe, what best meets their physical, psychological, economical, spiritual and social needs, sometimes regardless of the truth. If we are honest with ourselves, we have all fallen into that "people in general" category, at one time or another. I know at times I have grasped at inadequate or false evidence to justify my opinion, or ignored contrary information because it challenged my belief. Ultimately truth forced me to reevaluate my viewpoint and make a decision.


Part 5 Planned Parenthood – A Catholic Answer to the Culture of Death Part One Contraception and Part Two Natural Family Planning lays out the Catholic Church’s stance on contraception and Natural Family Planning, a challenge to all of us. “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)


January 22, 2012 marks the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court decisions Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton. As those who back Planned Parenthood will be celebrating these decisions, others will be marching for The Human Right to Life on January 21 in San Francisco at the 8th Annual Walk for Life and on January 23, 2012 in Washington D.C. at the 39th Annual March for Life.

Planned Parenthood Part 5
My Decision - A Catholic Answer
to the Culture of Death
Part 1 Contraception vs
Part 2 Natural Family Planning

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice - Part 4 - Statistics

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened her first birth control clinic in Brooklyn New York. Nearly 100 years later her legacy Planned Parenthood Federation of America a nonprofit, includes two national offices that support 83 affiliates in the United States that run approximately 800 health care centers. It is the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care advocate and provider.

Cecile Richard, current President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America stated on February 18, 2011, “For 95 years, Planned Parenthood has provided medical care and family planning services to women across the country….We are trusted by millions of women and families to deliver care to those who need it most.”  On June 14, 2011 at the Commonwealth Club she boasted Planned Parenthood “does more to prevent unintended pregnancy and the need for abortion than any other agency.”  (Commonwealth  Club 6/14/11 15:47) But should she boast?

Since 1990 the overall number of abortions performed nationwide has decreased 25%. During the same time period the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood has gone up 157%.*

Planned Parenthoods Annual Report from 2005 – 2011 show Abortion Services consistently, year after year at a tidy 3% of their total yearly services. This statistic makes abortion appear insignificant when compared to their other services. Sometimes numbers paint a different picture when they are given in dollars.

$105,977,200 or 30.6% of Planned Parenthood's revenue from Clinic Services** came from abortion services in 2005.  Since 2005 this percentage has steadily risen.  $166,982,000 or 54.7% of Planned Parenthood's revenue from Clinic Services** came from abortion services in 2011.  With over 50% of revenue from Clinic Services coming from abortions in 2010 and 2011, the percentage doesn’t seem so insignificant.

As Planned Parenthood the nation’s leading sexual health care provider has increased their share of the abortion industry, have then been able to decrease the number of unintended pregnancies?

The Guttmacher institute Policy Review Summer 2006 revealed that between 1994 and 2001 the unintended pregnancy rate for poor women went up by 29% and that poor women face more unplanned pregnancies and growing rates of abortion.

Guttmacher Institute’s report on U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions dated January 2010, stated, “for the first time since the early 1990s, overall rates of pregnancy and birth—and, to a lesser extent, rates of abortion—among teenagers and young women increased from 2005 to 2006. It is too soon to tell whether this reversal is simply a short-term fluctuation, a more lasting stabilization or the beginning of a longer-term increase. Preliminary data on births for 2007 show a further increase.”

If the success of Planned Parenthood rests on their ability to decrease the number of abortions and decrease the number of unintended pregnancies, they have not achieved their goal. If the success of Planned Parenthood rests on increasing the amount of money they receive from the government through our tax dollars to provide reproductive health care and the amount of funds they receive from abortion services they are exceeding their goal and making their non-profit quite profitable.

Except for 2006, from 2005 to 2009, Planned Parenthood Federation of America reported Excess of Revenue over Expenses greater than the total GAO Government Reported Expenditure of Title X and Medicaid combined.

In other words Planned Parenthood, a non-profit corporation reported making a profit greater than what they received in our tax dollars in the form of Title X and Medicaid. If they had not received money for Title X and Medicaid in the years 2005 to 2009, they would still have reported a profit of $11,200,000 in 2005, $63,300,000 in 2007, $29,500,000 in 2008 and broke even in 2006.*

Part four, Planned Parenthood Profitable Nonprofit, present statistics taken from Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute illustrating Planned Parenthood’s excess over revenue (profit) from abortion dollars and their increased percentage of the national abortion pie.

*Planned Parenthood Part 4 Profitable Nonprofit

** Clinic Services for Planned Parenthood are defined as - Contraception + Sterilization + STD Testing + Pap Exams + HPV Vaccinations + Breast Exams + Colposcopy Procedures + LEEP Procedures + Cryotherapy Procedures + Other Women's Health Issues (Preganancy Tests, Prenatal Clients, Midlife Clients, Intertility) + Abortion Procedures + Primary Care + Adoption Referrals (not all affiliates have all services)

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice – Part 3 - Law

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

In 1873 the Comstock Act was passed, making it a federal offence to distribute or send obscene or illicit materials. This law not only banned distribution of pornographic material but also any material with descriptions of contraceptive methods or other medically related materials. This law remained unchallenged until it got in the way of Margaret Sanger’s mission to make birth control legal.

Margaret Sanger’s publication in 1914 of “The Women Rebel,” and her acts of civil disobedience in 1916, proved instrumental in Judge Frederick Crane’s decision to allow New York state physicians for the first time to legally prescribe contraception for general health reasons placing the first crack in the Comstock laws.

In 1936, in another act of civil disobedience, Margaret Sanger was arrested after leaking information to postal authorities that she illegally ordered birth control products through the mail. This led to a victory for Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement in United States v. One Package, and another crack in the Comstock law.

After Margaret Sanger establishes Planned Parenthood in 1942 she used the power of her organization to continue to go after the law with the favorable decisions of Poe v. Ullman in 1961 and Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965.

In Griswold v. Connecticut, Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut Executive Director Estelle Griswold and their Medical Director C. Lee Buxton were arrested and fined $100 for giving information, instruction and medical advice to married persons regarding birth control. In 1963 this case was brought before the Supreme Court. The decision in Griswold v. Connecticut found that though the right to privacy is not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights “specific guarantees in the Bills of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations,” that protect a right to privacy in this case.

Dictionary please. A penumbra is an opaque shadow and emanations emit a product. So the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Griswold and Planned Parenthood not because the right to privacy is in the Bill of Rights, but because guarantees in the Bill of Rights emit opaque shadows that protect the right to privacy in this case. Or something like that.

But more changes were needed to get to Margaret Sanger’s ultimate goal: the facilitation of weeding out the unfit by rectifying the unbalance between the birth rate of the “unfit” and the “fit,” and ridding the world of the undesired babies that are a “terrible infringement on the personal rights of the mother”. Margaret Sanger’s life mission would come to fruition when every woman was free to privately make her own decision on birth control, on when or if to bear or beget a child. Margaret Sanger died in 1966, seven years before her goal would be achieved in companion cases Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

Planned Parenthood challenged the law and these challenges changed the law to make abortion on demand legal throughout the entire length of pregnancy for almost any reason.  Whether or not one agrees or disagrees with the challenges and changes in the laws surrounding birth control it is fascinating to dissect the minutiae of the changes.

Privacy and Penumbras 

and 

Abortion on Demand

___
Front Page of Margaret Sanger's Birth Control Review January 1929
Birth Control Tied Up in Puritanical Laws - Nate Collier 3rd Place Birth Control Review Cartoon Contest
Supreme Court Building Washington DC
Contemplation of Justice Statue - Photograph by James Earle Fraser, US Supreme Court Building Washington DC
Authority of the Law Statue - Supreme Court Building Washington DC

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice - Part 2 - Science

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

In 1960, nine years after Margaret Sanger secured a grant from her organization Planned Parenthood for Gregory Pincus to begin work developing a synthetic hormone that could be used for birth control, the FDA approved the “magic pill” Margaret had been dreaming of since 1912 when she was a nurse on New York’s Lower East Side. Immediately the pharmaceutical industry envisioned a huge market and nine American companies quickly developed a version of the Pill.

In 1966 the FDA looked into the common side effects of the Pill and though the task force did not find conclusive evidence that the Pill caused negative side effects they did allow pill manufacturers to lower the hormone levels and put the Pill back on the market with less rules and regulations.

In 1969 the FDA took another look at the Pill and reported that if the Pill failed to suppress ovulation (its primary role), the second major effect of the Pill was to prevent implantation of the embryo in the wall of the mother’s womb. This was not good news for Planned Parenthood.

Just six years earlier in 1963, the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare had issued a leaflet that defined abortion as “all the measures which impair the viability of the zygote at any time between the instant of fertilization and the completion of labor.”

Furthermore, until 1972, the three major medical dictionaries defined fertilization (the union of spermatozoon and oocyte to form a zygote) as the moment of conception. If the Pill prevented implantation of a fertilized zygote, then it would medically be considered an abortifacient. But what if the definition of conception was changed? What if successful implantation was defined as the moment of conception?

Bent Boving a Swedish researcher was way ahead of the curve. He had already planted that thought in the minds of those gathered at a 1959 Planned Parenthood/Population Council symposium when he made his comment: “The fact of giving implantation control the advantage of being socially considered as conception prevention rather than the destruction of an initiated established pregnancy is simply the habit of prudent language.”

In other words all social engineers have to do is say that conception doesn’t begin at fertilization, but it begins at successful implantation. If enough important people say this enough times, the habit of prudent language will make it the acceptable standard or as Vladimir Lenin stated, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

In 1972, Stedman’s became the first medical dictionary to define conception as the “successful implantation of the blastocyst in the uterine lining.” A year later brought the favorable decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. As Planned Parenthood celebrated their victory they realized they now had another definition in need of manipulation. At what moment does a fetus become a human person? The answer is as simple as the habit of prudent language.

Planned Parenthood is at the forefront of semantic gymnastics using the art of prudent language to further their cause. On their page “Expert’s Answer Common Sexual Health Questions, Planned Parenthood states that most medical authorities agree with them that life begins when a baby takes its first breath. Does anyone else feel like America is the frog simmering in the Planned Parenthood’s kettle?

Part two, Planned Parenthood – Life Begins with Genetic Semantics and the Medical Dictionary Conundrum, illustrates why certain definitions have been socially engineered, why Planned Parenthood has an interest these definitions, and contrasts Planned Parenthood’s definition of the beginning of life with a scientific perspective.

For more details on the science of life - please see this updated blog post.

___
Cover of Life Magazine April 30, 1965 - Photo by Lennart Nilsson (fetus 18 weeks)
Photographs by Lennart Nilsson (fetus 7 weeks, 10 weeks, 20 weeks) From A Child Is Born:  The Drama of Life Before Birth published 1965
Life Magazine Photo by Max Aguilera-Hellweg taken in July 1999 of Sarah Marie Switzer at 24 weeks during an operation for spina bifida.  After the operation she was reinserted into her mother's womb and born two months later nine weeks premature.

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice - Part 1 History

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

“Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, is one of the movement’s great heroes.  Her early efforts remain the hallmark of Planned Parenthood’s mission:  to provide contraception and other health services to women and men, fund research on birth control, and educating specialists and the public about the results, and advancing access to family planning in the United States and around the world.”  (Planned Parenthood History and Successes)

Last year in commemoration of the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America made the following remarks, “The anniversary of Roe v. Wade is a reminder that advances for women's health and rights do not come easily. We have to speak out and stand together to make progress…Today, we celebrate what we achieved 38 years ago with Roe v. Wade and rededicate ourselves to protecting each woman's constitutional right to make her own private, personal medical decisions.”

Planned Parenthood is the nation's leading sexual and reproductive health care provider, educator and advocate.  This month Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country will hold celebrations, luncheons, and days of advocacy in commemoration of the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

At the same time events will be held in opposition to the Supreme Court companion decisions of January 22, 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton which together made abortion legal to perform at any time during pregnancy for almost any reason. Resulting in 49,453,000 legal abortions performed in the US between 1973 and 2008 with the highest rate being among African American and Hispanic women.*

In order to defend my pro-life stance and to better formulate my opinion as to the success or failure of Planned Parenthood as the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care advocate, provider and educator, I researched the history of Planned Parenthood and its founder, Margaret Sanger. The result was a five part commentary which will post during this week leading up to the March for Life East Coast and its companion Walk for Life West Coast.

The first part, Planned Parenthood a Eugenic Beginning lays a foundation linking Margaret Sanger’s adherence to the philosophy of eugenics, birth control and weeding out the unfit with the Planned Parenthood mission.

Margaret Sanger founder of Planned Parenthood believed that women should not be weighed down with unwanted children. To weed out the unwanted and unfit she advocated birth control, segregation and sterilization. She made it her mission to fight compulsory motherhood, antiquated laws, and was prominent in getting her “magic pill” tested, mass produced and sold. After her death in 1966 her mission continues through Planned Parenthood Federation of America, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Planned Parenthood Global.

Planned Parenthood 

A Eugenic Beginning

______
*Trends in Abortion in the United States, 1973 – 2008, Guttmacher Institute 2011