Now that outrage over Cecil the Lion is fading from the public’s consciousness, there’s little else for Planned Parenthood to hide behind as videos continue to emerge detailing their practice of selling the body parts from the babies they’ve aborted. As sickening and graphic as the videos are, though, there are somehow still people who are standing up for the organization and defending their murderous practices. 46 U.S. Senators still voted to give Planned Parenthood taxpayer money, and plenty of Americans thought that was the right thing to do.
The reason this has caused such an uproar, of course, is that it’s the first time that Planned Parenthood has admitted that the beings they are aborting are actually humans. You can’t sell human organs from a non-human. And since we’re now all on the same page in admitting that we’re talking about baby humans, logic demands that we agree that abortion ends a human life. That’s just science. (As a side note – don’t even think about calling Christians “anti-science” if you’re still willing to call these humans being sold for their body parts “clumps of cells.”)
But, again, they still have people standing by their side. So, let’s let Planned Parenthood’s defenders speak for themselves and see what we find.
“The videos were heavily edited“
Notice how they’re not saying that they don’t sell the parts of the humans they murder. They’re just upset that the videos have been edited to make them look worse, or more greedy. Well, aside from the fact that the full videos have been released alongside the shorter versions, if PP is still doing it, who cares how edited the videos are? The truth is the truth. What has people outraged isn’t the way the videos were edited; it’s that this organization is evil enough to kill children under the false pretense that they aren’t human and then turn and sell their parts as human.
“They aren’t selling the parts for profit”
In the FactCheck link above, PP is defended on the grounds that some people are mistaken in thinking that these body parts are being sold for profit. The article then promptly admits that, yeah, maybe they are selling them for profit sometimes. “I think for affiliates, at the end of the day, they’re a nonprofit, they just don’t want to — they want to break even. And if they can do a little better than break even, and do so in a way that seems reasonable, they’re happy to do that,” senior director of medical services Deborah Nucatola was recorded as saying. But, again, that’s not the point. They’re still doing it, regardless of how much money it brings in. What their defenders are really saying with this point is that nobody should be mad at PP for killing babies, dividing them up, and selling their parts – so long as the company doesn’t make too much money off of it.
“Abortions are only 3% of what Planned Parenthood provides“
Every time the evils of PP are brought up, their advocates like to point to the fact that abortions only make up a fraction of the services that the organization provides. Thus, the birth control pills, health screenings, and everything else should make pro-life people recognize the good that the company does. First of all, that stat is clearly a dishonest twisting of the numbers. As this video demonstrates, 94% of pregnant women who go to a PP clinic for services receive an abortion. Second, consider the absurdity of that argument. Molesting children is only a fraction of what pedophiles do. Some of them even spend way more time donating to charity and helping other people than they do assaulting children. So that makes them good people, right? Shouldn’t we just leave them alone since they do so much good? If the argument doesn’t work for pedophiles, it doesn’t work for people who tear babies limb from limb in the womb.
“Planned Parenthood’s federal funding is prohibited from being used for abortions“
This one is by far the simplest, most economically illiterate argument one could make. All funds are fungible, so it doesn’t matter what the money is earmarked for. It all ends up in the same place. Let’s say you’re wanting to buy a burger and a drink but you only have $1. I give you another dollar but make you promise you won’t spend it on the burger. So, you go ahead and spend my dollar on the drink. Guess what? Now you can spend the dollar you already had on the burger without ever violating my stipulation. Now replace the drink with health screenings and contraception and the burger with abortions. This argument isn’t sound enough to be made by people who have thought it through and truly believe it. It’s made by people who are emotionally invested in defending PP and refuse to look objectively at what they’re saying.
“You people aren’t pro-life, you’re just pro-birth“
This argument comes from a quote by a Catholic nun (Joan Chittister) that has found new life on social media in response to PP’s critics. “I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life,” she said. “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.” First of all, taxation isn’t charitable giving (but that’s another article for another day). Second, as a Catholic she should know better. I’m no Catholic, but I know that they are one of the world’s biggest (if not the biggest) voices in the anti-abortion community. They also happen to be one of the most charitable (again, if not the most charitable) organizations on earth, building schools and hospitals all over the world. Additionally, people who identify as Christians are twice as likely to adopt and are more charitable in general. Could more Christians take up James 1:27’s call to visit widows and orphans in their distress? Sure, but that worn out narrative that Christians only care about babies until they leave the womb is just dishonest.
Beyond the statistics, though, let’s reduce this argument to what it’s really saying: “You guys aren’t going to take adequate care of these children, so it’s better for everybody if we just kill them.” Murder is better than a tough upbringing? I’d like to think that that’s not an actual argument that people are making, but somehow it is.
At a certain point the question has to be asked of Planned Parenthood supporters – what would have to happen before you change your mind? We know that the organization was founded by a racist eugenicist and still carries out her vision of targeting millions of minority women. We know the brutal, unspeakable practices (warning: graphic) by which they end the life of the growing child. We know that some PP leaders are in favor of partial-birth or even post-birth abortions. What more is it going to take?
Facts have to trump emotion. There will come a time in the midst of this tidal wave of evidence that PP’s supporters will either have to admit that they were wrong and change course, or stubbornly refuse to accept the facts and continue lying to themselves.
Either way, please stop with these weak, dishonest arguments. At least have the courage to stand up for what you believe. Rather than uttering clichés about a “woman’s right to choose,” say what you really mean – “I believe that a woman has the right to choose to brutally murder her own child and allow his or her organs to be sold like car parts.”
Man was created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) and hands that shed innocent blood are an abomination to Him (Proverbs 6:16). When you consider what abortion actually is, and when you consider the death toll, it’s plain to see that this practice is the greatest evil mankind has ever devised. The people of Planned Parenthood will give an account, and so will any who stand with them. If you find yourself defending these people, you have to ask yourself – how much more will it take for me to change my mind? Is the sale of the remains of murdered babies worth selling my soul?
By Jack Wilkie
Jack Wilkie is the author of “Failure: What Christian Parents Need to Know About American Education” and is the speaker for Focus Press’s “The Lost Generation” seminar. To schedule a seminar at your church, contact jack@tampaseo.expert.