Pro Life thoughts in a pro choice world through the eyes of a convert.
I took early retirement after working in the social work and Human Resources fields but remain active by being involved in pro life education, lobbying and speaking .
Interesting post from Abby Johnson in response to her post advising people that the "Christian company called “Thirty-One Gifts” is giving money to groups that fund Planned Parenthood."
" At first the responses to her post were positive but then "he “Thirty-One” all women’s mafia invaded my page. These all are Christian women who sell Thirty-One Gifts. However, based on their comments, you wouldn’t know they were Christians. One called me the devil. Several said that, as Christians, we should not be judging this organization (even though they are helping to fund abortion). Some wanted to know HOW MUCH money was given to Planned Parenthood by these organizations (as if that matters). And anyway, as most of them pointed out, Thirty-One Gifts does a lot of good…surely we can overlook this. A few of them came on my page to defend Planned Parenthood."
Scott Klusendorf on his Facebook account discusses Obama, HHS mandate and the war with the Catholic church as discussed in this Weekly Standard blog.....all I could think of was that video ...here comes the Catholic Church. Wow, important and interesting times we are living in. May we be up to the task before us. This is not just for Catholics...this is our Bonheoffer moment....
From Scott...." From the Weekly Standard (HT: Michael Bauman): The bishops call on Catholics in America, “in solidarity with our fellow citizens,” not to obey the law. They implicitly compare the HHS regulation to a segregation-era statute, and even cite Martin Luther Kind Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In a not-so-subtle manner, the bishops tell the Obama administration that they are willing to go to prison rather than comply with the mandate’s provisions."
What should have been a cut and dry situation never is that way when Planned Parenthood is involved. As the article noted this mess all started when Yvonne Madlock Director of Shelby County (Memphis)Health Dept. indicated she would not accept all of the Title X monies for family planning services because of capacity issues and insisted she would outsource a portion of it. All other 94 counties in TN provide these services through the health dept.
Madlock temporized, advising the state Health Department that the Shelby
County Health Department was not equipped to provide a full level of
services on its own and would have to sub-contract or “partner” with one
or more local agencies if it was to administer the entire local package
of $1,345,000 in Title X funding. (The portion of the grant being
out-sourced is $397,900.)
Previously all of this money was automatically given to Planned Parenthood. This time a Request for Proposal (RFP) was used after pressure from TN citizens came into play. Sounds logical doesn't it. Isn't this Standard Operation Procedure for businesses. Madlock admitted that all 3 bidders met basic standards but based on scores on service related criteria, the recommended provider was Christ Community Health Services.
A six-person panel of officials from the Health Department and county
government recommended approval of the bid from Christ Community on the
basis of the Center’s higher cumulative score on a checklist of
previously established service-related criteria. According to Yvonne
Madlock, Health Department director, the aggregate scores were: Christ
Community Center, 95.33; Planned Parenthood, 88.88; Memphis Health
Center, 84.54.
Over and done and on with business, right? We want the citizens to have the benefit of the best provider. No....Barry Chase CEO of Planned Parenthood came to whine and complain that they did not know what they were doing when they scored the bidders and PP should win what they acknowledge is a "loss leader."
Commissioner Heidi Shafer, who chairs the commission’s Hospital and
Health Committee, noted pointedly during Wednesday’s discussion that all
of the agencies that had bid for the Title X contract would necessarily
be operating at a loss.
So Barry Chase being a good CEO is fighting tooth and nail over a contract that is acknowledged to be operated at a loss. Why would he do that? Because $$ is fungible and as former directors of Planned Parenthood Abby Johnson has told us that PP needs tax payers $$ to survive and increase foot traffic for the profitable end of their business....abortion. Listen to her say.....they can't survive without our tax dollars.
Fr. Frank Pavone has been a staple in my house for many years…even
during my Planned Parenthood years. Every week I would record and watch
“Defending Life.” I enjoyed watching him, even if I disagreed. I loved how
outspoken he was and how he didn’t seem to live in the gray…you know, everything
seemed black and white for him…right and wrong was clear.
I remember watching him during the Terri Schiavo tragedy. I was
drawn to his gentle spirit. I had seen two sides to him…or was it? One side was
so unabashedly, unapologetically and passionately against abortion. The other
was a man who had an incredibly compassionate heart and a kind spirit…this was
the man who was helping a family grieve the loss of their daughter. But now, I
see they are the same. Fr. Frank is for life...all life. His compassion for
life fuels his passion.
Gallows humor....have you ever used it to get through the day when you worked around unpleasant things? I used to be a child welfare caseworker where I specialized in sex and physical abuse. A tough subject for sure. Sometimes gallows humor helped us relieve the tension. Policeman often practice it as they see the worst of humanity everyday. So this article from former Planned Parenthood manager Abby Johnson is not surprising. If you work in an industry that profits from killing innocent defenseless human babies....to keep your sanity....you indulge in gallows humor. Abby tells of the pass code to the phone system was 2229 which spelled out BABY. They referred to the freezer that held the fetal remains until the bio hazard truck came as the nursery. They joked about the fetal remains looking like barbecue or strawberry jam. When a pro life ministry moved into the neighborhood they joked about sending them cookies in the shape of a baby with red icing for the blood as a welcome to the neighborhood gift.
Sick humor....gallows humor....dark humor. It is what they had to use to cover up the horror of what they did everyday. I imagine the Nazis used it to cover the horrors of the execution of millions of Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. This shows they know what they are doing but they have to hide under a shell of indifference. As 40 Days for Life approaches let us pray that the shell will dissolve as it did for Abby and many will have the strength to walk away and say NO MORE. Pray for the abortion employees. We have all had the problem of being desensitized to the sin that besets us. Pray for sensitivity to convict so that repentance and healing can come next. As it has for the workers that are walking out of the industry everyday.
Politico has a news story showing the abortion industry is full of bluster but do not necessarily want to go to court to fight because they are not so sure of the outcome. Tough to be a pro abort with the new state laws and scientific evidence coming at them from every direction. They can holler all they want but the wave of elected officials in the state are overwhelmingly pro life. Now they are just stuck with saying, hey what about the jobs....why are we talking about this? When you are wrong on the issue, change the subject to the economy. From the article:
But the turf of abortion opponents
is growing. A wave of Republicans coming into office have made state
legislatures more amenable to restrictions, with governors signing laws
that previously languished in committee. The number of anti-abortion
governors rose from 21 to 29 in the past election, according to a NARAL
Pro-Choice America analysis. The number of states with fully
anti-abortion governments — where the governor and the legislature find
themselves on the same side of the issue — increased from 10 to 15.
Experts who study the Supreme Court and abortion politics concur that,
at the high court, abortion rights supporters are not necessarily in a
safe place.
Even the reporters supporting the abortion industry try with their terminology calling us anti choice and them abortion rights supporters are losing the PR battle as the people just don't buy it. They look at ultra sound pictures and the medical evidence and rightly discern that this is a human baby being killed and why are we doing this?
The abortion industry is just not sure of the votes in the Supreme Court. They are nervous over Kennedy and even their darling Ginsburg has publicly said that Roe Vs. Wade went too far. Then we have people like Abby Johnson who defected from Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year to a pro life activist who as they say "knows where the bodies are buried." Yuk, that play on words is oh so appropriate. It is not a good time to be pro abortion.
Myths about Planned Parenthood are spreading like grassfire.
Thanks to a perfect storm of events, the abortion provider is scrambling
to cauterize the biggest PR hit it has ever sustained. November’s
election of an overwhelmingly pro-life Congress, revelation of numerous
violations by its staff and repeated calls for its defunding by social and fiscal conservatives alike have put Planned Parenthood’s lifeblood on the line.
Planned
Parenthood’s bottom line is numbers. And, with abortion as its primary
money-maker, that means implementing a quota. I know this is true
because I worked at one of their Texas clinics for 8 years, two as the
clinic director.
Though 98 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services to pregnant women
are abortion, Planned Parenthood and its political allies have sworn up
and down that taxpayer dollars do not to pay for abortion. But of course
they do. Planned Parenthood gets one-third of its entire budget from
taxpayer funding and performed more than 650,000 abortions between 2008
and 2009. An abortion is expensive. Its cost includes pay for the
doctor, supporting medical staff, their health benefits packages and
malpractice insurance. As clinic director, I saw how money affiliate
clinics receive from several sources is combined into one pot, not set
aside for specific services.
Planned Parenthood’s claim that
abortions make up just 3 percent of its services is also a gimmick. That
number is actually closer to 12 percent, but strategically skewed by
unbundling family planning services so that each patient shows anywhere
from five to 20 “visits” per appointment (i.e., 12 packs of birth
control equals 12 visits) and doing the opposite with abortion visits,
bundling them together so that each appointment equals one visit. The
resulting difference between family planning and abortion “visits” is
striking.
But that’s not the only deception Planned Parenthood is spreading.
It
also claims to help reduce the number of abortions. Not only is this
not what Planned Parenthood actually accomplishes, but its goal couldn’t
be more opposite. As a Planned Parenthood clinic manager, I was
directed to double the number of abortions our clinic performed in order
to drive up revenue. In keeping, Planned Parenthood headquarters
recently issued a directive mandating that all of its affiliates provide abortions by 2013.
Planned
Parenthood is also spending a lot of money convincing its primary
income providers – taxpayers – that its highest priority is women's
health and safety. Live Action and the Expose Planned Parenthood
coalition released numerous undercover videos showing clinic staff aiding and abetting alleged sex traffickers in exploiting underage girls – some as young as 14.
After
initially downplaying the first video as a scam, Planned Parenthood of
Central New Jersey came under so much pressure that it fired the office
manager in the footage. New Jersey Attorney General Paula Dow quickly
called for an investigation, but Planned Parenthood’s problems don’t end
with firing one office manager. Later Live Action videos revealed an
unbroken chain of similar problems in clinics up and down the East
Coast.
Planned Parenthood has found other ways to increase
revenue at the expense of women’s safety. Abortion consultations are now
often done without a doctor in the room through online “telemedicine.”
Abortion is a severely traumatic and potentially dangerous procedure.
Even as Planned Parenthood's 2008 Employee of the Year, I saw this
aggressive push toward more “efficient” telemedicine as risky.
Another
nuisance the organization is seeking to do away with is reporting sex
abuse of minors. It has sued to overturn a child abuse reporting law
applying to minors under 14 on the grounds that it violated a girl’s
“constitutional right to privacy.” Planned Parenthood called the bill
unnecessary given that its medical personnel are already obliged to
report such matters and that filing additional reports would only
“overload” the government. Planned Parenthood doesn’t want to bother the
government with protecting minors.
It also can’t be bothered to
enable women to make informed decisions. Planned Parenthood has
adamantly opposed laws in nearly two dozen states that require clinic
staff to show a woman a sonogram before an abortion. With all the
supposed health services these clinics provide, why should they fear
sonograms? Because they cut down on its biggest income source.
With
the Continuing Resolution battle before us, we can, at very least, stop
making taxpayers perpetuate a culture that puts profit margins before
women’s safety. Congress has and must seize the opportunity to stop
directing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to recipients who
deliberately deceive the public and violate federal law.
I
joined Planned Parenthood because I wanted to help poor women with real
health care needs. I still do -- that’s why I left. Planned Parenthood
doesn’t care about women’s health care needs, it cares about abortion.
Planned Parenthood report released shows that business for the abortion provider is up...as those that walked away from the industry has told us repeatedly...the money is in selling abortions.Per Abby Johnson, the other services is to increase foot traffic.
"Planned Parenthood has increased its share of the abortion industry to 27.6 percent of all abortions done annually.
The new document the abortion organization posted shows Planned
Parenthood provided prenatal services to merely 7,021 women and referred
only 977 women for adoption services. These numbers were a 25 percent
drop in prenatal care clients and a whopping 59 percent decline in
adoption referrals from the 2,405 adoption referrals in 2008. The
abortion business helped only 9,433 prenatal clients in 2008, down
substantially from the 11,000 women it provided prenatal care to in 2007
— showing health care given to pregnant woman has fallen substantially
over the years."
Starting at around 4:33 Abby talks of the abuse being showcased in the undercover videos happening all the time and ends by saying PP cannot survive without our tax $$.
The announcement that the abortion industry feared would happen.... how can they discredit someone who they named employee of the year?? She went to Washington DC and sat at the same table as Hillary Clinton for goodness sake!!!
"Today Live Action announced the addition of Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood director and employee of eight years, to the Live Action team as Chief Research Strategist."
“I can tell you from experience that Planned Parenthood often turns a blind eye to sexual abuse and trafficking – what you see in Live Action’s videos is not a rare occurrence. But ignorance is no defense, especially when it has turned their clinics into a safe haven for those who sexually exploit women and girls. This is not a training problem so much as it is an ideology problem. I am humbled and eager to begin this partnership with Live Action so that together we can expose the serious harm Planned Parenthood poses to the most vulnerable among us.”
"We are now the ones who work to right our wrongs. We work to protect women…in and out of the womb. We are the ones who expose the lies of abortion and the billion dollar industry. We are the ones who now fight for the rights of babies in utero. We now know the real definition of woman’s rights. We are pro-woman, pro-family, and pro-life. We are the Centurions."
Well I admit I bought the book Unplanned because I wanted to support the cause against Planned Parenthood and I had heard Abby Johnson speak so I did not expect the book to tell me anything new. Jill Stanek talked about it being a real page turner and I thought this was hype to boost sales but she was right. I was so interested in her perspective on things and really learned a lot. I highly recommend this especially to those who are called to do sidewalk counseling. It was encouraging and informational and serves to remind us that many that are on the other side firmly believe in what they are doing and how hard it is to give up friendships and alliances once you are faced with the evidence on the issue of life. I especially found it interesting that those who quietly prayed in front of PP clinics had such and influence on the environment inside. I join Jill in calling this a page turner and a reminder that prayer does change things. Some of us are so action oriented that we may forget that prayer is an action.
About 300 people came to Nashville from all parts of TN on a weekday to participate but of course the Tennessean acted like it did not happen. When doing a small write up of the Freedom from Coercion bill, at least they got the headcount about right when talking about the number of people crammed into the gallery of the Senate to watch the vote. They said about 100 ....but of course they called us" "anti abortion" instead of "pro life.".....yes, they were at least pretty accurate about the number....it was standing room only....with the rest outside or in the legislative halls watching on the screen.
NPR said there were 20 Right to Life supporters in the gallery! Can they count? Wow....talk about low balling the number....but then it is Joe White at NPR...so what do you expect? Another liberal bastion that refers to us as abortion right OPPONENTS! And they love operating with our tax dollars!
But of course the event was not covered by any news outlet so far...again no surprise. Abby Johnson was the guest speaker and of course her story is not one that Planned Parenthood friends want to publish about her resigning as director of Planned Parenthood after working there seven years and even being named as employee of the year and treated to a luncheon in Washington DC and lunching with Hillary Clinton.
Anyway, it was a good day and even if the local outlets tried to pretend it did not happen. We are here. We are pro life and like it or not so is the majority of the country especially the youth! They realize that a third of their generation is missing! We will advocate and we will not be ignored. Ask the pro abortion legislators who are receiving pink slips!
