Planned Parenthood Is Playing with Dangerous Fire
Headlines across the United States are blaring some variation of the headline: “Most Conservative State in America Rejects Pro-Life Amendment 58% to 42%.”
The surface story runs something like this: Bishop Joseph Latino of Jackson, Mississippi, announced that he thought the Personhood Amendment had good intentions but suffered from bad strategy. The Bishop announced that the Diocese of Jackson would remain neutral on the bill. Popular GOP Governor Haley Barbour announced the strategic worries of pro-lifers (such as Bishop Latino) on MSNBC and said that many pro-lifers had legitimate concerns. The No on 26 campaign (funded by Planned Parenthood and their allies) created an advertisement arguing that pro-lifers should oppose the Amendment.
Most of the opposition hinged on the fact that the Pill can act as an abortifacient — thinning the uterine wall, preventing implantation, and causing the embryo to die from lack of nutrients. In a moment of gloating triumph Planned Parenthood issued a statement saying that the Amendment “would have allowed government to have control over personal decisions that should be left up to a woman, her family, her doctor and her faith, including keeping a woman with a life-threatening pregnancy from getting the care she needs, and criminalizing everything from abortion to common forms of birth control such as the pill and the IUD (the intrauterine device).” Typically, Planned Parenthood vociferously denies that the Pill can act as an abortifacient. They may soon deeply regret this statement.
Why is this a surprising admission? What is Planned Parenthood’s rhetorical strategy?
In 1873, the federal government passed the Comstock Act, which banned the importation or mailing of “obscene matter” (including contraceptives and information on contraceptives). In 1936, Margaret Sanger got that portion of the Comstock Act declared unconstitutional in United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries. In 1960, the FDA legalized the Pill while abortions were still illegal by changing the definition of conception from fertilization to implantation — thus semantically avoiding the abortifacient nature of the drug. In 1968, Griswold v. Connecticut declared state bans on contraception were unconstitutional (in additional to federal bans which had been unconstitutional since 1936). In 1970, the federal government began promoting contraception (and Planned Parenthood) through Title X funding. In 1973, Roe v. Wade legalized all abortion.
National Right to Life strategies all focus on overturning Roe v. Wade (returning to 1972 on abortion policy). Their greatest victory is the 2007 Gonzales v. Carhart ruling that declared that Rick Santorum’s Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was indeed constitutional. This stopped Planned Parenthood momentum and they have been playing defense ever since. Susan B. Anthony List and Americans United for Life have gone further — starting a movement to defund Planned Parenthood but not Title X itself (a partial repeal of 1970). However, Mitt Romney — combining fiscal and social issues — has called for the abolition of all Title X funds (taking us back to 1969). Personhood USA has set its sights higher — on making abortion and abortifacients illegal (taking us back to 1959 on abortion policy). They specifically chose to declare that life begins at fertilization rather than conception to pick a fight with obfuscation at the FDA and the legality of abortifacients.
Based on the campaign run by Planned Parenthood’s campaign front group No on 26, it is evident that in the heart of the Bible Belt, keeping the Pill legal has the support of 58% of citizens. Based on the behavior of the Bishops and National Right to Life many opposed only for strategic reasons. That is weak for an allegedly unassailable political third rail.
But if an abortifacient like the Pill can win in Mississippi, what does that mean for the US?
It is important to remember that Margaret Sanger worked through capitalizing on anti-Catholicism in the Protestant churches to build a majority consensus on contraception. The Protestant consensus went from condemning contraception and condemning abortion to praising contraception and condemning abortion to lobbying for both. In 1976, the Southern Baptist Convention, a flagship of Evangelicals that now serves as a strong right arm of the Evangelical-Catholic pro-life alliance, adopted a resolution stating:
“Be it further RESOLVED, that we also affirm our conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion, and support the right of expectant mothers to the full range of medical services and personal counseling for the preservation of life and health.”
It sounds like it was written by Planned Parenthood itself. But the SBC had been lobbying to legalize abortion for years before Roe v. Wade. However, since then, Catholics have founded the National Right to Life Committee and learned to speak the language of Populism, which has served as the rallying point of the most effective ecumenism of all — the pro-life movement. The Southern Baptist Convention and the American Family Association now supportive this initiative (even more so than the Catholic Bishops although young lay Catholics created the Personhood USA movement).
It may be good short-term politics for Planned Parenthood to shout that the Pill is an abortifacient and that protecting the unborn will deprive people of it.
But over the long haul, Planned Parenthood is playing with fire by going where they have never gone before. They are openly linking one of their earlier and more supported policy initiatives (the Pill) with their newer and increasingly hated policy initiative (abortion). Conflating an unpopular policy and a popular policy moves public opinion on both issues towards the median. Evangelicals turned against abortion but thus far have not targeted abortifacients like the Pill en mass. But they changed their position on abortion. Planned Parenthood is taking the risk of turning Evangelicals against the Pill as well — a newfound Catholic-Evangelical alliance aimed even more deeply at the heart of the Culture of Death.
You know what happens when people play with fire. Someone gets burned …