By Roger Drinnon
In a second undercover video released July 21 by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a senior Planned Parenthood official purportedly negotiates transactions of baby body parts referred to as “specimens” and “intact tissue.” At the end of the video, she jokes, “I want a Lamborghini.”
“The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is the nation’s largest abortion chain, killing more than 300,000 unborn children every year, almost one-third of all abortions performed,” said National Right to Life Committee President Carol Tobias, after reviewing the latest video. “It should be no surprise that the callous business of killing these innocent little human beings would extend to the disposal of their body parts for money.”
Tobias also is a member of the LCMS Sanctity of Life Committee that met at the Synod’s International Center in St. Louis July 16-17. Committee members held a July 16 press conference in the wake of CMP’s first video release, which has since been authenticated. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, issued an apology July 16 for the tone her staff member used in that video, but then went on to deny that Planned Parenthood sells baby parts for profit.
View video footage of the press conference or listen to full audio of the press conference, courtesy of KFUO Radio.
Not long after the first video surfaced, the Rev. Bart Day, executive director of the LCMS Office of National Mission, issued a statement on behalf of the LCMS denouncing the comments made by the Planned Parenthood staff member in the video.
In light of both videos, Tobias urges LCMS Lutherans and the general public to voice a stronger pro-life position in the public square.
“After 43 years of abortion on demand, too many pro-life people have become numbed to the daily carnage and apathetic to the need for action,” said Tobias. “These little ones, made in God’s image, need all of us to be their voices.”
For information on LCMS Life Ministry, go to lcms.org/life.
Readers also may access:
- A written transcript of the video footage with the Planned Parenthood staff member discussing the harvested organs from aborted babies.
- “Planned Parenthood sells dead baby parts” (Fox News).
- “Where are the Mainline and Progressive Evangelical Voices Speaking Up after that Planned Parenthood Tragedy?” (“The Exchange, A Blog by Ed Stetzer,” ChristianityToday.com).
- “Missouri to investigate Planned Parenthood after video controversy” (stltoday.com)
- “Ideas for Reporters Struggling to Cover Planned Parenthood” (thefederalist.com)
- “Second video shows Planned Parenthood doc haggling over price of fetal body parts” (foxnews.com)
- “Planned Parenthood apologizes for exec’s ‘tone’ in video” (TheHill.com)“Planned
- Parenthood exec, fetal body parts subject of controversial video” (CNN.com)
Roger Drinnon (roger.drinnon@lcms.org) is manager of Editorial Services for LCMS Communications.
Posted July 21, 2015 / Updated July 22, 2015 and July 23, 2015
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Planned Parenthood should be banned & shut down.
While the number of abortions performed annually is unnerving and even shocking, let’s pull ourselves together. The primary focus of Planned Parenthood is about conception and reproductive health. The organization perhaps does more than any other organization in the country through their education programs to reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Check out their website to learn more about what they actually do, rather than accepting without question the dishonest and deceptive right wing propaganda now hitting the airwaves.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/planned-parenthood-at-a-glance
While the Bible says nothing pro or con regarding abortion, most all of us feel a strong commitment to reduce abortions in this country because we revere the sacredness of all life.Solid education, including information about effective contraceptive methods, have proven their worth and contributed to a decline in abortions in this country. And, let’s also concede that if abortions must continue, they should be done properly and not fall into the unsafe category responsible for far too many maternal deaths around the world. For these two reasons alone, Planned Parenthood deserves our support.
“While the Bible says nothing pro or con regarding abortion, most all of us feel a strong commitment to reduce abortions in this country because we revere the sacredness of all life.” The two sides of your comma contradict each other: How is our commitment to reduce abortions founded upon the sacredness of all life if the Bible really gives no relevant instruction on the issue? Or, if the Bible is truly silent on the topic, then on what basis do we maintain that the sacredness of all life has anything to do with the matter of abortions.
The Bible is not meant to give an exhaustive list of rules and position statements for every hypothetical situation that may ever arise in human history. The Bible does speak clearly about the evil of killing another human being. The Bible also speaks clearly of unborn children as living human beings while yet in the womb. Is it really a stretch of logic to connect the two?
The Bible “says nothing pro or con” (in a very technical sense) regarding such issues as identity theft or cyber-bullying, but we have no problem applying the 7th and 8th commandments to these respectively. Abortion, likewise, is a 5th commandment issue, whether or not the specific procedure as we know it today was explicitly named in the Bible.
You keep saying the mantra “the Bible says nothing pro or con regarding abortion” but as I told you in an earlier post it does,
Genesis 9:6,
“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.”
Psalm 139:13,
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”
Orthodox Judaism, that Christianity extends, considered abortion to be a violation of the commandment “thou shalt not kill”.
As with Christianity people have sought to rewrite the Bible with the infamous historical-critical method, but one cannot honestly read about the history of the early church and conclude anything other than that abortion was considered unequivocally sinful by the earliest followers of Christ.
Planned Parenthood is a disgraceful organization that should not get a single dime of my tax dollars.
Interestingly, in the aftermath of this scandal, Planned Parenthood was forced to remove from its website the names of companies it claimed as “corporate sponsors”. The same big businesses that supported gay marriage wasted no time to tell Planned Parenthood that they wanted nothing to do with it in the aftermath of this scandal. That alone tells you how repulsive the whole issue is.
Why do people tell me the videos are a hoax?
It’s a hoax, Alice, because Planned Parenthood does not sell fetal body parts for profit. They only ask for handling charges such as shipping to cover their costs. The video was maliciously pieced together to seem otherwise. That kind od dishonesty I would label as definitely “un-Christian.”
Repent, Bernie.
Abortion is murder. The very fact that you refer to them having body parts confirms that. If you murder someone and distribute their body parts is barbaric. Young girls know now that if they say they were raped they will even get their abortions for free.
If the number of posts here is any indication, the abortion issue is really of little interest to Missouri Synod Lutherans so let’s move on–but I really don’t mean that!
Bernie,
If you feel so strongly about this, why don’t you leave the Missouri Synod for the ELCA? I am sure that over there you’ll find many like minded Lutherans who agree with your stance on abortion and the awesomeness of Planned Parenthood.
The LCMS position on this matter is very clear: abortion is murder and should be treated us such. As with the killing of any human being, there might be extreme circumstances, such as when the mother is at risk of losing her life if the pregnancy continues, where abortion might be the lesser evil but the position of the Synod is very clear.
To shift this conversation from the revelation of Planned Parenthood providers speaking casually about destroying a baby in the womb carefully enough to preserve desired body parts, to debating the merits of Planned Parenthood as an organization [and I would say it is debatable]—is to distract from the curtain being pulled aside to show us the cruel reality of abortion, apparently and especially in a Planned Parenthood clinic.
I notice that Planned Parenthood and its seeming apologists don’t deny that the procedures being discussed in the undercover videos actually happen. Their defense is that these activities are legal, that they are being unfairly targeted, that the body parts are given to research facilities, and that they do so many other good things for women’s health [babies’ health—not so much].
Does it make the whole nightmare more palatable to suggest that it isn’t done for profit? Do I feel better thinking that the money exchanged would only basically be for shipping and handling—of dead baby body parts, once parts of a living baby? So when does the mass of tissue [that isn’t a viable human being] in the womb become something viable with bodily organs—bodily organs for which there is a market?
Yes, well….Planned Parenthood may be slaughtering innocent lives in the womb [with our tax dollars/without our consent]…but hey…did you see their neat, educational website?
The videos are not a hoax. That claim is a lie. The complete videos are on youtube.
Everything Planned Parenthood offers except abortion is available in any health clinic. Planned Parenthood is responsible for 1/3 of the abortions performed in the United States. If the other services Planned Parenthood provides are so valuable, they will still be so without killing and dismembering live human beings.
“…they should be done properly and not fall into the unsafe category responsible for far too many maternal deaths around the world”. How, exactly, are abortions done properly? How, exactly, would they not fall into the unsafe category? Unsafe for whom? The life and health of the baby, born or unborn, has exactly the same value to God as the life of the mother. In every “safe abortion”, one of the complete, valuable persons die a horrible, excruciating death. God loves the baby and the mother. We must love what He loves and hate what He hates.
Does the number of posts really mean that the murder of the innocents is of little interest to Missouri Synod Lutherans? I think not. I pray not. May I suggest that we are all out working and praying to end abortion.
Planned Parenthood is killing babies all the way up into the third trimester. They get government money, money from the customers, and money from businesses, yet they are subject to absolutely Zero health care standards, no inspections, no credentialing etc.
The Consequences of Roe vs. Wade: 54,559,615 Total Abortions Since 1973 to 2008 (Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute abortion statistics, 1973-2008). Like Ronald Reagan said, “I’ve noticed that everyone that is for abortion is already alive”. Many people are going to have to answer to the Author of Life and explain why millions and millions of his creation were murdered.
Do you know what the average cost of an adoption in America is …..$20,000. Don’t you think the government could work to reduce that expense?
Planned Parenthood’s focus is not on preventing pregnancy – Planned parenthood’s focus is making money, which is why they will not show their customers the ultrasound.
I would not count it as a hoax, the main stream media is not our friend and they would do and say anything to discredit anyone who goes against their belief.
The Center for Medical Progress has obtained an advertisement to Planned Parenthood clinics from StemExpress, LLC, one of the major purchasers of Planned Parenthood’s aborted fetal tissue. This flyer states several times that this is profitable for Planned Parenthood.