Opinion

July 3, 2013 (STOPP) – Christians are known for their charitable giving. Yet the very charities many have supported are aligned with Planned Parenthood in forcing the people who support their work to pay for things that directly contradict their faith.

The March of Dimes, the American Cancer Society, and the Spina Bifida Association were listed in Planned Parenthood’s recent white paper, Taking Control, as being among “a wide range of health care groups” that joined the abortion giant, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in opposing the Blunt Amendment’s religious exemption from providing insurance benefits because of “moral conviction.” Easter Seals is added to the list of charities opposing religious freedom, as noted by a nationaljournal.com article.

Pro-life advocates have avoided donating to March of Dimes (MOD) for decades because of its eugenics roots and the harrowing research that it funded. According to an excellent essay by Randy Engel, MOD-funded research included the following projects:

• Peter A. J. Adam used the severed heads of live aborted babies between three to five month gestation in his fetal brain fuel metabolism experiments conducted at the University of Helsinski, Finland.
• Dr. John F.S. Crocker used 60 pairs of human embryonic kidneys obtained from “therapeutic” abortions after five to 12 weeks gestation in his renal research program.
• Dr. Stanley J. Robboy used the reproductive tracts of baby girls aborted by D&C and prostaglandin in his DES experiments.
• Dr. G. Cunha used the reproductive tracts of male and female aborted babies in similar experiments dealing with the teratogenic effects of certain drugs on developing human organs.
• Dr. A de la Chapelle of the University of Helsinki received a MOD grant to develop a non-evasive, simple and safe early prenatal test to replace mid-trimester amniocentesis, thus shifting the abortion timetable from the second trimester to the first trimester. He obtained cells sources from maternal blood samples and the open-heart puncture of healthy 10-week aborted fetuses.

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Engel further points out that “[d]uring the 1970s and early 1980s it was MOD’s private foundation monies that permitted these researchers and many others including Drs. Blanch Alter, David Nathan, Haig Kazazian, Yuet Wai Kan, and Mitchell Golbus to bypass the government ban prohibiting the use of federal funds for such non-therapeutic, lethal experimentation on live human fetuses. A virtual international ‘medical underground’ was created to supply fresh human fetal tissues, blood, or organs to ‘needy’ researchers both in the U.S. and abroad.”

Likewise, the American Cancer Society has long been a target of pro-life boycotts. American Life League research shows that the organization has:

• Supported human embryonic stem cell research
• Granted funding at facilities known prominently for human embryonic stem cell research
• Granted funding for morally questionable research
• Granted funding to Planned Parenthood
• Made referrals to Planned Parenthood as a health information/education resource
• Made donations to the Lance Armstrong LiveStrong Global Cancer Campaign
• Failed to acknowledge the link between previously induced abortion and risk for breast cancer|
• Suggested fertility options including IVF, embryo freezing, egg/sperm donation and surrogacy

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And while Easter Seals told ALL it neither funds nor conducts research laboratories, it was one of many medical research/advocacy organizations to sign a letter on July 29, 1999, to the House and Senate Appropriations Committee calling for increased federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. In response to a subsequent query, it stated that it was not taking a stand on embryonic stem cell research, but wanted the NIH to be involved in decisions about embryonic stem cell research. NIH funds have been, in fact, utilized to conduct such research.

The Spina Bifida Association is not an organization that one would expect to take the extreme position of aligning with Planned Parenthood to deny religious freedom, based on our prior knowledge of the organization. However, Planned Parenthood reports that it did just that.

The Planned Parenthood white paper characterizes exemption based on moral conviction as “dangerous and extreme” and mischaracterizes its intent by saying it would “allow employers to deny their employees services such as vaccinations or blood transfusions, based solely on religious or moral beliefs.”

Planned Parenthood’s language is intentionally deceptive and intended to demonize the Catholic Church and any employer who objects to participating in its free-contraception-for-all scheme. In that vein, the paper quotes Secretary of State Kathleen Sebelius saying, “The Obama administration believes that decisions about medical care should be made by a woman and her doctor, not a woman and her boss.”

Employers obviously do not have, nor do they seek to have, the option to deny anyone medical services. But if those services fly in the face of employers’ religious convictions, they have historically not been required to pay for them, and should not be today simply because Planned Parenthood and its allies, along with the Obama administration, say they should. Planned Parenthood’s incendiary rhetoric in its white paper is illustrative of the deceptive, thug-like tactics it increasingly uses to force its malevolent agenda on Americans who want no part of it.

Reprinted with permission from Stop Planned Parenthood.