Family Research Council

African-Americans in the Crosshairs

by Sherry Crater

February 19, 2009

February is Black History Month, and we are reminded of the many African-Americans who have made remarkable contributions to our great country. Sadly, I am reminded also of the huge number of African-American babies aborted every day in the United States snuffing out enormous future potential from this community. Adding insult to injury, evidence has surfaced over the last few months concerning anti-African-American attitudes in the abortion industry.

I refer to the explosive news regarding racist behavior by employees of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. A student reporter at UCLA who did some investigative journalism released some shocking recordings showing that the eugenic and racial origins of Planned Parenthood are evident in the work of the organization even today.

It has long been known-but largely unreported—that Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood) advocated population control and birth prevention among the “unfit” from the beginning of her public work. As early as 1915, Sanger’s first handbook entitled, What Every Boy and Girl Should Know, discussed the vicious cycle of ignorance breeding poverty and poverty breeding ignorance. Sanger’s solution to this problem was to prevent the birth of children who would not have an inheritance of health or intelligence and whose parents could not provide for them. This philosophy resulted in the creation of Sanger’s Negro Project in 1939-a program aimed at restricting reproduction among the African-American population.

Fast forward to February 2008, when Lila Rose, the UCLA student mentioned above, and a friend called Planned Parenthood clinics in seven states. The friend played the role of a blatantly racist man inquiring as to whether the organization would take his donation if it was earmarked specifically for the abortion of an African-American baby. The caller explained that he didn’t want his son’s chances of being accepted to college lessened due to affirmative action.

The recorded calls to Planned Parenthood involve conversations between the would-be racist customer and several employees. The employee at Ohio Planned Parenthood told the caller that, “For whatever reason we’ll accept the donation.” The Director of Development at Planned Parenthood of Idaho, Autumn Kersey, was told that the caller wanted his donation directed toward an African-American because, “We just think the less black kids out there the better.” Autumn’s response was laughter followed by the comment, “Understandable, understandable.” Seven clinics were contacted, and Planned Parenthood went 7 for 7 in accepting donations specifically targeted for the abortion of African-American babies.

Abortion is the leading cause of death in the African-American community, and Planned Parenthood has had significant impact on the astronomical decline in the birth rate of this group of people. According to Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., abortion is the primary agenda of groups like Planned Parenthood in the African-American communities. They also offer birth control and some health services, but the emphasis is on abortion for these particular parents. The organization operates a disproportionately high number of facilities in metropolitan areas with high African-American populations. Since 1973 abortion has taken the lives of about 14 million African-American babies, nearly 1450 every day in this country. Approximately 35% of all abortions in the U.S. are performed on African-American women, while they represent only 13% of the female population of the country.

The exposure of these actions by Planned Parenthood employees reminds us again how seriously divisive this hateful behavior is. The conduct of Planned Parenthood should fuel a revolt to end taxpayer funding of this organization. The decimation of the African-American community should ignite a movement aimed at stopping the eradication of an entire generation of children by removing African-Americans from the crosshairs of the Planned Parenthood abortionists.

Blogs 4 Life 2009—Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers

by Krystle Gabele

February 19, 2009

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers was a featured speaker at Blogs 4 Life 2009. Here is the link to her biography. McMorris Rodgers represents the Fifth District of Washington in Congress.

Blogs 4 Life 2009—U.S. Senator Sam Brownback

by Krystle Gabele

February 19, 2009

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback was a featured speaker at Blogs 4 Life 2009.

Daily Buzz

by Krystle Gabele

February 19, 2009

Here’s what we are reading today.

• “Va. Shore mothers have 1,095 abortions in a decade,” Ted Shockley, The Daily Times (February 18, 2009)
• “Frist to lead education reform initiative,” Nashville Business Journal (February 18, 2009)
• “Gay marriage: No issue for referendum,” Editorial, The Salisbury Post (February 18, 2009)
• “Scientists Await Action on Stem Cells,” Rob Stein, The Washington Post (February 19, 2009)
• “

  The Catholic Crusade Against a Mythical Abortion Bill,” Amy Sullivan, Time (February 19, 2009)

• “Poll: Half of NJ voters support gay marriage,” Newsday (February 19, 2009)
• “Researcher seeks to turn stem cells into blood vessels,” Physorg.com (February 18, 2009)
• “Stem Cell Tumor a Cautionary Reminder,” Brandon Keim, Wired Magazine (February 18, 2009)

The Washington Post: “…merely a conservative villager…”

by Robert Morrison

February 18, 2009

You have to love The Washington Post. It manages to avoid calling liberals liberals. Why? Because the politically correct name for liberals is now progressives. The governing assumption is that whatever liberals used to want was progress, and so if the American people are skittish about what liberals want, if they’ve had a bellyful of experience with many things liberal, it’s better all around to call the people who want progress progressives.

If liberals have largely disappeared from the pages of the Post, however, conservatives haven’t. The Post today carries a story about a horrific incident in Afghanistan. The beautiful young American was working at the village level there, trying to help the Afghan people, well, progress. Paula Lloyd worked as a contract employee of the U.S. Department of Defense. Her job was to learn as much as she could about village life in this ancient land. She wanted to help American and NATO forces fight against the Taliban. She wanted to help our troops avoid the “ugly American” label by becoming more culturally attuned to the Afghan people.

She worked for the DoD, and also for the UN and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Paula Lloyd was the kind of person who would rescue a blind dog that had been abandoned next to the highway. “She had a passion for the people of Afghanistan,” said friends after she died.

Miss Lloyd had been asking villagers about the rising cost of fuel. She was wise enough not to shake hands with Afghan men, but she did have a friendly conversation with one villager who was carrying a jug of gasoline. He thanked her for coming to his village.

Then, suddenly on that bright, cold afternoon last November 4^th, the Afghan man hurled gasoline on Miss Lloyd’s face and chest and set her afire. As her guard pursued her attacker and killed him, Miss Lloyd, horribly burned, was airlifted to San Antonio Army Medical Center. There she died two months later.

The Post is unsure whether the dead attacker was a Taliban terrorist. Actually, they don’t call him that. They call him a Taliban fighter. It would be culturally insensitive to suggest that a man who douses an unarmed woman with gasoline and sets her ablaze is anything less than a fighter. “The Afghan who set her on fire might have been a Taliban fighter following orders,” the Post intones, “but he also might have been merely a conservative villager, influenced by Taliban propaganda that portrays Western soldiers as occupiers and Western women as immoral [emphasis added].” 

Pressed for a word to describe how bad a man that Afghan was, the Post naturally falls back upon conservative. May I suggest to their progressive editors a better word? How about savage? Savage is not a racist designation. It describes brutal people by what they do. You can be a blond beast in an SS uniform with an advanced degree from the University of Heidelberg. When you do what this guy did, you’re a savage. The word is properly defined in Merriam-Webster: 1 a: not domesticated or under human control : untamed <savage beasts> b: lacking the restraints normal to civilized human beings : fierce , ferocious <a savage criminal.

We can take comfort from the fact that many Afghans came forward to speak at Paula Lloyd’s memorial services. Her family, her co-workers and her legions of friends honored her memory. She was loved and respected. Unless we are able to name the evil that would take such a promising young woman’s life in so horrific a manner, our long term prospects in Afghanistan will not be hopeful. Unless we can agree that whatever this murderer was, he wasn’t a conservative, our prospects won’t even be hopeful in America.

Blogosphere Buzz

by Krystle Gabele

February 18, 2009

Here’s some of the buzz from the blogosphere.

• “Pope Benedict strongly rebukes Pelosi over abortion,” WI Catholic, WI Catholic Musings Evidently, things did not go as planned for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her visit with Pope Benedict.
• “Choose Life Debate,” Chris, FamilyFoundationBlog In Virginia, the debate still continues on the bill that will allow “Choose Life” license plates to be purchased at the DMV.
• “Unconstitutional Stimulus,” Dennis, The Recliner Commentaries
• “Gov. Martin O’Malley: Life for Criminals, Death for the Unborn,” Connie Mackey, Kitchen Table Blog

President Obama: Not Going for Bust

by Robert Morrison

February 18, 2009

With his signature of his economic “stimulus” bill, President Obama puts the U.S. total indebtedness just a few billion dollars shy of the total world annual Gross Domestic Product. But he is not going for bust-and he can prove it. The President has sent back to our British allies a valuable bust of Sir Winston Churchill. The bust-valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds-was loaned to the White House by the British government after the September 11^th attacks. President Obama wanted the thing out of there.

The President apparently holds Churchill responsible for human rights abuses in Kenya in the 1950s. The President’s own grandfather was allegedly tortured by British colonial administrators trying to suppress the Mau Mau terrorist organization. Americans held long memories, too, of British maltreatment of our POWs and our settlers-during the Revolution and during the War of 1812.

When President John F. Kennedy made Winston Churchill an honorary American citizen in 1963, he brushed aside objections from his own father. Joe Kennedy had been F.D.R.’s ambassador to Britain in the `30s and was happy to call himself an appeaser. Father Joe hated Churchill, and blamed the dauntless British Prime Minister for the death of his eldest son, Joe, Jr., in WWII.

President Kennedy, however, knew that Americans admired Churchill’s World War II heroism. In making Churchill only the second man, after Lafayette, to be given honorary U.S. citizenship, Kennedy overrode his father’s objections. America should do this. President Kennedy, in his eloquent tribute, said this of Churchill:

In the dark days and darker nights when England stood alone—and most men save Englishmen despaired of England’s life—he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. The incandescent quality of his words illuminated the courage of his countrymen.

President Kennedy was also wise enough to recognize that we needed Britain’s support as we stood against another menace to human freedom, the Soviet empire and the specter of world communism. President Obama may have concluded that we really don’t need the British today in our fight against terrorism. The British rallied to our side in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The President’s first interview was not with the BBC-an invariably pro-Obama news outlet. It was with Al Arabiya.

Churchill was victorious in World War II. But as he stood on the brink of total victory, British voters kicked his Conservative Party out of office. It was a Labour Party landslide. Winston felt stricken, almost a death blow. Trying to cheer him up, his wife Clementine said “it may be a blessing in disguise.” Dispirited, Churchill glumly replied: “At the moment, it seems to be very effectively disguised.”

Soon, however, he brightened. There was work to be done. When the King offered to bestow on him a high honor, the Knight of the Garter, Churchill cheekily declined:

“Why should I accept the garter from His Majesty when his people have just given me the boot?”

Churchill set to work on his magisterial six-volume history of the Second World War.

He was the only one of the wartime Big Three-that distinction he shared with F.D.R. and Stalin-to write his version of the cataclysm that claimed sixty million lives. So outstanding was his work that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Nor was this all. He came to America in 1946 and delivered the famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College. He was the first world statesman to warn of Soviet aggression. Left wing historians blame Churchill for starting the Cold War, but he is not the one who brought down an Iron Curtain across old Europe.

Churchill spearheaded efforts to re-integrate (West) Germany into the European family of nations. He turned away from ancient hatreds to treat the Germany people with humanity. Many people call Churchill the father of European unity, although we have to hope he would not be on the side of the irresponsible Brussels bureaucrats of today.

Perhaps Churchill’s greatest contribution was his inspiring and elevating rhetoric defending the core values of Christian civilization. President Obama might put away ancient family grudges, as President Kennedy did, and study Churchill’s speeches. The President is now pondering a new assault on innocent human life. He is primed to revoke Bush-era protections against killing embryonic human beings to scavenge their stem cells. Mr. Obama might consider Churchill’s timeless warning: “…[I]f we fail, then the whole world … will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister … by the lights of perverted science.” If that does not persuade, he might read Kennedy’s equally powerful belief: “The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

Change Watch Backgrounder: Ellen Moran

by Family Research Council

February 18, 2009

POSITION: WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

NOMINEE: Ellen Moran

Born: May 1, 1966, in Troy, N.Y., and grew up in Amherst, Mass.

Occupation: Prior to joining White House staff, Moran was executive director of EMILY’s List, where she oversaw the national staff and charted the overall strategic direction of the organization to provide financial assistance to female candidates in the Democratic Party who take liberal pro-choice political stances.

Education: B.A. in political science and English literature from Wheaton College.

Clinton White House: Helped plan both Clinton inaugurals, a staunch advocate for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton through the entire primary season, shifting her support to Mr. Obama only after Mrs. Clinton conceded the Democratic presidential nomination in June, 2009.

Further resume: Ms. Moran was the coordinator of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s “corporate accountability campaign” against Wal-Mart. During a leave of absence in 2004, she managed “independent expenditures,” advertising and other campaign activities for the Democratic National Committee. She also directed a $50 million issue advocacy campaign for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2000, and worked on Senator Tom Harkin’s presidential campaign in 1992.

Definition of Role: The White House Director of Communications is a key position responsible for developing and promoting the President’s agenda and leading the President’s media campaign. The director, along with his or her staff, works on speeches such as the inaugural address and the State of the Union Address.

Emily’s List

“EMILY’s List, whose name is an acronym (Early Money is Like Yeast), is a national political action committee that works to elect pro-choice female Democrats. The group has turned the bundling of campaign contributions into an art form”

[Source]

In August 2006, the EL website stated, “Since our founding, we have helped elect 61 pro-choice Democratic women members of Congress, 11 senators, and eight governors.” These figures do not include the hundreds of local candidates whose campaigns EL has supported over the years. Among the notable recipients of EL funding have been Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Dianne Feinstein, Jan Schakowsky, Barbara Lee, Hilda Solis, Diane Watson, Lynn Woolsey, Rosa DeLauro, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Nydia Velazquez, and Tammy Baldwin. Many of these are members of the Progressive Caucus.”

[Source]

Emily’s List’s Radical Pro-Abortion Litmus Test

Partial-birth Abortion

“Formally, there are only three requirements for a candidate to earn EL’s support: The candidate must be a woman; she must be a Democrat; and she must support unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand. EMILY’s List has withdrawn its support from women who vote against event the most extreme abortion positions. For instance, Mary Landrieu, the recently re-elected Democratic Senator from Louisiana, lost EL’s backing when she voted in favor of a ban on partial-birth abortion.” [Source]

“EMILY’s List helped elect two women U.S. senators, Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Blanche Lincoln Lambert (D-Ar.), in 1996 and 1998, respectively. In 1999, the Senate considered the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Both Landrieu and Lambert first voted for a ‘substitute amendment’ that would have gutted the ban — but when that attack failed, they also voted to pass the ban. That was enough to get them excommunicated by EMILY’s List.

In the group’s December 1999 newsletter, EMILY’s List President Ellen Malcolm stated that it would no longer support the two senators because they had voted to ban partial-birth abortions. Malcolm wrote, ‘Since these senators no longer meet EMILY’s List’s criteria on choice, they will be removed from the EMILY’s List advisory committee and will no longer be eligible for EMILY’s List support.’” [Source]

Taxpayer Funding of Abortion

“EMILY’s List has taken a similar hard line on the issue of tax funding of abortions. In 1993, EMILY’s List reprinted its stationary to remove the names of two House members — Karen Thurman (D-Fl.) and Jill Long (D-In.). Both lawmakers had overall pro-abortion voting records, but they had both voted to renew the Hyde Amendment, prohibiting federal funding of abortions except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest.”

[Source]

President Obama’s Circle of Death

“While the media spent much of December and January chattering about the selection of mega-church pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation, Obama was quietly filling his administration with members of the abortion lobby. NARAL’s former legal director, Dawn Johnsen, will serve as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. Secretary of Health and Human Services-designate Tom Daschle, who led the fight in the Senate against the ban on partial-birth abortion, will help devise the health care plan, which Obama promised would cover abortions. Melody Barnes, a onetime Planned Parenthood board member, left her job at the left-wing Center for American Progress to serve as the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Ellen Moran left her job as executive director of Emily’s List, a pro-choice political action committee, to head the White House communications team. And just in case pro-choicers still doubted whether they had the president’s ear, Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, Jackie Norris, was once a Planned Parenthood board member too.” 

[Source]

Additionally Thomas Perrelli, the lawyer who successfully represented Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael in his efforts to starve his wife to death, has been nominated as Associate Attorney General at the Justice Department. David Ogden, nominee for Deputy Attorney General, has argued in court that 14-year old girls should be considered as adults in cases of abortion and against parents being notified.  Additionally Mr. Ogden has argued that abortion does not harm women in any way and in fact they feel “happy and relieved” [Source]

Blogs 4 Life 2009—Amanda Carpenter

by Krystle Gabele

February 18, 2009

Amanda Carpenter, National Political Reporter at Townhall.com was the Keynote Speaker at Blogs 4 Life 2009.

Blogs 4 Life 2009—Michael Illions

by Krystle Gabele

February 18, 2009

Michael Illions speaking at Blogs 4 Life 2009.