Judie Brown on the Federal Government's Addiction to Planned Parenthood

As we enter the next phase of the Congressional struggle over defunding Planned Parenthood, there are some historical facts that need to be brought into focus. Planned Parenthood reports that its work to get the government involved started to reap benefits during the Johnson years.

WASHINGTON, DC (American Life League) - After witnessing decades of deception, prejudice and numerous illicit activities executed by Planned Parenthood, many people are beginning to realize that this is not an organization that should be trusted or funded by taxpayers. Today's commentary examines some of the things Planned Parenthood has done over the years and reiterates that now is the time to stop all federal funding to this organization.

As we enter the next phase of the Congressional struggle over defunding Planned Parenthood, there are some historical facts that need to be brought into focus. The aphrodisiac Planned Parenthood has provided to members of Congress has been available and imbibed by many for numerous years.

It all started with President Lyndon Baines Johnson.  Planned Parenthood reports that its work to get the government involved started to reap benefits during the Johnson years.  Its web site states, "In 1966 these efforts bear fruit at the national level. As a central element of the War on Poverty, President Lyndon Johnson singles out a lack of family planning as one of four critical health problems facing the nation."

And as if this step toward success were not enough, just four short years later Congress passed a law known as Title X of the Public Health Service Act. This came about, according to some, because of a speech President Richard M. Nixon delivered which stated, "It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition. I believe, therefore that we should establish as a national goal the provision of adequate family planning services within the next five years to all those who want them but cannot afford them. This we have the capacity to do."

The significance of these actions and the ensuing federal programs designed to "serve" the poor by ensuring that they do not have children is perhaps best observed throughout minority communities in our nation. The sad outcomes cannot be overlooked, though many news analysts will go to great lengths to deny that federal tax dollars have anything whatsoever to do with the failing state of the black family.

But as Patrick Fagan, director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute at the Family Research Council, pointed out at a recent conference,  "By the late 1960s, after 'family planning' clinics were widespread, there was a clear pattern of a preponderance of them being in black neighborhoods," and the reasons for this are crystal clear.

The "war on poverty" was and still is war on minority families. Many black pro-life leaders including Rev. Walter Hoye have described the programs of Planned Parenthood and other "family planning" organizations currently on the federal dole as nothing other than racist in nature.

There is mounting evidence that the "war on poverty" has become Uncle Sam's last great plantation for many in the black and Hispanic community. Large numbers of minority poor have grown dependent on the government for their existence.  This reality affirms the fact that it is increasingly clear that the best way to create absolute reliance on welfare among minorities is to make sure those in target populations have birth control and other such services readily available.

The American taxpayer should be the last person on earth expected to subsidize any activity that is in any way racially motivated.  There is no doubt that the nuclear family is the cornerstone of American society and that programs such as those encompassed by Planned Parenthood's agenda are designed to cripple, if not destroy, it.

After more than forty years of recorded failure, clearly Planned Parenthood's skullduggery should be terminated. There is no need to continue the charade a minute longer.

Now is the time to defund Planned Parenthood.

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American Life League is a 501(c)(3) organization co-founded in 1979 by Judie Brown and nine other dedicated pro-life Americans. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life education organization in the United States. ALL is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. It is rooted in pro-life integrity that stands up for every innocent human being whose life is threatened by what Pope John Paul II called "the culture of death."