The Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando website greets their prospective clientéle with a charged question:
What’s with those people outside the clinic?
Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando is frequently targeted by protesters who do not support a woman’s right to make decisions about her reproductive health. Between September 22, 2010 and October 31, 2010, our clinics will be protested daily. You do not need to talk to, interact with or even acknowledge the protesters if you choose not to. The protesters are not permitted on our property and cannot enter our clinics.
Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando has, and always will, support individuals and the decisions they choose to make about their own reproductive health.
The best way to show these protesters that you will not stand for this harassment is to make a gift to Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando. You can also choose to Pledge-a-Protester. For more information about these gift options, please email us at info@ppgo.org.
Few legitimate businesses greet their patrons with a warning that they are sure to encounter “protesters” outside their store front. Still fewer use it as a fund raising opportunity.
For example, I saw animal rights activists outside a circus last spring who were concerned about the inhumane treatment of lions, tigers, bears, horses and elephants. I can hardly imagine Barnum and Bailey feeling the need to inform everyone coming to the “greatest show on earth” that they are likely to encounter protesters. I cannot imagine them warning ticket holders:
But don’t worry, you don’t have to talk to them. These are simply people who don’t believe in our right to be entertained by circus animals. If their harassment really bothers you, the best way to fight their intolerance is to pay us double the cost of your ticket!
Only the legalized death industry can assume such a convoluted worldview. In fact, I encourage you to find your own creative way of inquiring about Planned Parenthood’s Pledge-a-Protester. The stated purpose of the plan is found on other Planned Parenthood websites:
… you can pledge a certain amount of money for each protester who shows up and we will broadcast how much “extra” money we are receiving because of the protester’s presence on a sign on the front of the building.
This misguided piece of advertising belies a well-kept secret that all abortuary owners know too well. The most effective pro-life activity is the presence of Christians outside abortion facilities. More babies have been saved and more abortion clinics have been closed due to the direct action of Christians on the sidewalks than by any other means of indirect political action. These protesters are in reality extremely effective precisely because they are peaceful saints telling the truth about child murder and the history of racial genocide by “Klanned Parenthood” founder Margaret Sanger.
According to the sidewalk counselors who are regulars at Planned Parenthood’s Tampa Avenue address in Orlando, the killing business during the 40 Days for Life campaign is down. A typical day will see a mix of protesters holding signs, silent “prayer warriors” imploring God to end the abortion holocaust, a few ardent preachers of the Word of God, and sidewalk counselors attempting to speak to those entering the facility in the hope of dissuading them. This just can’t be the case according to Planned Parenthood’s worldview, so they pull all the stops to portray the opposite.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, has a different view.
Each year, 56% of all non-hospital providers experience at least one of five types of harassment—picketing; picketing coupled with physical contact with or blocking of clients; vandalism (such as jamming of locks or other physical damage); picketing of the homes of staff; and bomb threats.
But lets ignore the bias here for a moment. The above quote was taken from a report called: The Accessibility of Abortion Services in the United States, 2001. Since the report was written, the number of abortions in the United States has declined by 25 percent, from 1.6 million per year to about 1.2 million. Adjusted for the ratio of growth in the population during the same time period, the percentage of decline is even higher.
While Guttmacher says the decline of abortion is due to the better availability of birth control, they also cite that the number of clinics and doctors is dramatically shrinking. In fact, since the time of the street movement spawned by Operation Rescue in the 1980s, there were over 2000 outpatient clinics performing abortions. Today there are less than 700.
Although never stated explicitly to the public, the prevailing notion of Planned Parenthood is that “protesters” effectively resist the business of child killing. Abortion clinic owners claim that the mere presence of pro-life advocates outside of abortuaries cuts their child murder money anywhere from 20 to much higher. Patricia Baird-Windle, owner of the Aware Woman clinic, told Florida Today that “protesters cut business at Aware Woman by about 50 percent.”
Ironically, in contradiction to Guttmacher’s thesis, there are fewer abortions and fewer clinics. Yet there are fewer incidences of “harassment.”
Since 1996, all of these forms of harassment except picketing have become less common. The proportions of large providers reporting picketing with physical contact, vandalism and picketing of staff member’s homes have fallen by about half since 1992, when these activities were at their height. The proportion of large providers reporting bomb threats has fallen steadily, from 48% in 1985 to 15% in 2000.
All this serves to confirm that the vast majority of pro-life activists are Christians who consistently and peacefully resist the greatest holocaust in American history. At the same time, more Americans are pro-life than ever before in this generation. We will win simply because we are committed to outlasting “Murder, Inc.”
What’s with those people outside the clinic?
Indeed, the question is not only “What?” but also,“Who?”
Dr. Martin Luther King often repeated a famous quote in his speeches, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” This was his summary of Theodore Parker, who, in “Of Justice and the Conscience” (1853) wrote, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
