#270: Planned Parenthood, Campaign Nonviolence
More Perspectives on Planned Parenthood and Baby Corpse Parts Last week we provided links to several perspectives on this scandal. Here are five more (and see Quotation below): ∞ CL member group Democrats for Life issued a statement. We quote: “There needs to be a complete separation between an organization that counsels women seeking abortion from an organization that harvests the organs. This practice invites deception and corruption . . . we are calling on Congress to reallocate the funding to Community Health Centers . . . There are 9,000 Community Health Center sites located in almost every single Congressional District. They vastly outnumber the 700 Planned Parenthood facilities and provide fuller services for families.” ∞ CL member group Feminists for Life comments on the exploitation of women. ∞ CL Endorser David Gushee discusses the extent to which all of society is to blame for allowing things to deteriorate to this extent. ∞ America magazine has a comment on the need to take care with accuracy, and gives more background. ∞ The Washington Post ran an opinion piece by Christopher Hale, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, on why Democrats and progressives should be upset.
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A Second Video
A video featuring Dr. Mary Gatter, medical director of Planned Parenthood in part of California (edited version and full footage), is much more explicit than the first video about the idea of actual sales on baby body parts, rather than compensation for expenses involved – Dr. Gatter bargains.
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Connections: The Idea of Extracting Some Good Out of the People You Kill
The impulse to plan how people are killed to maximize organ donations is discussed in Jack Kevorkian’s book: Medicide: The Goodness of Planned Death. Obtaining donated organs from those killed in euthanasia was one of his major preoccupations. This was a follow-up to his original idea, which was to get organs for research from executed prisoners.
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Nation-wide Rallies July 28 – De-fund Planned Parenthood
CL board member Lisa Stiller reports: “I’m pretty excited. I’m speaking at the Portland, OR rally on Tuesday! I called the organizer. He knows the perspective I’m coming from, and is really happy to have a 'liberal' voice, showing that the prolife movement cuts across party lines. I’m going to be identified as being with Consistent Life. I think people should try to contact the organizers in their cities and see if you can speak.”
Speaking or not, we encourage people to attend their local rallies; we offer resources to download and print if you’d like to spread the consistent-life word there.
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Campaign Nonviolence Actions in September
CL is an endorsing group of Campaign Nonviolence, which annually sponsors a week of local actions to educate about, advocate, and practice nonviolent action. They have a listing of mainly U.S. and a few international actions. We encourage people to join their local action. If you’re so moved, you can also spread the word about CL to participants.
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Latest CL Blog Post
Bill Samuel has written a review of Charles Camosy’s recent book, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation.
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Quotation of the Week Jim Wallis How We Talk About Life – and Death: Planned Parenthood Videos Reveal Our Collective Brokenness Sojourners, July 23, 2019 In the aftermath of the now viral recording(s) raising concerns over whether Planned Parenthood seeks profit from aborted fetal tissue — and the crassness with which its representative discusses how to accomplish it without “crushing” the tissue/organs . . . We confess to being at a complete loss of what to say . . . the videos are an in-your-face reminder of our culture’s blatant disrespect for life. That disregard is not unique in our society, of course. Journalism: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Medicine: “There’s nothing more to be done. She’s a vegetable.” Justice system: “He’s gonna fry.” War: “Light ‘em up.”