Planned Parenthood, much like the Left in general, has always had a problem with consistency. Call it a professional hazard of purporting an ideology that relies on feelings rather than reason.
Here are some examples:
- A child is a “clump of cells.” Unless it’s wanted, then it’s a baby.
- A woman is empowered to make her own choices, unless she makes the wrong one; then she’s coerced, misguided, or manipulated.
- A woman’s rights are to be protected zealously, unless those rights conflict with Planned Parenthood’s prized cash cow of abortion on demand; then they’re to be silenced at all costs.
- Hitting a minor is never okay, unless that minor is protesting abortion outside one of their clinics. Then it’s fair game to punch her in the face.
Admittedly, that last one sounds far-fetched. But, alas, that’s precisely what occurred outside of Planned Parenthood Roanoke this past Saturday.
Purity Thomas, a local pro-life high school student, was standing on the public strip of land across the street from the clinic with students from nearby Liberty University. The group frequently congregates outside the clinic on Saturdays, when most such centers perform their surgical abortions, to provide prayerful witness and counseling outside of the clinic.
Shortly into their vigil, a woman approached and began heckling the group. That heckling escalated until she stole a sign bearing the claim that “All people are made in the image of God.” Thomas called out to the woman, saying that she would pray for her. That proved too much for the abortion vigilante, who turned and walked back towards the group, this time attempting to rip Thomas’s sign out of her hand before striking her across the face, knocking her down.
When a minor is punched by an adult, it should not be a difficult action to condemn.
Unless of course, you’re Planned Parenthood, and thus privileged with the ability to turn any situation into a rabid defense of a woman’s right to have her unborn baby killed.
Planned Parenthood put out a statement clarifying they were not affiliated with the woman. However, at no point did they condemn the violence inflicted against Thomas, a troubling—though not surprising—inconsistency given their determination to paint themselves as heroes of downtrodden women everywhere. Instead they wrote:
“Planned Parenthood adheres to a strict non-engagement policy in the presence of members of the opposition. Consistent with that policy, the person involved in the December 2nd incident was not a Planned Parenthood staff member. Oppositional protests are designed to intimidate the many patients who seek basic health care services from Planned Parenthood...” (emphasis added)
Thank goodness they were here to clarify that the 15-year-old girl, who suffered a concussion from the blow, was an “intimidat[ing]” “member of the opposition.” In other words, she had it coming.
Planned Parenthood doesn’t make the claim that they adhere to a policy of respect or non-violence (except of course the violence inflicted on the children in the womb). They only have a policy of “non-engagement.” They fail to mention that the so-called intimidator was holding a sign that called for a prayer to end abortion. Apparently they’d already determined that simple prayerful request to be more offensive and insidious in nature than the woman telling Thomas and her peers that she would “f*** them up.”
Planned Parenthood may not be directly responsible for what happened to Purity Thomas last Saturday, but if the situation were reversed, with a conservative assailant attacking a progressive victim outside of a church, there is little doubt that they would be calling for an utter repudiation of the senseless violence, regardless of affiliation to the church itself.
But then, the standards have never been the same when it comes to our nation’s largest abortion provider.
Perhaps that is why there is still a bust of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood who has clear ties to the eugenics movement, in the “Struggle for Justice” exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, the same hall where Martin Luther King Jr. is honored. To date, Sanger’s life’s work has resulted in the deaths of over 19 million black children, and it remains increasingly unsettling what kind of “justice” Sanger was struggling to achieve.
Maybe these malleable standards are why the organization still receives millions of federal dollars every year, despite being currently investigated by the FBI for the illegal sale of fetal tissue. One would think our nation’s legislators on the Left, to say nothing of the few troubling votes on the Right, would be more willing to stop funding an organization that flaunted the law and engaged in such macabre activity.
Unfortunately, when the abortion debate comes up, reason, logic, and integrity are the first elements of the discussion to be discarded by the Left. In its place is nothing but vitriol, hypocrisy, and moral fungibility.
Thus, Planned Parenthood can hide behind words like “intimidation” and “opposition” to show tacit support for punching a young girl in the face, as long as it was done in the name of women’s rights.
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