New Hampshire Defunds Planned Parenthood

Unless you have wisely retreated to some desert island to avoid the present unpleasantness some are calling the modern era, you will likely have encountered the missionaries in pink sometime over the last few days. You will have found them congregated in all the public places, trying to desperately catch the eye of passersby. Who, the recluse might ask, are these brightly-clad people?

Read up on Mrs. Sanger; you may be horrified at what you find out about her.First, some back story. In 1916, Margaret Sanger, a woman in raptures over new eugenic technology, decided to found an organization devoted to bringing about a perfect society. Of course, to do this, one had to eliminate all those frustratingly undesirable races and peoples who were polluting the human genome. And so her organization, known today as Planned Parenthood, was formed with the stated aim, among others, of eliminating African Americans. To accomplish this goal, Planned Parenthood had to regretfully embrace a messy little procedure called abortion. We need not go into the details, but it involved such little inconveniences as crushing babies’ skulls with forceps and sucking out the broken up bits with a vacuum.

Now today Planned Parenthood is one of the largest abortion providers in the world i.e. it is they who most frequently and with the most alacrity crush babies’ skulls. For some reason, this has made some people rather upset. Also contributing to the general atmosphere of discontent is the recent albeit repeatedly confirmed revelations that Planned Parenthood has had to pass over some of the niceties of merely mortal law in order to answer to a higher moral calling. So in service of this calling, they “forgot” (wink, wink) to report a few cases of sexual abuse. So they may have overbilled the government a few times. So they use some of their tax dollars to fund abortions procedures in contravene of federal law. So they sometimes give drugs to women after it’s medically safe for them to use it. So what? What’s the big deal? What can’t people understand that it’s all for their own good, anyway?

Well, evidently people cannot understand, because several states have recently decided that Planned Parenthood’s zealous pursuit of the common good, admirable though it no doubt is, has lead them into one too many legal indiscretions. And yesterday our very own state of New Hampshire joined the ranks of those perfidious upholders of the rule of law. The New Hampshire executive council voted to cancel our state’s contract with Planned Parenthood.

And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Which brings me back to our dear friends, the pink missionaries. These evangelists spreading the gospel according to Margaret Sanger have taken to the street to defend Planned Parenthood against those evil, wicked, oppressive, misogynistic politicians who are set on a moral crusade against our poor, oppressed, kindly, loving, inclusive Planned Parenthood. And why do these bad, bad people have it out for Planned Parenthood? Not, of course, because there’s any rational reason to oppose abortion or support the rule of law. No, no, those are just mere pretenses. The real reason? Because the Bible tells them to oppose Planned Parenthood. For those who were wondering where the Bible mentions Planned Parenthood, the appropriate chapter and verse may be found in the apocryphal Gospel of Mary Joe, recently discovered by Dan Brown. He plans to release a shocking new novel detailing the illicit sexual liaisons between Mary Joe and the Apostle Andrew, whose blood today runs through the House of Bush. That’s right, my friend, we have now before us, say our pink proselytizers, a pure, unmixed battle of rational, enlightened good versus irrational, religious evil.

Well, they are right about this one thing at least. I may as well come out and say it: surprising as you may find it, I oppose Planned Parenthood. And Planned Parenthood is on to something in their Manichean characterizations of this fight. Of course, most people in Planned Parenthood are simply useful idiots, well-intended men and women who have been duped by the lies of the sexual revolution. But the organization, judged according to its objective actions, is wicked. We should be proud that our state has decided to act accordingly.

But the pink proselytizers will scream: “not so, not so!” and they will present you with The Decisive Talking Point. They will tell you that 97% of Planned Parenthood services involve non-abortive, preventive care. This stat is meant to carry the day and damn once and for all those politicians who dare oppose Planned Parenthood. But there are two things to be said about it. First, notice how they seek to deemphasize the role that abortion plays in their operations. And why, pray tell, do they do this? They provide abortions; they support pro-choice candidate; so they should presumably embrace abortion as a perfectly legitimate part of their operations. And yet they hide from it. Why?  The answer is simple: they want to distract from the abortion question, because if abortion is evil, it doesn’t matter how much other good Planned Parenthood does. What if Hitler had commanded that all sick women of pure German blood were to receive free health care? Much good would come of this, from the perspective of sick women of pure German blood. But would the United States, contemplating whether to enter World War II, have said to itself: “Well, really, Hitler does so much good, and this whole genocide thing on the side is only a small part of his operations?” Manifestly not. And, since I can hear the screams of protest at this comparison already, let me hasten to add that I do not mean to say that Planned Parenthood is the moral equivalent of Hitler’s regime. I mean to illustrate a principle, namely that organizations responsible for grave evil must be stopped no matter how much other good they do. So there is no evading the abortion issue.

The second thing to note is that this stat is a lie, made possible by Planned Parenthood’s cleverly deceptive book-keeping. When they say that 97% of all services are non-abortive, they mean that 97% of the ten million services they give throughout the year are non-abortive. But those ten million services only go to three million patients. Planned Parenthood counts every procedure separately, even when they are all going to the same patient. And since a women coming in for an abortion receives a package deal on abortion- getting thrown in with it STD screening, contraception for the future etc–and since all these services are counted apart from the abortion even though are simply preparatory for it, Planned Parenthood artificially inflates their statistics, making it look like abortion plays a much lesser role in their operations than it actually does.

So next time you encounter the ladies in pink–for they are almost always ladies, despite the obvious damage the culture of abortion has done to women–simply inform them that they are lying to promote grave evil, and be on your way. Further argument with them will not yield any results. My encounter with one Planned Parenthood representative yesterday went like this (I am not making this up):

“You realize Planned Parenthood breaks lots of laws, including ones mandating sexual abuse reporting”

“No we don’t”

“Yes, you do. It’s been well-documented.”

“It doesn’t matter. 97% of Planned Parenthood services are preventive healthcare–birth control, STD checks–”

“Right, but you still break laws.”

“Have a nice day, sir.”

In the face of such blind ideological commitment, I can only say: three cheers for New Hampshire for showing moral strength on this most serious of moral causes.

—Raleigh T. Saddler