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Friday, July 8, 2016

Planned Parenthood And The Lives That Don't Matter

In response to the latest police shootings, Planned Parenthood posted the following  response in an attempt to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement: "You deserve to parent your child without fear that he or she will be hurt or killed. Freedom from violence is reproductive justice."

I agree with Planned Parenthood's statement. I would have phrased it differently (can we include what kids deserve?), but I embrace the general sentiment. Of course black lives matter; of course we want a world where parents don't have to worry about children experiencing violence or being killed.

This is why I am also angry at the hypocrisy of this claim and heart-broken at the reality it supports. Do they really want to have a discussion about the intersection of violence and reproduction? Planned Parenthood is one of the leading providers of abortion in the United States, an act which by its very nature takes the life of a unborn human child. Thousands of unborn children suffer violence every day when someone receives an abortion in a Planned Parenthood clinic. If freedom from violence is reproductive justice, then there is no reproductive justice at any Planned Parenthood clinic by their own standard.

I know Planned Parenthood is attempting to support the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement, and as I noted earlier I agree with their sentiment. But their statement fails dismally because it only reveals their hypocrisy. Planned Parenthood's track record shows that, in spite of their rhetoric, not all black lives matter to them.


Planned Parenthood, if you really believe that reproductive justice should be free from violence, shut your doors. If you really want to help bring about a world free of the fear of violence and death, shut your doors. And if you truly believe that black lives matter,  you could save 118,00 lives every year if you would just shut your doors.

Or you can keep doing business as usual. Just please stop posting messages trying to support a right to life when you are so very proficient at ending it.