After years of hailing her as a hero, Planned Parenthood has decided to attempt to distance themselves from their founder, Margaret Sanger. Throughout her life, Sanger made it no secret that she was a firm believer in eugenics, arguing for the forced sterilization of the “unfit” and called her work the “greatest step toward race betterment.” She included a white supremacist on her board of directors, spoke at an event for a women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan, and used her work to target minority communities, opening her first birth control center in an immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn, and the second in Harlem. After decades of glossing over their racist and eugenics-based origins, Planned Parenthood announced on Tuesday that they would be removing Margaret Sanger’s name from their New York building and would be working with the city council to remove her name from Margaret Sanger Square. In an official statement, Karen Seltzer, the Board Chair at Planned Parenthood of Greater New York said,
The removal of Margaret Sanger’s name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color. Margaret Sanger’s concerns and advocacy for reproductive health have been clearly documented, but so too has her racist legacy. There is overwhelming evidence for Sanger’s deep belief in eugenic ideology, which runs completely counter to our values at PPGNY. Removing her name is an important step toward representing who we are as an organization and who we serve.
Planned Parenthood’s attempt to distance themselves from Sanger’s racism and eugenicsis half-hearted and hypocritical at best. Following in the footsteps of their founder, the abortion giant continues to target minority communities and kills an estimated 247 black babies every day, and Live Action News has pointed out that 38% of reported abortions are committed on black women, while black Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population.
A recent study from Dr. Tricia Bruce at Notre Dame University revealed that American’s attitudes toward abortion are not always what they would seem to be based on polling data. She and her team conducted a study in which they interviewed people on their views regarding abortion, without letting them know ahead of time what they would be discussing. Rather than asking closed-ended polling questions, they spent over an hour talking to each interviewee and then analyzed the interviews for patterns and trends.
Most of the interviewees acknowledged that they had not given serious thought to the issue of abortion, and that it was a topic they had almost never discussed. “Nearly all Americans feel conflicted in some way about abortion,” observed Bruce. “Surveys underestimate the ambivalence that emerges when Americans talk through their own understandings of abortion.” Bruce also found that many interviewees would give one response regarding their views on abortion, and then follow up by explaining that their response doesn’t actually reflect their views, and that none of the individuals her team interviewed saw abortion as a desirable good. Near the conclusion of her report, Bruce writes,
Most Americans don’t know for themselves what they believe about abortion. No one has ever asked them, beyond a narrow dichotomy. Many are still figuring it out. Americans also find themselves bereft of scientific, legal, and moral lexicons to reason through difficult topics. Most work with a limited set of facts and tools in moral reasoning, leading them to positions without having contemplated the extent of implications.
“As or right now, his quality of life… he doesn’t have much of one.”
“What do you mean? Because he’s paralyzed with a brain injury he doesn’t have quality of life?”
“Correct.”
This was the conversation between a doctor at St. David’s Hospital in Austin, Texas and the wife of a quadriplegic man in early June. Michael Hickson, who was disabled due to an anoxic brain injury he had suffered in 2017, had been admitted to the hospital with a low-grade fever and pneumonia after testing positive for COVID-19 a few weeks earlier.Due to an ongoing custody dispute between Mrs. Hickson and her sister-in-law, a court had appointed Family Eldercare as Hickson’s temporary guardian and Mrs. Hickson no longer had the right to make medical decisions on behalf of her husband.In a recorded conversation between Mrs. Hickson and the hospital, one of the doctors treating Hickson explained that the decision had been made not to pursue further treatment and to instead put him on hospice care,and that this decision was made because of Hickson’s quality of life.When pressed on whether or not the quality of life assessment had been made because of Hickson’s disability, the doctor said that it was, and returned to that point more than once throughout the conversation, arguing that Hickson’s case was different from other patients, saying, “His quality of life is different from theirs. They were walking, talking people.” Six days later, Hickson died.
A federal judge on Monday waived a rule requiring an in-person visit before obtaining the abortion pill after the ACLUargued that the requirement poseda “substantial obstacle”during COVID-19. The abortion pill is subject to the FDA Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) protocol,and with good reason. In the 20 years that the abortion pill regimen has been legal in the U.S., thousands of women have experienced adverse effects and 24 have died. In May of this year, a woman who had taken the abortion pill was rushed from a Texas abortion facility to a nearby hospital as her oxygen levels dropped due to severe blood loss. Ignoring the dangers of the abortion pill, the ACLU filed a lawsuiton behalf of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic demanding thatthe FDA to waive the REMS requirement of an in-person visit.
Writing for Live Action, Nancy Flanders points out,
The purpose of undergoing a physical examination before taking the abortion pill is to ensure the gestational age of the child is not more than 10 weeks, that the woman is either Rh negative or positive, and that the pregnancy is not ectopic. In any of these cases, taking the abortion pill poses a potential health risk to the woman, including the possibility of future pregnancy loss, hysterectomy, and death.
Demanding the removal of in-person visits shows a serious disregard for the safety and well-being of women, and U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang was wrong to bow to the abortion lobby’s demands.
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by the March for Life organization revealed this week that Planned Parenthood North Central States, based in St. Paul, received a forgivable loan through the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) worth $5-10 million. Only one other Planned Parenthood affiliate received more than $5 million, and PP North Central States also reported the highest numbers of employees retained, 495, of any PP affiliate that received money through the program.
Their loan was approved on April 10, 2020, when elective surgeries were still banned in Minnesota under Governor Walz’s emergency order. But Planned Parenthood, supported by the state government, continued to perform abortions instead of conserving personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals treating COVID patients.
Earlier this week, the Minnesota Department of Health released its annual report on abortion in Minnesota, finding that 9,922 abortions were committed in Minnesota in 2019. This marks a slight increase from the year before when there were 9,910 abortions committed in Minnesota.
Of those 9,922 abortions, 8,252 (83%) were performed after fetal heartbeat was detectable via ultrasound. Three babies were born alive during botched abortion procedures, but all three died shortly after. The report also revealed that 43% of the abortions performed in Minnesota were covered by public assistance, a sobering reminder that taxpayer dollars are being used to perpetuate abortion.
60% of the women who had an abortion in Minnesota last year had given birth at least once before, and 38% had previously had at least one abortion. Planned Parenthood continues to play an overwhelming role in Minnesota’s abortion industry, and in 2019 it committed 65% (6,451) of the abortions performed in our state, marking a steady increase in the percentage of abortions carried out by Planned Parenthood in Minnesota each year.
MINNEAPOLIS - Minnesota’s largest Christian public policy group, Minnesota Family Council, made the following statement about today’s Supreme Court ruling in June Medical Services v. Russo.
Today’s decision shows once again that the Supreme Court’s whole approach to abortion jurisprudence is antithetical to the goal of protecting human life. As Justice Thomas wrote in his dissent, “[The Court's abortion decisions] created the right to abortion out of whole cloth, without a shred of support from the Constitution’s text. Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled.”
Minnesota Family Council’s Director of Public Policy, Veronica, Faye, made the following statement: “Let’s be clear: when abortion businesses, who do not have women’s best interests at heart, are allowed to speak for women in courts of law, we are letting the fox guard the henhouse. Under the Louisiana law the Court struck down this morning, the state required abortion clinics to abide by the same standards of care required of other ambulatory surgical centers. By holding abortion clinics to a lower standard, the Court is failing women and girls. Abortion always kills a child, and often hurts a woman. All of Louisiana’s abortion clinics have been cited for safety violations - why would the Court trust them to have women’s best interests at heart? Minnesota Family Council will continue to work in state and federal legislatures, and in the court system, to fight for the God-given right to life.”
Many abortion activists insist that “abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor!” This line of argument is used in an attempt to shut down the abortion debate, painting the pro-life movement as an intrusion on women’s privacy and healthcare. But how accurate is this claim? The claim that abortion is “between a woman and her doctor” makes two assumptions. First, that the woman seeking an abortion is the only person affected by her decision,and secondly, that abortion is performed exclusively for medical reasons.
Regarding the first assumption, we have to keep in mind that abortion is really about the life of the child in the womb. Neither a woman nor her doctor have the moral right to make a decision to end the life of another human being. Because of this, we cannot say that abortion is a private decision that ought to be kept between a woman and her doctor. In no other circumstances would we say that two people have a right to make a “private decision” determining whether or not another person should live or die. The death of millions of innocent humans is an issue that touches every single member of our society because disregard for the value and dignity of human life anywhere is a threat to human life everywhere. It is not up to a woman and her doctor to decide that a child does not get to live.
During the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the Abortion Pill Rescue Network received a record number of calls. In February a mother gave birth to twins who were saved through the abortion pill reversal. Early this year a little boy named Isaiah celebrated his first birthday thanks to the Abortion Pill Rescue Network. To date the Abortion Pill Reversal Network has saved over 1,000 babies. Now abortion pill reversal websites are currently under attack as a pro-abortion “watchdog” group, Campaign for Accountability (CFA), demands that the FDA remove these websites.
Abortion pill reversalwebsites offer lifesaving hope. When a woman begins the abortion reversal process, the abortion industry has already made their money off of her, so why are the abortion industry’s allies dead set on taking down these websites? Because women who change their minds and find help from abortion pill reversal groups to save their babies challenge the abortion industry’s narratives. By choosing hope, they demonstrate that women do not need abortion in order to be successful and they promote a culture of life through their actions. Abortion pill reversals empower women to choose life, and that threatens the abortion industry and their allies.
After lending her name to the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion,Norma McCorvey, better known as Jane Roe, became a pro-life ally,appearing at marches, rallies, and outside of abortion facilities to tell herstoryand defend life.Then yesterdayheadlines crowing that “Woman behind U.S. abortion ruling was paid to recant” and “The woman Behind Roe v. Wade didn’t change her mind. She was paid” began sweeping across the internet. According to a documentary set to air on Hulu this Friday,McCorvey eitherrecanted her pro-life stance near the end of her life, or perhaps never was pro-life at all.
The documentary called “AKA, Jane Roe,” tells the story of Roe v. Wade from the viewpoint of an aging Norma McCorvey, using footage from shortly before her death. In the film she refers to her statements as her “deathbed confession.” McCorvey says, “If a young woman wants to have an abortion—fine… You know, that’s why they call it ‘choice.’ It’s your choice,” and suggests that her public pro-life stance was financially motivated, although it is worth noting that, contrary to the headlines, there is no evidence that she was actually paid to becomepro-life.
The abortion industry is partnering with the ACLU to encourage minors to work around laws requiring parental consent for abortion. According to the pro-abortion website Rewire, a North Carolina abortion group has partnered with the state’s ACLU to set up a text line where minors can receive help outmaneuvering the state’s abortion laws. The text line called Text Abby targetsteens in North and South Carolina and is modeled after a similar text line based out of Texas, Jane’s Due Process. Currently 21 states require consent of one or both parents before a teenager may undergo an abortion, and 11 states, including Minnesota, require parental notification. All of these states have a judicial bypass provision that allows a judge to excuse minors from meeting this requirement. Text lines like Text Abby and Jane’s Due Process go behind parents’ backs to obtain permission from a judge for teens to get abortions without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
The abortion industry thrives on building distrust between teens and their parents. Parental consent laws, on the other hand, provide an opportunity for teens to communicate with their parents and receive help and support. Circumventing these laws erodes teens’ relationships with their parents, and also places young women in harm’s way by taking away an important safeguard in the fight against abuse and human trafficking.
Since mid-March, hospitals across Minnesota have been postponing elective surgeries in order to conserve personal protective equipment (PPE) duringCOVID-19, but throughout this time, abortion providers have received special treatment and have been exempted from following the rules that all Minnesota healthcare workers are being asked to follow. While other electivesurgeries are being put on hold, the abortion industry is continuing business as usual, using up valuablePPE with no interference from the State.Thomas More Specialty Counsel Erick Kaardal points out that this is not only unsafe, but irresponsibly wasteful.
In response to this double-standard, a coalitionof doctors and concerned Minnesotans have filed a lawsuit against Governor Tim Walz, Minnesota Health Department Commissioner Jan Malcolm, and the five abortion facilities operating in Minnesota.
Imagine being deemed an essential service and being encouraged to continue operating, only to be arrested for doing so. That’s exactly what happened to pro-life sidewalk counselors in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this month when they were arrested for offering sidewalk counseling outside of an abortion facility.David Benham is chairman of the boardof Cities 4 Life, a pro-life organization that offers counseling, housing assistance, baby showers, groceries, and financial support to expectant mothers. On the morning of April 4, he received a call from one of the sidewalk counselors outside of Preferred Women’s Health Center letting him know that the police had shown up. Shortly after arriving on the scene,Benham was arrested.
Under both state and local guidelinesCities 4 Life, as a federally recognized 501(c)(3) charity that provides social services, had permission to continue operating and was encouraged to do so. They had even confirmed with local police officials that they had permission to continue offering sidewalk counseling just a few days earlier. The same order that gave Preferred Women’s Health Center permission to operate also gave Cities 4 Life permission to operate, but only Cities 4 Life faced targeting from local authorities. As Benham has rightlyobserved that “This is nothing less than viewpoint discrimination.”
Thirty-two Family Policy Council directors across the nation, including Minnesota Family council CEO John Helmberger, have issued a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) urging them to uphold the current policy restricting telehealth doctors from prescribing chemical abortion drugs. This letter comes in response to a separate letter that was submitted by twenty-one state attorneys general—including Minnesota’s AG Keith Ellison—to DHHS Secretary Azar and FDA Commissioner Hahn, asking for loosened restrictions on mifepristone, the drug that causes an abortion by starving a developing baby of a critical hormone called progesterone.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, abortion activists have called for lifting of the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), which prevents mifepristone from being prescribed via a telehealth consultation with an abortionist. These activists argue “the REMS create unnecessary delays for women who need access to time-sensitive healthcare and force them to travel unnecessarily.” During this pandemic, our nation’s healthcare system has labored to serve and heal its citizens, and doctors have expanded telehealth services to achieve this goal. But lifting this REMS restriction would mean that women do not have to leave their homes in order to procure drugs for an abortion, and, as the FPC directors argue in their letter, this would have disastrous implications.
Abortionists and their friends in Minnesota have been making the most of this crisis. Less than a week after Governor Walz gave abortionists special treatment by exempting them from his stay at home order, Attorney General Keith Ellison joined with 20 other attorneys general in sending a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn requesting the removal of safety regulations on the abortion pill. In the letter, current regulations were referred to as “burdensome,” dismissing the known dangers of the abortion pill.
Legalized in 2000, the “abortion pill” is a chemical abortion procedure in which the mother takes two pills, the first one killing the baby, and the second to expel the child from the womb.Since legalization, there have been 4,200 reports of adverse effects, including severe hemorrhaging, infection, septic shock. Additional risks are involved in cases of ectopic pregnancy or if the mother is more than ten weeks pregnant, which is why a medical exam is required. As of 2018, the abortion pill has resulted in 24 maternal deaths, including two in 2018 alone.
Last week the Fifth Court of Appeals ruled issued a ruling allowing Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s executive order to halt abortions during the COVID-19 pandemic to stand. At least for the time being, unborn Texans are safe from abortion.
On March 21, Governor Abbott issued an executive order suspending all non-essential surgeries and procedures, including elective abortion. Three abortion groups immediately responded with an emergency lawsuit, resulting in the order being temporarily blocked by federal district judge Lee Yeakel.
Minnesota Family Council joined with 11 other family policy councils, as well as the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists,in submitting an amicus brief regarding Judge Yeakel’s decision. The brief pointed out that allowing abortion facilitiesto use up important personal protective equipment (PPE) on elective procedures when hospitals are already facing shortages endangers healthcare providers and their patients, and argued that states may suspend the “right” to abortion in order to protect lives during a pandemic. On Saturdaythe abortion providers involved asked the Supreme Court to take up the case and it is now pending before the Supreme Court.
By Renee Carlson, General Counsel, True North Legal
While most of the country is working to conserve medical resources for hospital workers treating COVID-19 patients, the abortion industry in Minnesota and across the country is carrying on business as usual. In fact, as COVID-19 restrictions and Executive Orders continued to be introduced and adapted to meet daily medical changes and updates, Sarah Stoesz, CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, made clear the abortion industry will continue to provide abortions in this perilous time, stating “all abortions, if women seek them, are essential.” The national abortion front is not backing down either, as the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization dedicated to advancing and preserving the right to abortions, actually encouraged abortion advocates to “guard against” the “coercive track record” of the current presidential administration, “against the possibility that [the administration] will seize the opportunity of COVID-19 to further restrict people’s fundamental rights and access to healthcare.”
Minnesota’s Governor Walz has made clear that the COVID-19 crisis represents an “unprecedented challenge to our state.” One of the gravest threats posed by the virus is that “local resources are inadequate to address the [COVID-19] threat…[as] cases in Minnesota are rapidly increasing and risk overwhelming the healthcare system.” The Governor’s Stay at Home order is specifically designed to lower the amount of infections so that there are enough masks and other protective equipment to keep patients and healthcare workers safe.
Times of crisis often bring what we really believe to the surface. Our actions in the midst of an emergency tend to reveal where our priorities lie and what is most valuable to us, and it is in these moments that treasuring human life proves essential because it is those who are most vulnerable who are at risk. To be pro-life is to care for all of life, from conception until natural death. It is to see that the worth of every individual is rooted in the fact that they are stamped with the image of our Creator, and created and loved by him. Because every life is valuable, every individual ought to be treated with care and dignity, regardless of their age or ability. When we value life, we are willing to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of the people around us.
In the past week, we’ve seen communities mobilize to protect those who are at high risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. Grocery stores are setting aside designated times for elderly and at-risk shoppers, while churches and communities are mobilizing to meet needs that have arisen in the past week.
Tragically, our society isn’t always consistent in its care for the most vulnerable. Shortly after Oregon began to see confirmed cases of COVID-19, they moved to inform the publicof how to protect older adults during the COVID-19 outbreak. Ironically, Oregon has also led the charge in pushing increasingly lax Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) legislation. Assisted suicidehas been legal in Oregon since 1997, and the state has recently been chipping away at the few protections that were in place. Oregon isn’t alone in this, as an increasing number of states have legalized assisted suicide in recent years.
“You’re not really pro-life, you’re just pro-birth! You don’t care about women, you just want to control their bodies!” Chances are if you’ve spoken with someone who supports abortion you’ve heard some iteration of the above. Is it true that the pro-life movement only cares about life inside the womb? There are plenty of ways that pro-life individuals actively care for life inside and outside of the womb, but for a moment, let’s focus on one particular way that the pro-life movement cares for women and their children both during and after pregnancy: pregnancy resource centers. Pregnancy resource centers, or PRCs, offer compassionate care to women in need of resources and support. In many ways, they are the hands and feet of the pro-life movement, caring for women during and after pregnancy, and offering counseling and supportto post-abortive women. And yet, despite the good that pregnancy resource centers do in their communities, abortion activists increasingly target them, harassing them and falsely labeling them as “fake clinics.” So let’s take a look at the truth about pregnancy resource centers.
Pregnancy resource centers are non-profits that provide resources to women who are experiencing unplanned pregnancies. In the three largest networks there are over 2,300 centers serving over 1.9 million women every year. As well as equipping women with the truth about abortion, these pro-life centers also offer adoption resources, parenting classes, and supplies such as diapers, formula, and clothing. Additionally, some, but not all, offer medical services. Those that do not offer them do not pretend that they do. Pro-life pregnancy resource centers also state on their websites, as well as in their interactions with clients, that they do not perform or refer for abortions.
The abortion industry consistently fails vulnerable women, disregarding their needs and even their safety as they put their bottom line above human life and dignity. As The Public Discourse has pointed out, while pregnancy resource centers will invest significant time and resources into serving abortion-minded women, abortion activists do not offer the same kind of support to women who do not want to abort. When a woman walks through the doors of an abortion facility, the staff typically have a financial interest in persuading her to abort her child, and often offer very little support if she does not. A PRC, on the other hand, will pour resources into women who need help, including post-abortive women who have been harmed by the abortion industry.
On March 4th, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, June Medical Services v. Russo, a case that could affect abortion laws across the country. Renee Carlson, General Counsel of True North Legal (TNL), a legal initiative in partnership with the MFC, was present in the courtroom for oral arguments. TNL also filed an amicus brief to weigh in on this case. “At True North Legal, we’re working to make sure that every woman and child in the state of Minnesota is safe from abortion, and that our legislature and courts in Minnesota follow the dictates of the highest court.” said Carlson in a video taken in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.
This case is so significant that the general public was camping out on the sidewalk outside of the Supreme Court for days prior, in hopes of getting a seat inside of the Court room. The June Medical Services case presents a constitutional challenge to a law that was passed in Louisiana, which simply requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges to hospitals within thirty miles of a facility where an abortion takes place. This law was passed to ensure the safety of women and children who are often victims of unsafe abortion practices. Many brave women shared their stories on the steps in front of the United States Supreme Court – stories of medical abandonment by abortion providers following medical complications. Abortion always kills a child, and often hurts a woman. That’s why laws like the one passed in Louisiana are critical for protecting women and children. Although we’re a long way from Louisiana, we believe strongly that this case could have significant legal implications in the fight to end abortion.
