Less than a month ago on May 16th, Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America gave a speech in Oregon where she accused the Bush administration of "waging a war on women."    Let us take a look at some of her examples of “anti-choice” initiatives that she claims threaten the rights of women to reproductive freedom and their access to reproductive health care.

For her first example, Gloria noted, “I'll start with the one that no one can believe because it defies reason -- Reducing access to family planning and medically accurate sex education.    Bush selected anti-choice Tommy Thompson to head the all-important Health and Human Services Department.  Thompson, in turn, has put abstinence-only and anti-family planning ideologues in charge of major reproductive health programs.  The federal spending on abstinence-only programs will top $133 million next fiscal year.  I call that an abstinence of common sense.  And it appears that one-third of the new and much touted HIV/AIDS prevention funds will be spent on preaching abstinence rather than teaching prevention.  I call that cruel and inhumane.”

Let’s get this straight.  Gloria does not consider abstinence a choice, nor is it medically accurate from her viewpoint.  She conveniently ignores a new study released in mid-April that shows abstinence as the primary reason for the reduction in teen pregnancies in recent years.  After Planned Parenthood has received over $2 billion in government money over the last 15 years, she says spending $133 million for abstinence-only programs defies reason.  Yes, they are cutting into Planned Parenthood’s sales of contraceptives and abortions.  After abstinence programs in Uganda show great success in reducing AIDS, Gloria says spending just one-third of the recently passed AIDS prevention program on abstinence is “cruel and inhumane.”  In reality, Gloria’s complaint amounts to a sales pitch for continued funding of the failed programs of Planned Parenthood that promise reduced pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, but produce the opposite effect.

Gloria didn’t stop there.  She next observed, “President Bush defunded the United Nations Population Fund.”  If she sees this as anti-choice, she must consider forced abortion and sterilization in China as the exercise of choice.  It certainly is – the government’s choice.  I thought Planned Parenthood claimed to promote women’s choice.  Apparently, that is rhetoric to cover-up their real agenda of population control.

Gloria was on a roll.  Her next point was, “As we speak, the anti-choice juggernaut is sweeping the so-called "Partial Birth Abortion Ban of 2003" through Congress and onto the desk of George W. Bush.  Because they distrust women as moral decision makers, the U.S. Senate passed a broadly written ban that would outlaw some of the safest and most common abortion procedures at any time during pregnancy.  This draconian abortion ban is also unconstitutional because it does not have an adequate health exception for the woman.”

Wait a minute, Gloria.  First abortion supporters maintained that partial birth abortion was so rare that it was pointless to regulate it.  Now, banning it “would outlaw some of the safest and most common abortion procedures.”  How can that be?  Why is it that the American Medical Association stated this procedure is “not accepted medical practice?”  How can this ban be unconstitutional without a health exception when the banned procedure is not even accepted medical practice?

Gloria continued, “There's more -- Redefining the legal status of the fetus.  New Child Health Insurance Program regulations bypass women and give prenatal care to fetuses, redefined as children from the moment of conception.    Right here in Oregon, your anti-choice legislators are working on a state version of the federal so-called "Unborn Victims of Violence Act."  By charging an offender who harms a pregnant woman with a separate offense for harm to the fetus, these bills create separate personhood status for the fetus. When the fetus is elevated to a status above that of the woman, Roe is moot and women's bodies become mere vessels.”

Personhood?    Not personhood!  Thus, Gloria is against government programs that offer health care to pregnant women because they are pregnant with a baby.  She is against laws that recognize violence against unborn children as a crime.   According to Gloria, such recognition of personhood puts the child above the woman.  How can that be?  Is the woman not a person?  No, in reality, this recognition of personhood exposes the lie of non-personhood established in Roe v. Wade.

Gloria covered a number of additional complaints, but the most intriguing was when she said, “Notably missing is any discussion of the welfare of the woman.  For example, what about the fact that one in six pregnant women is subject to some kind of abuse?  That's the real crime that should be punished.”  That is a good question Gloria, especially since Planned Parenthood has been implicated in a cover-up of sexual child abuse through failure to comply with mandated reporting laws.  It sound good, but are you really concerned about abuse of women?  It seems you are more concerned about abortion revenue than abused women.  Actions speak much louder than words.

It appears that Planned Parenthood is very anti-choice, if the choice is anything other than using their “reproductive” services.  And that is another misnomer – Planned Parenthood’s services are anti-reproductive.

Bill Beckman
Illinois Right to Life Committee