Commentary by Jim Sedlak
It is a very simple concept. It is logical. With everything we now know, given the advances in technology, it is the only position that makes sense:
The terms `human person' and `human being' include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life , including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.
In today’s world of 3-D ultrasound and operations in utero, it is clear to even the most casual observer that a human person exists from his or her point of creation. Parents today happily display pictures of their children from the early months of pregnancy and everyone can see their beautiful faces and other features.
Yet there are those who still insist that it is okay to kill these innocent children just because somebody doesn’t want them. It is a horrible fact that the youngest of our children are not protected by law.
In the last congress, 100 members of the House of Representatives supported a bill that simply said:
The Congress hereby declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being.
Sound reasonable?
Of course.
Yet the bill was considered very controversial. It was bottled up in committee and never did get any congressional hearings.
One of the major opponents of this personhood bill was, and is, Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Despite the fact that the bill does nothing more than declare the scientific fact that a person exists from the moment of its beginning, Planned Parenthood cannot let this bill be passed.
The reason for Planned Parenthood’s position is also simple to explain. If the truth about the personhood of the human being from its point of creation was ever to be written into law, Planned Parenthood would be virtually out of business.
One third of Planned Parenthood’s clinic income comes from the killing of human beings who are in the first nine months of their lives. According to its own numbers, Planned Parenthood ends the lives of 255,015 of these children each year. Our own survey of prices charged by Planned Parenthood shows that it receives an average of $425 for each child it terminates. Thus, Planned Parenthood receives almost $110 million from its death business, a business that would clearly end if a personhood law were passed.
In addition to its direct killing business, Planned Parenthood receives millions of dollars in donations from individuals and foundations to support its advocacy for “choice.” Of course, “choice” is simply a Planned Parenthood euphemism for abortion. If a personhood law were passed, Planned Parenthood would lose much of the $215 million it received in donations last year.
If all this were not enough of an incentive for Planned Parenthood to deny the truth and fight against the personhood act, there is another part of its business that would be affected by the passing of this common-sense law.
For over forty years, Planned Parenthood has used an arbitrary set of definitions to conceal how its so-called contraceptives really work. By claiming that pregnancy does not begin until the child has implanted in his mother’s womb, Planned Parenthood tells high school and college girls that, if they take its contraceptive products, they will not get pregnant. It does not tell them that one of the mechanisms of over 85 percent of its products is the preventing of the implantation of an already created human being – thus causing the child’s death.
Several years ago, we took every so-called contraceptive product that Planned Parenthood sells and we looked them up in the Physician’s Desk Reference. The overwhelming majority of the products work, at least some of the time, by allowing a new human being to be created and then preventing that human being from implanting in her mother’s womb. If we know it, then you can be sure Planned Parenthood knows it. But it denies the scientific facts to protect its primary business.
Planned Parenthood takes in almost $200 million a year from the sale of these so-called contraceptive products. In addition, much of its $272 million in taxpayer money is used to pay for the distribution of these same products. If a personhood law were passed, Planned Parenthood would lose most of this income.
Once we understand all the facts, two things become crystal clear:
First, Planned Parenthood’s existence depends on the general public and elected officials ignoring (or remaining in the dark about) the scientific facts on when each unique human life begins and how its products work.
Second, the passage of a personhood act will force the laws of the United States to recognize what we all know to be true and to protect every human life from its point of creation. This would be the end of Planned Parenthood’s business.
American Life League is dedicated in 2007, just as it has been for years, to focusing our energies on defeating the agenda of Planned Parenthood and saving the lives of millions of the most helpless human beings. A major part of that effort will be the re-introduction in Congress of a personhood act that will secure for the tiniest human beings the same rights that all the rest of us enjoy.
It is time the laws of our land reflected truth and science. It is time we stopped bending our laws just so Planned Parenthood can continue its $880 million a year business. It is time we passed a personhood act.
We ask every liberal, moderate and conservative in the country to join with us in this effort. Protecting the lives of the most defenseless of our brothers and sisters is not the job of one party or one religion or one cause. It is required of every member of any society that dares to call itself civilized.
Let’s put partisan politics and religious bigotry behind us. It is simply a matter of common sense. It is time “we the people” passed a personhood act.
Release issued: 5 Jan 07
