Planned Parenthood Protects Abusers from Women

Planned Parenthood, the great champion of women's rights, was caught harming women for profit again. LifeNews.com reported two separate incidents--one in Ohio, the other in California--on May 10th.

A teenage victim of incest is suing a Cincinatti Planned Parenthood for failing to report her father's sexual abuse to authorities, as required by Ohio law. LifeNews reports that the suit alleges she told the clinic staff about the crime, and "Planned Parenthood's failure to report the incest to police resulted in another 18 months of sexual abuse at the hands of her father."

In another report, workers at a Santa Monica, California, Planned Parenthood, told a girl posing as a 15-year-old who had been impregnated by a 23-year-old that if she were 16 they wouldn't need to report the statutory rape. She claims they told her to "figure out a birth-date that works" so they could perform an abortion without getting her boyfriend in trouble.

I'm just glad Planned Parenthood stands ready to protect women from exploitation. Aren't you? Maybe their protection of women is the reason our government gives them $272.7 million of our tax money per year.

Taxed for Death

I filed my income tax return last week. Of course I'm looking forward to getting a small portion of the taxes I paid back, but that doesn't make me like them. While I dislike paying taxes as much as the next guy, I do recognize the need for taxation and the benefits received. We must fund our courts, prisons, and military if we want freedom and security.

It's the funding for various social programs that upsets most people. Emily Bazelon wrote a bias-filled pro-abortion article in the New York Times Magazine lately, questioning the existence of Post-Abortion Syndrome. She wrote: "[T]he Bush administration, in its first four years, spent more than $30 million on the 50-some crisis pregnancy centers [that receive federal funds], according to a report by Representative Henry A. Waxman, a Democrat from California."

That sounds like a lot of money, even if it was spread over four years ($7.5 million per year on average)--at least until you find out that Planned Parenthood received $265.2 million in taxpayer funds in 2004 alone. (Bazelon's article didn't mention that detail.) Planned Parenthood is, of course, Big Abortion, reportedly killing 244,628 babies by surgical abortion in 2003. That number does not include other forms of abortion or referrals to non-affiliated clinics.

While federal funding for neither the social programs of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) nor Planned Parenthood is strictly constitutional, I would much rather fund CPCs that provide vital services to their communities than Planned Parenthood.

Of course the current debate on embryonic stem cell research is also about taxpayer funding, not over its legality.

The pro-life side wants to defund Planned Parenthood, and the pro-abortion side wants to defund CPCs. Fine. Let's defund all the social programs funded by the government and allow individuals to keep and give more of their income. The people of God have taken care of the needy long before the government starting helping (and mismanaging). And if liberals want to fund Planned Parenthood, pornography masquerading as art, and needle exchange programs, let them do it with their money, not yours and mine.

I don't hear politicians talking this way. They win points by promising to give more money to the programs voters like. Whichever political party returns to the conservative principles of limiting the role of government will at least gain support from the libertarian middle.

Instead of splitting our tax dollars 97-3 between support of death and support of life lets stop playing tug of war over the checkbook and empower the American people to support the causes of their consciences. But don't expect this Congress to do it.

Wesley Wilson