Planned Parenthood Pursues Religious Leaders to Legitimatize Abortions

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 3, 2006   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Planned Parenthood Pursues Religious Leaders to Legitimatize Abortions Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 3, 2006

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Planned Parenthood has always been seen by both sides the abortion debate as a secular defender of abortion.

That image made it difficult for the nation’s largest abortion business to make inroads into religious communities, but Planned Parenthood is redoubling its efforts to break into the Christian community with its pro-abortion mantra.

At the Washington Hilton hotel on Friday, Planned Parenthood held a prayer breakfast with religious officials of various stripes who favor abortion.

According to a New York Times article, there were prayers, cross necklaces and Scriptures, but the message was not the normal one people would expected from a gathering of religious leaders.

"We are here this morning because, through our collective efforts, we are agents in bringing our fragile world ever closer to the promise of redemption," Rabbi Dennis S. Ross, director of Concerned Clergy for Choice, told the audience.

"As clergy from an array of denominations, we say yes to the call before us," he said, according to the Times report.

In his prayer to God, Rabbi Ross praised God for challenging the abortion advocates to "bring healing and comfort" to the world.

The breakfast is nothing new — Planned Parenthood has been holding it for the last four years — and neither is clergy involvement in its pro-abortion crusade.

In the 1960s, approximately 2,000 ministers and rabbis joined together to lobby for the repeal of pro-life laws across the nation.

Forty years later, there is only a small organized pro-abortion movement within the nation’s clergy. Several mainline Protestant denominations, such as the Methodist and Episcopalian Churches take pro-abortion views, but activist religious officials in the abortion debate are typically Catholic priests and evangelical ministers who are pro-life.

Rev. Thomas R. Davis of the United Church of Christ wants to change that.

"The clergy could open that door because the clergy had a certain moral authority," Davis, who is the head of Planned Parenthood’s clergy advisory board, told the Times. He said an activist group of pro-abortion religious officials could "balance the moral authority of the critics" of abortion.

Participants also encouraged local churches to get more involved in working with Planned Parenthood in their communities.

Rev. W. Stewart MacColl told the audience about a Houston Presbyterian church he led and its efforts to work with the abortion business to open up a new center in its neighborhood. He said pro-life protesters turned out at his church, but he’s glad the effort moved forward.