The Leading Edge: Babies Are ‘6800% More Likely’ to be Aborted, Not Adopted at Planned Parenthood

The Story: “Planned Parenthood’s Adoption ‘Gag Rule:’ Abortion Pushed Over Adoption 391 to 1” by Casey Mattox as publised at LifeNews.com on 9/9/13.

The Lead:   “In 2010, according to its own numbers, for every 391 women who came to Planned Parenthood looking for unbiased information her unplanned pregnancy, 1 chose adoption and 391 chose abortion. And even those numbers may be inflated because former Planned Parenthood clinic directors tell me that there is no reporting system for adoption referrals and they never saw one. In the nation as a whole, there are roughly 1.1 million abortions and 160,000 adoptions every year. If Planned Parenthood’s numbers are subtracted from the equation, there is approximately 1 adoption for every 5.7 abortion decisions. Why is a woman coming to Planned Parenthood 6800% more likely to decide to abort than the general population? And what does it mean for Title X options counseling that its largest single grantee for supposedly nondirective counseling has such a track record?”

Why it matters:  A baby carried into a Planned Parenthood clinic is 6800% more likely to to be aborted than it is to be adopted.  6800%.  As if that were not bad enough, as Casey continues to make clear, part of the strings attached to the more than $300 million taxpayer dollars going to Planned Parenthood is a requirement that adoption be placed on at least equal footing of abortion.  What this means is that Planned Parenthood has excellent abortion counselors and tragically awful adoption counselors.

More than that, what this reveals is the dark pun that is Planned Parenthood’s name.  It sounds of a Genesis 3 world in which the focus is not upon others, but upon self.  In any debate about gender, one must continually address the joined issues of sexuality and procreation.  What Planned Parenthood has decided, it to separate those items and make both about the self.  If about the self, then self-determination is the only ruling factor in how one exercises one’s sexuality and self-determination is the moral standard by which new life is brought into this world – if it is brought into this world.  The Gospel calls us back to realizing that our sexuality is a part of our creation.  Like our intellect, it has been given to us for our good and to be used for the glory of our Creator.  It is through the sexual expression of the conjoined genders that we participate in the creative act initiated by our creator, also known as procreation.

As a practical matter, let us be wary of – and refuse to fund – an organization that is 6800% more likely to destroy a developing human life than it is to provide that life with a mom and dad.