Posted on 08/09/2015 11:30:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
Believe it or not, Planned Parenthood has a Clergy Advocacy Board. And these clergy, in name only, claim Planned Parenthood employees are “doing God’s work.”
The Board released a statement (which has since been taken off of Planned Parenthood’s website) in response to what they describe is a Center for Medical Progress (CMP) “smear campaign” (planned-parenthood-clergy-advocacy-board-releases-response-to-smear-campaign”).
The video recordings expose Planned Parenthood employees discussing their enthusiastic efforts to illegally sell aborted baby parts. Some include whole baby bodies from partial birth abortions. One purchaser is Stem Express, “a multi-million dollar company that supplies human blood, tissue products, primary cells and other clinical specimens to biomedical researchers.”
Federal and state laws outlaw direct sales of body parts for profit. However, companies like Stem Express circumvent the law by donating to Planned Parenthood and only charging customers interested in purchasing specific fetal tissue and body parts for “processing and shipping fees.”
Buying and selling fetal tissue and baby parts is an enormously profitable business. Fetal tissue provides “a uniquely rich source of stem cells” that university laboratories and medical research facilities buy for a variety of purposes. Fetal liver cells, for example, range in price from $488 to $24,250.
Last year, the National Institutes of Health spent $76 million on research using fetal tissue—through grants it gave to more than 50 universities. Grant recipients included Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale and several branches of the University of California (Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco).
As a result of CMP’s videos, more than 12 states and two U.S. House of Representative committees have launched investigations into Planned Parenthood’s practices. Recent efforts to halt federal funding of Planned Parenthood were derailed by Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
While the Advocacy board members (listed below) claim to be “faith leaders committed to justice, honesty, and liberty.” Their utmost concern, they emphasize, is “the decades-long campaign of harassment against Planned Parenthood and those they serve.” Harassment over what—dismembering babies or Planned Parenthood’s commitment to eugenics?
The board members write, “Our faiths demand care for those marginalized by poverty and other oppressions. Faith leaders have supported Planned Parenthood for nearly 100 years because of our shared goals: every person — regardless of income, race, or religion — deserves access to safe, affordable, high-quality health care.”
Yet, faith in what? Faith according to the Bible asserts no such thing. In fact, it is well known among Jews and Christians that killing a pregnant woman is considered a double homicide requiring legal justice (Exodus 21:22-25). Shedding innocent blood is condemned throughout the Bible also requiring legal justice (Deut. 19:10; 1 Sam. 19:5; Psalm 94:20-21; Proverbs 6:16-17; Isaiah 59:2-7).
Even Common Law and the U.S. Constitution illegalized abortion. The Founders specifically inserted “unalienable rights” knowing that human rights came from God alone, not manmade laws, because God authored every life in the womb (Job 31:15; Psalm 22:9-10; Isa. 44:2; 49:5; Jeremiah 1:4-5; Luke 1:15).
Their “shared goal” that every person have “access to affordable high-quality health care” is nonsensical. How can dead people receive such access?
They also mischaracterize Planned Parenthood as an indispensable provider of “high-quality care.” Yet, Planned Parenthood’s own records reveal it as a profit centered abortion business, not a healthcare provider. Its own 2013-2014 annual report figures reveal that 94 percent of Planned Parenthood’s “pregnancy services” were abortions.
The advocacy board also purports a blatant lie: that abortion providers offer “the best of what religious traditions do.” Yet, the “best of religious traditions” have always promoted life-giving efforts that contribute to human flourishing. Christians were the first to found hospitals, schools, orphanages and later adoption and foster parenting services—to help people live—because they understand God’s directive to “choose life” (Deut. 30).
Christian faith demands that every person—regardless of income, race, or religion— deserves the right to live. The Planned Parenthood clerics are not among them.
Planned Parenthood Advocacy Board Members support death over life and everything that the God of the Bible and Christianity do not. God’s work involves saving babies, not killing and selling them.
Planned Parenthood Clergy Advisory Board Members include:
Chair
Rabbi Jon Adland
Canton, OH
Reform Jewish
Vice Chair
The Rev. Susan Russell
All Saints Episcopal Church
Pasadena, CA
Episcopal
The Rev. David A. Ames
Providence, RI
Episcopal
Rev. Tom Davis
Saratoga Springs, NY
United Church of Christ
The Rev. Dr. Gawain F. de Leeuw
White Plains, NY
Episcopal
The Rev. Kevin Jones
Greenacres, FL
Baptist
Rev. Dr. Daniel Kanter
First Unitarian Church of Dallas
Dallas, TX
Unitarian
The Rev. Vincent Lachina
Seattle, WA
American Baptist
The Rev. Jeremy Lopez
Salem United Church
Tonowanda, NY
United Church of Christ
Rev Janet Maykus
Indianapolis, IN
Christian Church DOC
Rabbi Dennis Ross
Concerned Clergy for Choice
Albany, NY
Reform Jewish
Dr. Scott Sattler
Eureka, CA
Universal Sufism
Rabbi Peter Stein
Temple B’rith Kodesh
Rochester, NY
Reform Jewish
Ani Zonneveld
Muslims for Progressive Values
Los Angeles, CA
Muslim
From Rabbi Adland:
My involvement with Planned Parenthood, which eventually led to my position on the PPFA Clergy Advocacy Board, began after Roe v. Wade in 1973 when my mother served as a delegate to the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. Her advocacy for this issue and her desire to see that all women have full control over their personal medical decisions moved me. Beginning in the late 1980’s I began serving on a local board for Planned Parenthood and rose to become president. Many religious voices have been raised against Planned Parenthood, but I believed that progressive understandings of the Biblical text needed to be heard, and I committed my voice and passion to this cause.
From Rev. Martha (Missy) Shiverick:
More than a decade ago I heard The Rev. Tom Davis speak about the sacred work of Planned Parenthood and was moved by his message and its truth. The Rev. Davis was a founding member of the Clergy Advocacy Board (CAB) of PPFA. He brought together religious leaders across the country from many faith traditions whose faith led them to support the work of Planned Parenthood. For many of us, our belief in the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, who calls people to work for justice and equality, also calls us to work for the reproductive rights of all women. Among our work, we have written pastoral letters of support to patients to be placed in our health centers that offer abortion services, we have written theologically based position statements to counter many of the religious right’s positions on topics such as access to birth control, stem cell research, and this year in supporting the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare
Far-left clergy defend PP, leave out key word
The 400-word statement somehow defends Planned Parenthood and women’s “fetal tissue” donations without using a key word – “abortion.”
http://www.onenewsnow.com/church/2015/08/07/far-left-clergy-defend-pp-leave-out-key-word
Walton has an explanation for the radical views of the advocacy board – some of them are homosexual activists and others are former abortion providers themselves. They represent a “far-left group,” he says, that really doesn’t represent any “thriving” congregations in the U.S.
In fact, several preach to no more than 60 members on a Sunday morning and represent liberal denominations that are dwindling in membership.
Margaret Sanger did say that PP needed a few black pastors to say what they were doing is good so that black women would not get the idea that PP was trying to exterminate blacks - which is exactly what they are doing.
Pastortution.
Rev. Susan Russell is an Episcopal priest and activist from Pasadena CA. A past-president of Integrity USA – the 30-year old national Episcopal gay caucus -- she is a founding member of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion Council, a member of Planned Parenthood's National Clergy Advisory Board
Disgusting!
Lachina is in his early 70s and no longer appears to be active as a minister or pastor attached to a church
PP identifies Maykus as affiliated with Christian Church Disciples of Christ in Indianapolis, IN, but the church’s website does not have her as either a minister there or a staff member.
Sattler is a former PP abortionist who now practices as a GP at:
1 Harpst St # 42, Arcata, CA 95521
Zonneveld calls herself an imam with a lower-case “i”. She runs Muslims for Progressive Values in Los Angeles, CA:
Looks like funding Planned Parenthood is a violation of separation of church and state.
Doing the memory of the nazis proud: 55 million and counting.
The religious left. Few groups are more annoying.
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