Pro-life advocates say they care far more about women’s health and well-being than Planned Parenthood does, and that they must make greater outreach to black Americans to end abortion.
“Our humanity depends on all of us recognizing the sanctity of human life. Planned Parenthood [is] the abortion industrial company,” Penny Young Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, said in a panel discussion at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.
Planned Parenthood does “one in every three abortions in this country, and they are fueled by half a billion dollars of our money, so it doesn’t matter what you think about abortion, even late-term abortion,” Nance told the audience for the CPAC panel Thursday, called “Are Conservatives Serious about Defunding Planned Parenthood?”
“Your money is being used. Your money is being sullied with Planned Parenthood, and we are saying, ‘No more.’ That has to end,” she said.
Citing sheer numbers, Nance said pro-life advocates have more to offer women than does Planned Parenthood:
We can chew gum and walk down the street at the same time. We can care for ‘the least of these,’ for poor women, with 1,300 community health centers around this country. By the way, there [are] only 850 Planned Parenthood clinics, versus 1,300 community health centers.
Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, argued that pro-lifers tend to be deeply concerned about women’s overall health, contrasting it with Planned Parenthood’s treatment of women.
“I am so very committed and devoted that women get comprehensive, holistic health care options,” Foster said, adding:
And that is something that Planned Parenthood simply does not provide. One of the most pivotal—and one of the most potentially fruitful—areas [where] we can have a real impact, in terms of defunding Planned Parenthood at this point, is on the state level, where there is a lot that is gridlocked, and we can make a lot more progress.
Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union, said a significant battleground for the pro-life movement is in the black community.
“Margaret Sanger was a person who had the Negro Project,” Gardner said, referring to Sanger’s founding in 1921 of the American Birth Control League, which became Planned Parenthood.
“In fact, in 1939 … the whole idea of the Negro Project was to eliminate the growth of blacks in this country,” Gardner said, adding:
After slavery was over, there was … a lot pf people saying, ‘What do we do with all these black people now?’ And the thing she came up with in 1939 was, ‘You know what? Let’s have forced sterilizations. Let’s get the black pastors and the community leaders involved.’ … and the saddest thing is that it is still happening today. That’s exactly what is going on in the Democrat Party.
Gardner said that while the pro-life movement must do more outreach to blacks, she is hopeful.
“There have been more and more blacks coming to our side and seeing the importance of each and every single life,” she said.
CPAC, the largest annual national gathering of conservative activists, runs from Thursday to Saturday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington.
