In the wake of the violent attack on Planned Parenthood last week in Colorado, the Chrysler dealer in the town where I live in Michigan announced he would no longer allow his employees to make payroll contributions to the local United Way — because our United Way gives grants to the local Planned Parenthood. Here's my response, and what I intend to do…
Posted by Michael Moore on Saturday, December 5, 2015
TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan, December 8, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – After a Michigan car dealership ended its partnership with the United Way over the group's ties to Planned Parenthood, liberal filmmaker Michael Moore personally donated $5,000 to Planned Parenthood to make up the shortfall.
The liberal Michigan-native best known for his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, announced the donation on Saturday, which abortion supporters designated the “National Day of Solidarity with Planned Parenthood.”
After 10 years in the program, the Bill Marsh Automotive Group announced it would not take part in the United Way's Workplace Campaign Program, which allows workers to have part of their paychecks donated to the charitable organization. The sticking point? The United Way funds Planned Parenthood.
The United Way of Northwest Michigan has given Planned Parenthood of West and Northern Michigan, Inc. (PPWNM) two grants totaling $15,000 over the last two years.
The United Way and Michael Moore both objected that Planned Parenthood's Walker Health Center, located at 1135 E. Eighth Street in Traverse City, does not perform surgical abortions. However, the office refers women for abortion and distributes the morning after pill and other potentially abortifacient methods of contraception.
“Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest provider of abortions. That's their number one industry,” one of the dealership's owners, Bill Marsh Jr., said. “And so even though they don't perform abortions here in Traverse City, it's still Planned Parenthood.”
In a video posted on Facebook on Saturday, Moore dismissed the decision as “strange.”
Moore lives in the outlying area and says he even bought one of his automobiles from Marsh. “He seemed like a decent fellow, and I'm sure that he still is, but this is just wrong,” Moore said. Abortion, he said, is “a legal, safe medical procedure that women have a right to choose.”
“It's really time that the minority gender – that would be the one I belong to…stop controlling and having a say, or think we have a say, over the bodies of the majority gender,” he continued.
“On Monday, I'm going to write a check to the local United Way for $5,000…and I am designating that entire check to go to the local Planned Parenthood. That's how I'm standing up for Planned Parenthood today.”
Like this donation, Moore's work as a filmmaker has brimmed with controversy. Dave Kopel, research director of the Independence Institute, found 59 “deceits” in Fahrenheit 9/11, the film about the war on terror that won Moore an Academy Award. Moore would later say that the Iraqi militants killing American soldiers during the last war “are not ‘terrorists’ or ‘the enemy.’ They are the revolution, and they will win.” In 2002, he ambushed Hollywood legend Charlton Heston, who was then suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, with aggressive and accusatory questions for his film Bowling for Columbine, a film decrying gun violence.
Yet his films have given Moore, an outspoken critic of capitalism, has an estimated net worth of $50 million. The custom-built, 11,000-square-foot lake house he lost in his divorce recently went on the market for $5.2 million.
Planned Parenthood has also thrived, even without the Marsh family's donations, reporting $127 million in “excess revenue” last year alone.