A new video promoting Planned Parenthood features members of the clergy boldly proclaim their unity with America’s number one abortion corporation, which took almost 330,000 innocent lives last year.
These clergy members, purported representatives of God, say Planned Parenthood is a necessity for our society. In using words like “ethical,” and admonishments claiming, “silence is no longer an option,” these faith leaders display a lack of faith in their public support of the ‘right’ to murder preborn children.
A Huffington Post article includes the abortion corporation’s promo video and says:
Christian and Jewish clergy members have been part of the movement for reproductive rights for decades. Religious denominations, such as the Anglican Communion, the United Church of Christ, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), have passed resolutions supporting birth control. And during the 1960s, religious leaders were actually a “driving force” in the movement to legalize abortion in the United States.
Today, this history of activism has largely been overshadowed by prominent voices on the “religious right,” who promote the idea that it is impossible to be both religious and pro-abortion rights.
Despite what these clergy members may believe or justify, it really is impossible to support abortion and claim to be an advocate of the gospel and of social justice. The gospel message revolves around an innocent man shedding his blood and dying so that people could have life, not so more blood of the innocent could be shed in the name of justice.
The Planned Parenthood promotional video is filled with statements from these purported faith leaders which are laden with tragic irony. In just about a minute and a half, four religious leaders argue that Planned Parenthood — the organization that kills 330,000 actual, living, preborn children every year — is necessary for compassion and justice in our society.
Darcy Roake (a Unitarian Universalist minister), Rabbi Lori Koffman, Bet Torah, Earl Fisher (senior pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church — location not given), and Timothy MacDonald III (senior pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church — location not given), create the religious rhetoric that begins with Roake saying, “It is our role as children of God to care for our fellow men and women,” which cuts to Koffman saying, “Religion is really about enabling people to live lives of purpose and meaning.”
Neither woman seems to grasp that ripping a human being from the womb in pieces isn’t a caring act, and obviously prevents that human being from living a purposeful life. Our own United States Declaration of Independence declares that each person is entitled to life and liberty, not to destruction before exiting the womb. This makes one of Koffman’s later lines more tragically ironic, as she says, “Everybody is entitled to dignity.” Everybody except the preborn human being, apparently.
The real zinger of a line comes from Earl Fisher. The Baptist pastor says we must…
… do all we can to make sure that those who are being oppressed will receive the type of support and advocacy they need…. It only makes sense for us to support the work of Planned Parenthood…. For some women, that’s the only healthcare provider they have.
There is a volume of error in Fisher’s emotional proclamation. First, there is no one more oppressed than one who cannot speak for herself and is at the mercy of a society that deems her unworthy of living if she’s inconvenient. So, no, it doesn’t “make sense” for people of faith to support the killing of that human being.
But what Pastor Fisher doesn’t know is the reality of health care. If Planned Parenthood is really the “only healthcare provider” some women have, it behooves us to ask what those women will do if they get pneumonia or their appendix bursts. Fisher’s claim is patently untrue, and is a parroted line from Planned Parenthood. In fact, while the abortion profiteer does provide a few limited health services apart from abortion-related ones, it is far from a comprehensive health care provider. Women in this nation have access to thousands upon thousands of federally-funded health care clinics which provide them with all the same services, apart from destroying life in the womb, for the same low or no-cost fees.
MacDonald, the other Baptist pastor, follows with his own brand of tragic irony when he says, “When people of faith speak up for reproductive justice, compassion becomes the order of the day.”
In actuality, his words would be better spoken if he argued that when people of faith speak up for the voiceless, real compassion can flourish. It’s a troubling comment on the state of our culture of death when a man who claims to represent the Gospel message can advocate for the right to kill human beings in the womb in the name of justice and compassion.
The tragic pièce de résistance of the video comes from MacDonald when he says, “Silence is no longer an option for us.” He’s right, of course, but the speaking out that needs to come can be found in his own Bible, in Proverbs 31:8-9:
Open your mouth for the speechless,
In the cause of all who are appointed to die.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
And plead the cause of the poor and needy.
Instead, these members of the clergy are speaking up for a wealthy abortion corporation to advocate the right to kill. And that’s not a tenet of any desirable faith.
Editor’s Note: All op-eds are the opinion of the writer, and not necessarily the official position of Live Action.
