Black Pro-Lifers

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Black Pro-Lifers Demand Parties Refuse Planned Parenthood Funding

Andrew Tashjian and Michael Gryboski

Correspondents

(CNSNews.com) - Democratic and Republican candidates must reject donations from Planned Parenthood this election year, and Congress should end all federal funding for the abortion provider, according to black pro-life leaders who held two press conferences last week in Washington, D.C., at Democratic and Republican Party Committee headquarters.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is expected to spend $10 million this year on voter mobilization, according to The Los Angeles Times, and its political action committee has donated $60,000 to federal-office candidates so far this year.

Planned Parenthood receives a little over $300 million in government grants and contracts, according to its latest annual report, and its political action fund voted in June "to recommend endorsement of Senator Obama" for president.

Among the black pro-life leaders who organized the press conferences were: Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Johnny Hunter, president of Global Life Family Mission, and Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union.

In a statement released to the media, they called on both political parties to reject campaign donations from Planned Parenthood for several reasons, including the following:

- Planned Parenthood is currently under criminal investigation in Kansas for allegedly falsifying documents and performing illegal late-term abortions.

- In California, the former vice president of finance and administration for the Los Angeles Planned Parenthood has accused California Planned Parenthood of defrauding taxpayers upwards of $180 million.

- The Alan Guttmacher Institute, along with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), report that a majority of abortion clinics are in minority neighborhoods.

Dr. King told Cybercast News Service that she thinks Planned Parenthood is racist and deliberately targets pregnant black women. "Planned Parenthood really does target our communities to specifically kill black babies," she told Cybercast News Service. "If each of those babies had one child, there would be 28 million more blacks here today."

"If you add up all the people who were killed during the days of slavery, the horrendous time of the Ku Klux Klan in the mid 20th century where my own house was bombed, my daddy's church was bombed, his house was bombed, and if you add up all those deaths," she said, "and then you look at all those other atrocities - Katrina, 9/11, the floods, the Iraq war-it is not going to approach the 14 million black babies legally aborted since 1973."

The first rally at the Democratic National Committee was led by Gardner, who spoke about the toll abortion has taken on the black community and called on the Democratic Party to reject contributions from Planned Parenthood.

Other black clergy spoke, and then a large, banner-size check - representing the money Planned Parenthood is expected to donate to various political campaigns - was presented, and the speakers ceremonially tore it apart.

The activists then walked over to the Republican National Committee. Gardner again introduced the event, where several speakers spoke for a few minutes. Then another large cardboard check was ceremonially torn apart.

The late Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was frequently mentioned by the speakers. Sanger has been accused of being a racist for her establishment of family planning clinics in black neighborhoods as well as for her support for eugenics.

Her grandson, Alexander Sanger, wrote in the book "Beyond Choice," "My grandmother had supported some eugenic goals and this support continues to haunt the pro-choice movement today."

Planned Parenthood denies the racism charge leveled against its founder. "Charges of racism against Sanger are most often made by anti-choice activists who are unfamiliar with the history of the African-American community or with Margaret Sanger's collegial relationship with that community's leaders," Planned Parenthood says on its Web site.

In a statement, Planned Parenthood said it "does not tolerate racism of any kind. ... For more than 90 years, Planned Parenthood has worked to address racial and economic bias in access to health care and ensure that all women receive care. We are committed to providing basic and preventative health services to women, men and teens, especially in underserved communities."

However, Pastor Dean Nelson, one of the speakers at the second rally, is not convinced, and suggested that Planned Parenthood distributes contraceptives as part of its overall abortion-service strategy.

"Planned Parenthood goes into communities with government funds and convinces young people, who may not necessarily know better, that they can get contraception," said Nelson. "And then they give low doses of contraception to women and then let them know where the clinic is for an abortion."

"They actually encourage or entice students to engage in behavior that will result in the birth or pregnancy," he said. "I'm sure there are monies going to what may be considered 'good things.' [but] the programs are encouraging kids to have sex."

Dr. Johnny Hunter, who is also national director of the Life Education And Resource Network (LEARN, Inc.), a pro-life group, told Cybercast News Service that he thinks Planned Parenthood has tremendous influence in both political parties. "Because they're going to do some major fundraising, their grip on both parties is real good," said Hunter.

"However, they have a tendency to fund more of the Democratic Party simply because they know there are certain people who are willing to keep abortion, what they call 'safe, legal, and rare,' and, of course so those are the ones they support the most," he said. "They really give more to the left side of the political spectrum rather than to the right."

Hunter stressed, however, that this was not a Democrat or Republican issue. "I don't care what party you belong to," he said. "You got to understand my last political leaning, I was a Democrat. I used to be first district chairman for the Democratic Party for the State of Virginia many years ago."

Hunter added that "there are some issues that go beyond parties, and this is one of them."

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