I became aware of Planned Parenthood’s anti-Christian agenda in 1986. At the time, STOPP International, our effort to fight Planned Parenthood, was just a year old.
Elasah Drogin had written a book about Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger: Father of Modern Society. As I read it, I was struck by the reproduction of the September 1921 cover of Birth Control Review, a periodical published by Planned Parenthood 1918- 1940. The picture showed a veiled woman leaning over a baby and weeping. Drogin’s caption reads: “An example of Sanger’s clever propaganda: a picture of the Virgin Mary is used to demonstrate the evils of motherhood.”
The Drogin book was mostly a review of Sanger’s defining 1922 work, The Pivot of Civilization. In Chapter IX of that book, I found more evidence of the way Sanger twisted Christian teaching to further her cause. The chapter was titled “A Moral Necessity,” and it purported to show how birth control is just that, a moral necessity. In fact, Sanger wrote, “one of the greatest living theologians… William Ralph Inge, the Very Reverend Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, pointed out that the doctrine of Birth Control was to be interpreted as of the very essence of Christianity.”
Imagine that. Birth control is the very essence of Christianity—not the coming of Jesus Christ or His suffering, death and redemption of souls—but birth control is the core principle of our religion. How shamelessly deceptive. And how, you may wonder, did she get away with it?
Sanger’s chosen people
Sanger claimed that not only birth control, but the pseudo-science of eugenics was at the heart of Christianity. Look at the following quote from her book:
Dean Inge believes Birth Control is an essential part of Eugenics and an essential part of Christian morality. On this point he asserts: “We do wish to remind our orthodox and conservative friends that the Sermon on the Mount contains some admirably clear and unmistakable eugenic precepts. ‘Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit, neither can a good tree bring forth evil fruit. Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.’ We wish to apply these words not only to the actions of individuals, which spring from their characters, but to the character of individuals, which spring from their inherited qualities.”
Wow. You probably weren’t aware that the Sermon on the Mount was Jesus advocating for us to create a master race. But that’s what Sanger said and she used so-called Christian ministers to do her bidding.
In the late 1930s, Sanger developed what she called the “Negro Project.” This was an effort to send people throughout the southern United States to convince black Americans not to have children. In typical Planned Parenthood fashion, the organization enlisted clergy to do its work. In an October 1939 letter Sanger wrote:
[We propose to] hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.Considering the Negro Project, is it any wonder that many Planned Parenthood centers are located in or near poor minority neighborhoods around the U.S.? What’s more, is it any wonder that the International Planned Parenthood Federation and its Global Safe Abortion Fund work in tandem with the United Nations Population Fund forcing birth control—including coerced abortions and involuntary sterilizations—on non-white mothers in the poorest countries around the world?
Now let us fast-forward to 2005—the year that the head of Planned Parenthood’s clergy committee, Tom Davis, a minister with the United Church of Christ, released a book, Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and Its Clergy Alliances. This book carries on the tradition of Sanger’s early work and tries to portray Planned Parenthood as doing God’s work.
However, one of the first admissions in Davis’ book is that Planned Parenthood is a “secular humanist” organization. This is documented in the foreword, written by Reverend Carlton W. Veazey, and again in the text of the book. Secular humanists adhere to the doctrines espoused in the three Humanist Manifestos (issued in 1933, 1973 and 2000). It is beyond the scope of this article to delve into the details of the manifestos, but we can point out what the secular humanists preach:
- There may or may not be a God, but it makes no difference because God has no effect here on earth
- There is no divine purpose for the human species
- There is no heaven or hell, life as we know it is all there is
- Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction
- They say, “We strive for the good life, here and now.”
This isn’t Christian doctrine, but in the Sanger tradition, Davis attempts to twist Christianity into Planned Parenthood’s plans. For example, he highlights a 1949 radio talk, The Ethics of Planned Parenthood, delivered by Reverend James Clarke, minister of the Second Presbyterian Church of St. Louis:
[Rev. Clarke] linked Planned Parenthood directly to the situational ethics of Jesus: “Planned Parenthood is a Christian idea because it is helpful to the spiritual happiness and physical wellbeing of both parents and children. It emphasizes the sacredness of personality as Jesus did. He declared that to judge whether a thing was right or wrong its effect on human beings would reveal its nature. If it lifted them up, it was good; if it degraded them, it was bad.”Amazing. Jesus and His Apostles were very clear on what is right and what is wrong. My Catholic upbringing taught me that Jesus never condoned the killing of innocent young children in the womb—something Planned Parenthood does over 250,000 times a year in the U.S. alone. Indeed it was always clear that Jesus advocated loving one’s neighbor, not selling her drugs and products that lead to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, strokes, heart attacks and the myriad of other problems women experience as Planned Parenthood customers.
From its very beginnings to the current day, Planned Parenthood does everything it can to twist the true meaning of Christianity and ridicule the beliefs of, as Dean Inge put it, “orthodox and conservative” Christians.
Anti-Christian products
Through the years, Planned Parenthood has sold and circulated many sacrilegious products.
In the 1970s, Planned Parenthood was involved in the distribution of a pro-abortion comic book, Abortion Eve. In it a young girl who wears cross earrings is considering an abortion, but is afraid of what her pastor will say. Another teen advises her:
Is church making it hard for you to decide? Because if it makes it hard for you like I think it must, then I say SKIP that part of church! I use the church when it HELPS me, not when I have to fight it. I don’t wanna fight God and I don’t think God wants to fight me. Another teen then adds:
Seems to me that those church rules don’t take into account that women are people too! (All emphasized text in original.)
The back cover of this book has a caricature of a pregnant Virgin Mary with an Alfred E. Newman face and the caption, “What me worry?”
In the 1990s Planned Parenthood began issuing a holiday card that had the slogan “Choice on Earth.” When Christians complained loudly that the card was offensive to those who celebrated the birth of Christ and the message of “Peace on Earth,” Planned Parenthood refused to abandon the card. In absolute defiance of the Christian outcry, Planned Parenthood has reissued the card annually for years and has even added “Choice on Earth” T-shirts to its list of products.
Recently, Planned Parenthood has been selling a line of condom keychains. One of the graphics used on these products is a reproduction of the Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel masterpiece where God is reaching down and giving life to Adam. In Planned Parenthood’s version, God is handing Adam a condom.
In this short article, I have only touched the surface of Planned Parenthood’s attack on Christianity. But, I hope I have cited enough to have you understand that Planned Parenthood is a foe of Christianity and Christians, not a follower of Christ.
Through the nine decades of Planned Parenthood’s existence some Christians have been seduced into supporting its nefarious activities. Now is the time for all Christians, in fact, all who believe there is a God Who rules the universe, to stand up to Planned Parenthood and say “NO.”
NO … We will not defy God’s commandment of “Thou shalt not kill” and support Planned Parenthood’s abortion business.
NO … We will not ignore God’s commandment to “Honor thy father and mother,” by supporting Planned Parenthood’s “confidential” dangerous contraceptive handouts and sales to minors.
NO … We will not ignore God’s commandment to flee from sexual immorality, and support Planned Parenthood’s “if it feels good, do it” form of sexual education.
Any minister who supports Planned Parenthood is saying, “I will not serve God.” Real Christians oppose Planned Parenthood— for their own sake and the sake of others.
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