Portland, Oregon Pro-Life Advocates Lobby Builder of New Abortion Business 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 14, 2008
Portland, OR (LifeNews.com) — Pro-life advocates are lobbying the builder of a new abortion center in the heart of the black community in Oregon’s largest city. They hope Ankrom Moisan Architects will step down from its position as the main designer of the new abortion business Planned Parenthood is building.
Bill Diss, a member of St. Francis Parish in Sherwood, is organizing a prayer vigil in opposition to the firm’s involvement.
He says the firm is taking a double standard by having previously built a Catholic assisted living center and a Catholic school and now building an abortion facility.
“How can they build a worship center one day and a place that kills babies the next day?” he told the Catholic Sentinel newspaper.
The newspaper said the firm has not returned its calls for comment and LifeNews.com has no luck either in getting officials to say something for a news story.
Diss is asking pro-life advocates to contact Ankrom Moisan Architects and urge it to withdraw from the project.
Planned Parenthood’s abortion business is growing and its leaders want to move its large center to a part of Portland where city officials have been hoping to revitalize a formerly run-down area.
Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette would open a new abortion center with more than 140 employees.
The abortion business is slated to open a new facility on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard but pro-life advocates have submitted a petition with 900 names from local parishioners at Catholic churches opposing the move.
Rev. LeRoy Haynes Jr., pastor at the nearby Allen Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, says the black community in Portland isn’t happy about having a Planned Parenthood there.
"If they would bring a clinic that does abortions, that would be a big issue in our community," he told the Oregonian newspaper. "It is a moral, faith-based issue to me."
David Greenberg, president of the abortion business, told the Oregonian that it’s moving because it’s experiencing more funding and more demand for its family planning services and has run out of space at its current location in the Southeast part of town.
Last year, Oregonians voted against a parental involvement proposal by a 54-46 percentage margin after Planned Parenthood outspent pro-life advocates 3-1 and flooded the airwaves with a misleading television commercial.
But, thanks to efforts from Oregon Right to Life and crisis pregnancy centers, abortions in Oregon are down to their lowest levels since 1998, having decreased 20 percent between then and 2004, the latest year from which state data is available.
The Oregon Department of Human Services reported 14,344 abortions in 1998, but that number decreased to 11,443 abortions in 2004.
ACTION: Contact Ankrom Moisan Architects and urge it to withdraw from building the Planned Parenthood abortion business. Contact it at 6720 SW Macadam Avenue, Suite 100, Portland, Oregon 97219, phone (503) 245-7100, fax a letter to (503) 245-7710, or use the form here to send an email message.
Related web sites:
Oregon Right to Life – https://www.ortl.org
