Lyin' about late-term abortions

"Lie" and "gaslighting" are strong words, but they are necessary to use in this case.

Yesterday a majority of the U.S. Senate voted to ban most abortions past 20 weeks based on evidence that the unborn child can feel pain. The bill was blocked by a filibuster of 44 Democrats and 2 Republicans.

The most frequent argument against the bill that we saw was that most women who have abortions past 20 weeks have some health issue, or the child has a fatal condition or disability. Here's an example, from Planned Parenthood:

Abortion later in pregnancy is rare and often happens under complex circumstances — the kind of situations where a patient and doctor need every medical option available: https://t.co/AzlyJiKT5U #StopTheBans

— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) January 29, 2018

It's a bad argument for three reasons:

A) Killing someone is not an appropriate response to suffering.
B) Having a disability doesn't diminish your human rights.
C) It isn't true. It's a lie.

It's not like this is a mistake, or an assumption, or wishful thinking. Planned Parenthood's own favorite research institution has studied the issue. They found most women who have late-term abortions past 20 weeks fit one of these five profiles:

1) Single mothers with other children.
2) Depression or substance abuse.
3) Relationship issues or domestic violence.
4) Trouble deciding earlier in the pregnancy.
5) Young and without children.

These are reasons for many early abortions as well. Conspicuously absent is any mention of a child with a disability or health issues.

It's also a disingenuous argument. Planned Parenthood doesn't oppose a ban on late-term abortions because of health issues, they oppose them because they believe no unborn child has a right to life at any point in pregnancy. If such an exception were included in a late-term ban, Planned Parenthood would move on to a completely different and equally-deceptive argument to oppose it. Planned Parenthood knows that late-term abortion bans usually poll in the 60 percent range, and that even many self-identified pro-choice Democrats support such bans, so they have to skirt the issue.

Planned Parenthood gaslights the public, they gaslight the media, and they gaslight their own supporters. Gaslighting is a term for emotional/mental abuse that involves repeatedly lying and deceiving someone, with the goal of having them question their own perceptions and instead rely on the deceptive person for their view of reality.

Practically every common argument or talking point from the abortion industry involves deception of some kind: only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's work involves abortions, "heavily edited" undercover videos involving fetal tissue trafficking, Planned Parenthood's fictitious mammogram machines, or the lie that launched the movement into the mainstream itself: back alley abortions. We could go on and on.

Why do Planned Parenthood and others do this? Because the second you acknowledge even a sliver of the truth or the humanity of the unborn child, the entire abortion house of cards comes tumbling down. Abortion rests on the idea that a child has zero moral worth before the moment of birth, or as former Sen. Barbara Boxer put it, a baby doesn't have value until you take her home from the hospital.

Just yesterday in discussing with someone the reasons women have abortions past 20 weeks, the person was unable to accept that the study discussed above from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute was legitimate. The person claimed the study was about abortion after 14 weeks, even though the title of the study is, "Who Seeks Abortions at or After 20 Weeks?". She was unable to accept the truth, and confabulated a reason to ignore the evidence.

That's why you can show someone a video of Planned Parenthood talking in their own words about selling the organs of aborted babies, and the person will likely find an excuse to assume what they've just seen isn't real or must be a deception itself. They are incapable of believing Planned Parenthood is in the wrong.

That's why it's important to keep your cool when debating people who support abortion. Most abortion supporters aren't dismissing your claims to purposefully lie or deceive. Their support of abortion rests on denying the reality of the unborn child, and they have been conditioned to accept claims from Planned Parenthood uncritically and doubt everything the profile movement says. Getting angry at them only drives them further away from your point.

That doesn't mean the prolife movement should abandon debunking pro-abortion claims. You can still sow seeds of doubt in abortion supporters, and sometimes they do see the truth when they are ready to emotionally accept it. So be patient, and continue keeping your arguments grounded in the facts and on point.

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

A movement for everyone, for everyone

The message of the prolife movement is extremely simple: every human life has inherent value, and thus an inalienable right to life. It's because of this simple belief that the prolife movement is committed to fighting the injustices of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.

It's a belief so simple every person of good will ought to be able to get behind it. It's the foundational creed of our nation, as declared by our Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The prolife movement is thus a movement for everyone, for everyone. We all should support respect for our right to life, because it's the one thing we all share in common: our humanity.

One poignant moment at the March for Life really highlighted this fact.

Every year the Family Research Council hosts ProLifeCon, an online streamed convention for prolife people across the digital fruited plains. Every year ProLifeCon features several prolife government officials, speakers, and leaders. This year Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood abortion facility director and leader of the organization And Then There Were None.

Abby's mission is to convince every employee at an abortion facility to leave, from the clinic escort outside who often intimidates prolife sidewalk counselors, right up to the abortionist performing an abortion. It's tough work, it has to be often heart-breaking work, but it has born fruit.

At the 2018 ProLifeCon, just before the March for Life began, Abby gave a message aimed at members of the prolife movement. She told them workers in the abortion industry do listen to them. What sort of messages should the prolife movement want them to hear? Which words drive them deeper into their abortion work, and which words help them to realize the gross injustice they are engaged in and leave it forever?

Abby highlighted her message using one person: Adrienne Moton. Adrienne was one of Kermit Gosnell's employees. She had helped Gosnell as he cut the necks of born-alive babies. Her mug shot had appeared in the Philadelphia papers, and later the national media.

It was Adrienne's conscience that helped authorities end Gosnell's clinic. She had taken the photo of one of the babies killed after birth by Gosnell. Only known to the world as "Baby Boy A," this child's photo and Adrienne's testimony helped convict Gosnell.

Adrienne helped the prosecutors, but still was convicted of third-degree murder herself. She spent time in jail, though she had a light sentence for her help in the case. It was time to reflect on what she had done.

Abby Johnson said she was appalled at what some prolifers were saying during the Gosnell trial. So, Abby said she decided to send letters to all of the Gosnell clinic employees and pray for them, hoping to receive a response. She finally did, though only one: Adrienne Moton.

After talking about her efforts to reach Adrienne, Abby invited Adrienne up to the podium at ProLifeCon. It was a surprise to the several people attending the digital convention in person. This person who was a prominent figure in a nearly unbelievable grand jury report and trial was present in person. Several years ago, Adrienne was helping Kermit Gosnell to run his clinic from Hell. On January 19, 2018, she was a member of the prolife movement, adding her voice to the hundreds of thousands of prolifers gathering in our nation's capitol for the March for Life that day.

It's a movement for everyone, for everyone.

Adrienne's story is not dissimilar to many prolifers. Many people today leading the movement have themselves been uncaring for the rights of unborn children in the past, or had a very imperfect view of those rights. The only qualification for joining the movement is being committed today to the belief that every human life has value and that every society has a fundamental duty to protect our common inalienable right to life.

Adrienne's story really recalls that of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, however. Dr. Nathanson was an early architect of the abortion movement and did tens of thousands of abortions. He could not shake his understanding of fetal development and images and sonograms of babies in the womb, just like Adrienne could not delete her photo of Baby Boy A. Nathanson left his deathly trade forever. He devoted the rest of his life to protect those he had once preyed upon.

Dr. Nathanson's autobiography, "The Hand of God," recounts his story and his long trek to his eventual home in the prolife movement:

"The keenest of human tortures is to be judged without a law, and mine had been a lawless universe. Santayana once wrote that the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself. I despised myself. Perhaps I had at least arrived at the beginning of the quest for human dignity."

John Kerry presidential run?

There's rumors going around that John Kerry might run for president again. We'll just leave this here...

The last time John Kerry ran for president, even the average millennial knew that socks and flip flops weren't fashionable, and they were in grade school. We are prepared if he runs again, we have binders full of Kerry! #Prolife #VoteProlife #FlipFlops

A post shared by Right to Life of Michigan (@righttolifemi) on Jan 25, 2018 at 8:19am PST

Detroit body broker convicted

After a two-week trial, and three and a half hours of deliberation by the jury, the verdict in the case of Arthur Rathburn is in: guilty.

For a refresher, Rathburn was being put on trial after a December 2013 raid on his warehouse turned up a slew of shady things. Investigators found the bodies for four unborn babies and human cadavers being improperly stored. The discoveries in his warehouse raised questions about the widely unregulated practices of body brokers in the United States.

He had been charged with 10 counts related to his business of buying and selling corpses which include allegedly knowing to have sold a cadaver infected with HIV and Hepatitis to a medical conference.

On January 22nd the jury found Rathburn guilty on seven counts of wire fraud, aiding and abetting. He faces a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in jail and a $25,000 fine. He was also found guilty on one count of illegal transportation of hazardous materials. This has a maximum penalty up to five years and a $25,000 fine. He was found not guilty on two counts of wire fraud, aiding, and abetting. He was also found not guilty on making false statements.

This case is one of many involving a national investigation by federal authorities into the largely unregulated market for body parts in the U.S. There are more and more cases coming to light after the Center for Medical Progress videos brought to light this awful underground operation in regards to aborted fetal body parts. Most recently Reuters has published several articles in a series that has uncovered these similar practices in the body broker industry.

Though Rathburn will pay for his crimes, there was sadly no mention of the unborn babies in his trial. We don't know why the babies were not mentioned in the trail, but there was a closed hearing on the case to suppress evidence prior to the trial's start. Photos and other evidence relating to the babies could have been brought up in that hearing.

There is one last chance the babies could be brought up, and that is in the sentencing hearing. Rathburn isn’t expected to be sentenced until May.

There may also be opportunities to dig deeper into the origin of the babies after the trial is over. Did he buy them from an abortion clinic in Michigan?

They do see the March for Life

The 45th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., was well-attended as usual. Hundreds of thousands of prolifers showed up on January 19 to remind the U.S. Supreme Court and our representatives in our nation's capital that the injustice of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton will not stand.

Right to Life of Michigan affiliates took 16 buses with more than 800 travelers to the March for Life, and many more traveled on other trips or independently. Many other prolifers from Michigan also attended, including school trips.

Here more than 150 student leaders from across Michigan college campuses traveled down.

Students for Life of Michigan

The March is important because prolifers are not given the attention they deserve. Media outlets routinely ignore prolife stories, and when they do cover them, the coverage is often begrudging or designed to minimize their message. Hollywood and academia do what they can to push a narrative supporting abortion.

Here's one specific example. The Women's March events received three times as much coverage as the March for Life, though the national March for Life in Washington, D.C., had a significantly larger crowd than the Washington, D.C., Women's March, and had the President of the United States as the keynote speaker. There was mention of Women's March events in other cities, but no mention of the Walk for Life West Coast, the Chicago March for Life, other regional prolife events, or the many, many local prolife events and Sanctity of Human Life Sunday events across the nation.

You almost have to go looking for the prolife movement to find it.

There is one group of people who see the March for Life every year without fail: residents and workers of Washington, D.C. They know all about the March, if only because of massive groups of people clogging the Metro lines and city traffic. They take notice every year, in a way that transcends seeing a picture on TV. They may not talk about it, they may not want to acknowledge it, but the March reaches its precise audience where it matters the most.

Thankfully the prolife movement has never relied on popular attention to massively grow our support base. The March for Life itself is a wonderful opportunity for those new to the movement to experience the prolife movement.

This year attendees heard from President Trump, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Pam Tebow, and many others. Speakers gave positive, confident outlooks on ending abortion in America, and caring for women and children in need; that's never been an either-or proposition for the prolife movement, though it's not the public perception you'll hear on most networks.

One other speaker in particular stood out, when her mom finally let her have a turn at the microphone. Abigail Beutler, 4, really had something she wanted to say: "thank you." That was all.

Her mom, Congresswoman Jamie Herrera Beutler, had just finished telling the crowd about how her and her husband, Dan, had to fight to save Abigail's life when she was in the womb. She had no kidneys, and doctors were ready to pull the plug on her, saying she had zero chance to survive, suggesting abortion to the Beutlers. Thankfully a simple procedure (though never tried before) was all that was needed for Abigail to live.

We'd love to share a news story featuring Rep. Herrera Buetler's story as told at the March for Life, but none exists that we could find. Pity. It was a bold statement of hope and the value of each life.

Thankfully her story has received coverage in the past (that minimizes her message), if you'd like to hear it for yourself.

The Trump Administration, year 1

It's been nearly a year since the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump. What has the president's record been on prolife issues so far?

Supreme Court and other court appointments
President Trump nominated Justice Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court. Justice Gorsuch's record indicates he will follow the U.S. Constitution as written, rather than accepting an invented, unwritten right to abortion in the Constitution. President Trump has worked closely with prolife leaders in the Senate to fill vacancies in other federal courts with nominees who also have records of fairness and honesty.

Conscience protection
The Trump administration has taken action to protect the moral and religious rights of conscience so that medical professionals, religious institutions and employers may not be forced to participate in abortion. This includes expanding exceptions to organizations under the Obamacare HHS Mandate, which required coverage of drugs that may cause abortions.

Mexico City Policy
President Trump restored the Mexico City Policy, preventing tax dollars from being given to organizations that perform or promote abortion overseas. The policy was later expanded to include a broader range of health-related foreign aid program.

United Nations Population Fund
The Trump administration cut off funding for the United Nations Population Fund due to that agency’s involvement in China’s two-child policy, which involves forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

Title X
In 2016, the Obama Administration issued a regulation to prevent states from withholding Title X family planning funds from organizations like Planned Parenthood that perform abortions. President Trump signed into law H. J. Res 43 to restore authority to the states to direct Title X funds to providers they deem suitable.

BB ad to air again in Michigan

Starting tomorrow the Right to Life of Michigan Educational Fund radio ad, "War on the Unborn," will air throughout Michigan. The ads will continue to run through the annual memorial of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton on January 22.

The ad is popularly known as the "BB ad." Audio in the ad comes from this popular YouTube video by Peter Heck. Peter uses just BBs and a tin can to put the high cost of abortion in context.

For more information about the numbers used in this ad, read our factsheet on the topic.

The tip of the iceberg of organ trafficking

The oft-repeated narrative regarding the undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in the tissue of aborted babies is that the issue is entirely made-up—“fake news” via “heavily-edited videos.”

This narrative was aided when investigations in several states turned up no legal charges. These were states where Planned Parenthood wasn’t involved in organ harvesting or pro-abortion officials were the investigators. Recent events have undermined this narrative, however, showing we’ve barely seen the tip of the iceberg of this macabre trade in human corpses.

On December 7, news broke that the Department of Justice is investigating Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Given the evidence Congress compiled over many months—and the plain statements from Planned Parenthood leaders caught on camera—we believe there is not just smoke there, but true fire.

Another story broke two days later out of California, where officials are forcing two connected biotechnology companies to shut down for breaking laws banning fetal organ harvesting. The evidence used in the conviction came directly from David Daleiden and his Center for Medical Progress’ undercover investigation. Those videos are more properly called “evidence” than “heavily edited.”

Two days after that, yet another story broke, this time in New Mexico. It was announced that the FBI is investigating the University of New Mexico and an infamous late-term abortion clinic in Albuquerque for their fetal organ harvesting. Now we have learned that one of the researchers at the center of this trafficking case was sending body parts to a man in Michigan.

Then at the end of December, Reuters released an exclusive story regarding a 2013 raid on a “body broker” Detroit, Arthur Rathburn. Rathburn’s business was buying corpses, chopping them up with chainsaws, and selling them to medical conferences. During the raid four unborn babies were discovered by the FBI in his warehouse.

There is no evidence yet showing where Rathburn obtained these babies, or if they were aborted or stillborn.

Rathburn’s trial is now underway; he stands accused of 10 federal counts. Reuters has been pursuing Rathburn’s case as one of several in a seven-part series on the body broker industry. The parallels between the body broker industry (Rathburn’s case in particular) and the abortion industry are eerie, especially when it comes to a lack of regulatory oversight.

Where will these stories lead? We’re not sure, but they deserve more public scrutiny than they’ve received so far. Much, much more.

Babies missing from Rathburn trial

Arthur Rathburn's trial is underway in federal court in Detroit. The "body broker" is alleged to have knowingly sold a cadaver infected with HIV and Hepatitis to a medical conference, where attendees would have used the body for a cadaver lab.

Rathburn is facing 10 counts related to his business of buying and selling corpses. Part of this story is the fact that the bodies of unborn babies were discovered in his disheveled facility in a raid in 2013. So far, they have gone unmentioned.

Thursday, January 4, was the first day of his trial, including opening statements and testimony from two witnesses. The first witness was an FBI agent who managed the search of Rathburn's facility, including the finding of the unborn babies. Prosecutors detailed the macabre results of the search, including bizarre storage methods. For example, severed human heads were all packed together in ice, touching each other. Talking about the unborn babies (stored in a bin with human brain tissue) would have been a perfect example of his shoddy practices, and for a moment it seemed like they might be mentioned, but they remained conspicuously absent.

Why? A theory would be that the photo was disallowed by Judge Paul D. Borman. A day after Reuters leaked photos of the unborn babies, there was a closed hearing in the case to suppress evidence. Where those photos of the babies the subject of that hearing, or part of the hearing?

It may be the case that the babies were stillborn and obtained through legal means, and the only purpose for including them in the trial would be the photos showing his storage methods. Or, it may be the case that Rathburn illegal obtained the babies from an abortion clinic. Federal prosecutors then would have ignored the violation, didn't have enough evidence to convict him, or focused on other easier aspects of his case. Absent critical evidence, we don't know yet.

One disturbing aspect is that most of Rathburn's clients were medical conferences, where attendees would use body parts for cadaver labs. What sort of medical association purchases unborn children to dissect in hotel ballrooms and conference centers?

Any prolifer attending the trial would see a lot of eerie similarities between Rathburn's business and the abortion industry, particularly Kermit Gosnell:

• Rathburn outwardly appears to be a nondescript business man.
• His wife was a critical part of his business, and will testify against him.
• There was little regulatory oversight of his work.
• There was a gross disregard for human life and sloppy medical practices; many of the body parts strewn across his facility showed ragged cuts on them, undoubtedly made by the chain saws and other shop tools found in his facility.
• Body parts were found in food containers, even in the fridge next to sandwiches.
• A defense attorney excused the state of his facility as the nature of the business, and portrayed Rathburn himself as someone just willing to help people.
• Dog bowls were found in Rathburn's facility, implying he kept pets in his facility, just as Gosnell had cats wandering around his abortion clinic.
• Gosnell kept pet turtles in his facility, dead turtles were found in Rathburn's facility.

We'll continue to cover this story and hope to get to the bottom of the unborn babies after the trial concludes. The trial is expected to run a few weeks.

New adoption ad campaign in Michigan

Today two Right to Life of Michigan Educational Fund television ads are debuting across the state. The ads focus on adoption. A third ad was also produced, as well as a four-minute short film weaving the three stories together. The campaign's purpose is to encourage adoption as a positive, life-giving, and often life-completing option for unplanned pregnancies.

Watch them below and share them!

Planned Politics: Planned Parenthood released their latest annual report

Over the holidays Planned Parenthood released their 2016-2017 annual report. The report did not feature many big changes from the previous year, except for two things: they had much more donations come in, and they spent many of those dollars on politics.

Having read many Planned Parenthood reports over the years, the tone of this year's report continues a noticeable shift from those a decade prior or more. Previous reports naturally included sections dedicated to legislative battles over abortion, but this year's report has a much darker tone while featuring politics more prominently.

First, let's quickly detail Planned Parenthood's reported services. They reported 2.4 million clients in 2016, no change from the previous year. The number of abortions they performed dropped slightly from 328,348 to 321,384. That means 13 percent of their clients received abortions.

There were small increases in their sexually-transmitted infection testing, which is the only service besides abortion that Planned Parenthood has expanded in recent years. Their contraceptive services decreased again, serving 82,000 fewer women. Several other health screenings, treatments, and other services had small declines. Their reported services continue to be less than detailed, enabling them to fudge numbers as necessary to continue claiming that abortion is only 3 percent of their services.

Their revenue from medical services and tax monies didn't change significantly, but they did receive nearly $87 million more in private donations than the previous year. Their annual revenue is quickly approaching $1.5 billion. Where do these additional fund get spent?

It's clearly not spent on helping more people. Every year Planned Parenthood's health services continue a pattern of decline, including the number of clients they serve overall. In their 2006-2007 annual report, they claimed $1 billion in revenue and 3.1 million clients served. Now they report a nearly 50 percent increase in income while serving 700,000 fewer people

That money is being invested in continuing the transformation of Planned Parenthood from a birth control to a political empire. This empire serves to expand abortion, protect their spigot of tax dollars, and to insert itself into every facet of American life.

Their national staff has become top-heavy. In 2006-2007, they reported 14 senior management members. In 2016-2017, they report 26 senior management members, despite being a significantly smaller organization in terms of clients served, and after their affiliates across the country underwent reorganizations and consolidation in recent years, closing dozens of clinics. What are these extra senior leaders focusing on with fewer clients and fewer affiliates to manage?

They increased their "medical services" expenses by $23 million from the previous year (without any increase in clients), but increased their management expenses by $20 million. They spent $2 million more on sexual education. All of the rest is hard to track, because they changed the names of items in their report, for example, "increase access" has become "promote health equity," whatever those terms mean. All of those vague terms allude to politics, policy and advocacy, and they increased from $193 million in the previous year to $231 million in total expenses. That's $38 million in additional investments. Add it all up, and only a quarter of their new funding is actually being spent on the patients they claim to serve.

That's not to mention their "profit" in the most recent annual report of nearly $100 million. Nonprofits can not profit by law, so "excess of revenue over expenses" has to be spent on something. Planned Parenthood is spending the bulk of it on lining the pockets of their leadership in the form of salaries and increasing their political influence.

Their annual report details some of this increasing focus on "movement building." Planned Parenthood has explicitly embraced the concept of intersectionality, explaining, "that's why Planned Parenthood worked with leaders in the racial justice, immigrant rights, and economic justice movements to highlight the intersection between these issues..." Intersectionality is a left-wing theory that says every issue in politics and society are linked together, and that anyone who considers themselves progressive must engage on every single one of these issues. So, the theory holds that if you support animal rights or pay equity, but not abortion, you are a still just a tool of the oppressors.

The benefits of this to Planned Parenthood should be obvious. Abortion has always been a strange fit for progressives. After all, what is abortion but violent oppression by the powerful over the most innocent of all? Abortion literally draws a line through the human race and declares everyone over the line to be unpersons to disposed of or used at will, even sold for profit.

Planned Parenthood takes time in their annual report to denounce white supremacy. It shows a lack of self-awareness on their part, especially given Planned Parenthood is specifically embracing their 100 years of history in this report. Planned Parenthood used to be led by the vice president of the American Eugenics Society. Their founder, Margaret Sanger, once gave a speech to the white supremacists of Ku Klux Klan, and allowed white supremacists to publish racial eugenic ideas in her journal. Black abortion rates are appallingly high. How can an organization that has done so much harm over a century convince themselves they are in the vanguard of the civil rights movement?

Intersectionality allows Planned Parenthood to put a moral claim on the efforts of everyone who considers themselves a progressive, even though many progressives would be honestly horrified to read Planned Parenthood's 100 years of history. It's also a trendy concept, especially on college campuses. Planned Parenthood has taken to heart the advice from former president of NARAL Nancy Keenan that the pro-abortion youth are not stepping up like prolife youth are. Included in this turn to politics are appeals in their annual report to popular industries that reach youth like entertainment, technology, and fashion. If Planned Parenthood can't raise new leaders, they will co-opt them.

Even though their strategy makes some sense, it is still bizarre to see the leader of the abortion industry take to social media to advocate for gun policies or immigration policies. What does the corporate tax rate have to do with abortion? Why is the founder of the birth control movement spending time weighing in on regulatory policy in the field of telecommunications?

This strategy has some large drawbacks. The prolife movement from the beginning decided to focus on our identified issues, and our issues only. Though people are becoming more tribal in their political views, there is still significant overlap between people of differing views or voting patterns. It's easier to persuade people to a position and join your organization when they don't have to accept a ton of other political baggage.

This is also why many prolife pregnancy centers have no direct affiliation with prolife advocacy organizations. Organizations dedicated to actually helping people should focus on that mission; anything else takes away from that mission. How strange would it be if your local pregnancy help center started arguing with you about your lack of outrage over Congress re-approving the federal Export-Import Bank?

All of this leads us to a key question: why should a nakedly political organization like Planned Parenthood receive a third of their budget from taxpayers? Could you imagine the National Rifle Association or the Sierra Club being given $500 million tax dollars every year? Imagine the outrage from either side. How about Right to Life of Michigan?

Planned Parenthood is not just caught up in the polarization of American politics, they are helping to lead the charge. Only time will tell what the result may be, but so far it's certainly not providing more tangible help to the women Planned Parenthood claims to be dedicated to serving.