Planned Parenthood, the nation’s abortion behemoth, commits 324,000 known abortions each year. That’s fifteen thousand school classrooms full of children who are obliterated by one taxpayer-funded organization every single year. It’s a child’s life coming to a violent halt every 97 seconds.
There is no debate: stopping Planned Parenthood is a key component in relegating the heinous practice of human abortion to the ash heap of American history. But what’s the strategy for ushering in a Planned Parenthood-free era? Read on for a simple 10-step plan. Whether you commit to just one action or tackle the entire list head-on, you will make a difference.
1. Know Planned Parenthood’s most popular lies and how to debunk them.
Planned Parenthood is a house of cards built on deception and lies. From the way it counts its services to blatant falsehood spewed on national television, the organization is devoid of honesty and integrity. Know how to spot Planned Parenthood’s most popular lies, and be prepared to debunk these narratives whenever you encounter them.
- Lie: The 3% Myth – Planned Parenthood says abortion is only 3% of total services
- Lie: Women will completely lose healthcare if Planned Parenthood is defunded
- Lie: Women will die without access to so-called “safe and legal” abortion
- Lie: Planned Parenthood provides mammograms
- Lie: Planned Parenthood provides prenatal care
2. Make sure your elected officials know how you feel about Planned Parenthood.
You don’t need to be a politico or a policy wonk to keep in touch with your elected officials. Remember, elected officials have a job only because of the voters and taxpayers in their districts. They work for you, so make sure they know how you feel about Planned Parenthood. Elected officials need to know that you want Planned Parenthood stripped of taxpayer funding. Use this resource to tweet at, email, or call your elected officials. Calling takes only a moment, but it has a big impact. You can also send a postcard or a letter detailing your thoughts.
3. Be present at Planned Parenthood when you can.
Your peaceful presence outside Planned Parenthood serves as a reminder to the public, to Planned Parenthood employees, to media, and to patients that the abortion business doesn’t fly under the radar. Stay abreast of – or help organize – rallies and pro-life events at your local Planned Parenthood. Or simply show up to pray, counsel, and offer information, or peacefully stand as a witness to the pro-life values that run contrary to Planned Parenthood’s inhuman practices.
4. Get your friends and family involved.
Author Charles Duhigg once wrote: “Movements don’t emerge because everyone suddenly decides to face the same direction at once. They rely on social patterns that begin as the habits of friendship, grow as the habits of communities, and are sustained by new habits that change the participants’ sense of self.”
Recruit your family and peers to join you in your efforts to stop Planned Parenthood. Ask them to call elected officials, join you at a Planned Parenthood demonstration, or participate in a social media campaign. As Duhigg notes, movements grow out of social bonds – friends recruiting friends and forming tight-knit communities. The pro-life movement is not at all different, and your friends may just be waiting for an invitation to join you. Together, we’ll stop Planned Parenthood and end abortion.
5. Stay up to date on efforts to stop Planned Parenthood.
Stay ahead of the curve on the conversation surrounding Planned Parenthood so you’re prepared to counter false narratives when they arise. Perhaps you will be able to start a new and more accurate narrative to pre-empt the rampant deceptions and parroted talking points of America’s Abortion Corporation. To stay informed about legislative action, hearings, rallies, and calls to action in the fight to stop Planned Parenthood, follow Live Action on Twitter, sign up for email updates, and keep up with the latest news and commentary on Planned Parenthood here at Live Action News.
6. Participate in awareness campaigns about Planned Parenthood.
Pro-life groups work to keep Planned Parenthood in the public eye while the abortion behemoth uses deceptive marketing and talking points to shift the narrative away from abortion. It’s easy to participate in awareness campaigns about Planned Parenthood. For example, Students for Life of America is currently running a #SockIt2PP campaign, aiming to deliver 323,999 baby socks – representing the 323,999 preborn children Planned Parenthood kills each year – to Congress. The purpose of the campaign is to underscore the need for Congress to take action on defunding Planned Parenthood. We need them to do it now.
7. Use social media to set straight the public narrative on Planned Parenthood.
Social media allows users to reach massive audiences effortlessly. And never take for granted how much of your audience on any platform may be sitting on the fence when it comes to abortion and Planned Parenthood. Reinforcing opposition to Planned Parenthood and correcting falsehoods on social media serves to counter the skewed weight the mainstream media throw behind the abortion giant. To help your truth-telling messages go farther, hashtag popular terms like #abortion and #feminism. Share videos that tell the truth about abortion and Planned Parenthood – like the three included in this article and the others at LiveAction.org and AbortionProcedures.com.
8. Demand pro-life leadership and action from your church.
Pro-life leadership from within the church would prevent many women from turning to Planned Parenthood in a moment of crisis. The stakes here cannot be overstated: when church leaders fail to provide education to their congregations and resources to women and families in need, the injustice of abortion goes unchecked.
Did you know that a pregnant woman sitting in church on Sunday is at about the same risk of choosing abortion as a non-religious woman? Yet a Barna survey reveals that only about 1 in 10 pastors speaks publicly on abortion with any regularity. Church silence on abortion is deadly. The truth is that pastors fear negative repercussions of preaching on abortion. But church leaders should fear not talking about abortion more, because it is the women, families, and preborn children of the congregation who will suffer the price of their silence. In addition to encouraging your pastor and women’s ministry leader to speak out, consider starting a group like Embrace Grace in your congregation.
9. Empower the men in your life to be vocal about Planned Parenthood’s betrayal of women.
Planned Parenthood and its supporters have sent a clear message to men over time: if you support abortion, you’re welcome to speak up. But if you don’t, you have no right whatsoever to speak your mind. At the same time, half of all women who undergo an abortion cite an unsupportive partner or the potential of being a single parent as the reason for seeking the abortion. What statistic could more clearly indicate the need for men to speak up – loudly! – on behalf of pregnant women and the preborn? Men: Planned Parenthood tells you to sit down and shut up, but your voices have never been more important in this debate. Need a little inspiration? Visit a site just for men: AbortionExploitsWomen.com. You can also visit this additional resource if you are trying to help a woman in your life make a pregnancy decision.
AbortionExploitsWomen.com should prove to be an excellent resource for those men who are willing to “stand in the gap,” to face the judgment of big-business abortion, and to do what is right for women, children, and men. For more powerful videos released by AbortionExploitsWomen and Human Coalition, go here.
10. Don’t back down – not ever!
Planned Parenthood is a bully on the playground of public debate. The group and its supporters will try to berate you, mock you, and bully you into silence. But that’s because Planned Parenthood knows that its days are severely numbered, in large part because the Pro-Life Generation is a majority. Remember, without Planned Parenthood’s pretty pink façade and sound bites about “women’s health” permeating the public narrative, the ugly truth of tiny severed body parts and women betrayed quickly comes to the fore. So stand strong in the face of Planned Parenthood’s tactics to silence your message. Find strength in numbers (see #4!), and look with hope and expectation toward the day when Planned Parenthood and its barbaric enterprise are consigned to the ash heap of history.
