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November 4, 2009Planned Parenthood Puts Restraining Order on Former Director
The director had resigned after watching an ultrasound for an abortion.
Planned Parenthood has found itself in a legal battle with a former director who said she had a change of heart after watching an ultrasound for an abortion and quit the organization .
KBTX of Bryan/College Station, Texas, reports that Abby Johnson worked for Planned Parenthood for eight years, and two years as director, but joined forces with the Coalition For Life earlier this month, praying with volunteers outside the clinic.
Johnson said she was told to bring in more women who wanted abortions, something the Episcopalian churchgoer recently became convicted about. "I feel so pure in heart [since leaving]. I don't have this guilt, I don't have this burden on me anymore that's how I know this conversion was a spiritual conversion."
Planned Parenthood filed a temporary restraining order October 30 to prevent Johnson from disclosing information about the organization.
Johnson told Fox News that she became disillusioned after she felt pressure to increase profits by performing more abortions, which cost patients between $505 and $695.
"Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money — we've got to keep these abortions coming,' " Johnson said. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."
Johnson had told KBTX that the organization put its moneys mostly toward abortions. "It seemed like maybe that's not what a lot of people were believing any more because that's not where the money was. The money wasn't in family planning, the money wasn't in prevention, the money was in abortion and so I had a problem with that," she said.
The parties are expected to go to court November 10.
Religion editor Frank Lockwood reports that Maryana Iskander, a top Planned Parenthood executive, will speak in Little Rock on November 9.
The surprisingly blunt title of her speech: “How to Get Rich with Public Service.” It’s debatable whether running a chain of abortion clinics qualifies as “public service.” But it’s clearly a good way to get rich — or at least well-to-do. As Planned Parenthood’s chief operating officer, Iskander makes about $270,000 per year, according to IRS 990 forms.
And in the neighboring state of Oklahoma, a state-wide legal battle continues, according to Associated Press. Pro-life groups have hailed ultrasound technology as a way to convince women not to abort.
Another district court judge overturned the other law, which would require women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound and to have a doctor talk them through what they're seeing. The law would require a doctor to use a vaginal transducer in the earliest stages of pregnancy, since that provides the clearest image when the fetus is small. The method is more invasive than the abdominal ultrasounds most pregnant women undergo.
The state has appealed the decision to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
A separate judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of a law that would require women seeking abortions to disclose information, such as previous pregnancies, previous marriages, previous induced abortions, how the abortion was paid for, and the reason for the abortion, which would be put on a state-run website. A hearing is set for December 4.
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Comments
Killing is, after all, a specific thing. We can make it general, and more palatable by distance...the bombadier could not see the little faces of children turned upward in Dresden. It would have been impossible for most GI's, however, to have seen a German child across a room, and to have shot the child with a pistol. Seeing an ultrasound takes the pistol from our hands, specifically...sitting in a boardroom talking dollars is much more remote.
Abby Johnson deserves credit for challenging the killing of the unborn.
tbf
Posted By: Thomas Fowler | November 4, 2009 4:33 PM
Planned Parenthood Abortionists: Be sure your sins will find you out.
Posted By: Dan | November 5, 2009 8:09 AM
As will your sins, Dan.
Posted By: kate mack | November 6, 2009 11:37 AM
To paraphrase Rev. Wright: Planned Parenthood's chickens are coming home to roost.
Posted By: dan | November 6, 2009 12:45 PM
Oh, Kate. You're so clever with your little rebuke. Course I haven't been the cause of 50,000,000 +/- deaths of little innocent children. So what got your nose out of joint that you would feel the need to be so catty in your post? Care to share? By the way Kate, what is your preferred method offing of little, defenseless in utero babies? Suction Aspiration? Dilation and Curettage? Dilation and Evacuation?
Salt Poisoning? Prostaglandin Chemical Abortion? Partial-Birth Abortion?
Posted By: dan | November 6, 2009 1:04 PM
@Kate: (addendum) "As will your sins, Dan." They already have, Kate. Aug. 6, 1973 I found forgiveness in Christ. And every day since then I have had to depend upon His forgiveness, because every day my sins find me out again and again and again. But He is faithful and just to forgive me of my sins... Hope you have found Him, too.
Posted By: Dan | November 6, 2009 1:27 PM
Honest question: is it justified to claim your sins lesser than mine (not that you did, by the way), or mine lesser than one who works at planned parenthood. Or vice versa? What is the pH scale for sins?
Posted By: kate | November 6, 2009 2:30 PM
@Kate: "...is it justified to claim your sins lesser than mine...not that you did..." You are correct. I didn't. Sooo...what's your point? "...than one who works at planned parenthood." Again, I didn't. My comment was directed at PP - the organization. Sooo... what's your point? "What is the pH scale for sins?" My point: fifty million (that is a 5 followed by seven zeros) babies have been mercilessly liquidated/executed/destroyed since 1972. And it is all legal. Matthew 18:6 says: But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. So, if causing a child to sin was enough to send the perp. to a watery grave with a millstone necklace, what is an appropriate punishment for the perp. who kills the child? I wonder what would you have said had I criticized Adolph Hitler's Final Solution? You express more moral outrage at the person who makes a comment than you do at the loss of 50,000,000 babies. Seems kind of misplaced to me. There, I answered your questions. You still have not answered mine: what is your preferred method offing little, defenseless in utero babies? Suction Aspiration? Dilation and Curettage? Dilation and Evacuation? Salt Poisoning? Prostaglandin Chemical Abortion? Partial-Birth Abortion? I'm waiting for an answer.
Posted By: Dan | November 6, 2009 3:40 PM
I mean this genuinely that no, my question was not actually answered. Because you responded with "what's your point." I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear. And I meant that, that you didn't say anything about one's sins being greater than another. I just wonder how Jesus' saying "you who without sin cast the first stone" fits into telling PP that their sins will find them out.
And there has been no outrage on my behalf. I now lament the snarkiness since yes, it was meant to be provoking (at least as much as yours), but it was not meant to come off as outrage. So, I'm sorry.
PS: I'm pro-life, not pro-choice.
Posted By: kate | November 7, 2009 10:35 AM
@Kate: I'm certainly glad to hear you are prolife. So I'm all the more confused by your question, but I'll try to answer it all the same. Regarding John 8:1-11 First, the Jews were casting real stones not verbal jibes. They meant to kill the woman caught in adultery - not just point out her sin. Second, Jesus by His comment implied they were guilty of the same thing. They were hypocrites. Third, the woman who was caught in adultery was counseled by Jesus to go and sin no more. He didn't excuse her sin or tell her what she did was right or that it was no big deal. In fact, implicit in Jesus' comment to her is a subtle rebuke. Remember: "go and sin no more." You asked about a pH scale for sin(s). Implied in your question is perhaps the belief that there are no gradations of sin, no big sins or little sins to God - just sins. I would question that kind of thinking. I do think any/all sin justifies a person being separated from God for eternity. But to think that all sins are of equal value to God is questionable theology. Thank God, He is not of that kind of creator. I know you are speaking figuratively, but I don't understand the comparison of sin to a pH scale, either. In the pH scale which ranges from 0 (base) to 14 (acidic) 7 is neutral. I don't know how you can compare sin(s) to a pH scale as there are no neutral sins. Jesus said you are either for Me or against Me. No middle of the road. Paul said sin was missing the mark - which we all do. Everyday. Either in omission or commission. But consult any bible dictionary and look under the heading "sin" and you will find a good overview of the concept of sin. But to imply, as I think you did, that just because I am a sinner therefore I cannot speak out against an evil organization (which I think PP is) is puzzling. B/c that's what the bible does, that's what Jesus and the apostles did, the church fathers, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Moody, Graham etc. have all spoken out about the sinful structures, sinful patterns, and sinful behavior in our society. Since you are prolife I will retract my previous question about abortion preferences. I use that line with proaborts for it's provocative nature. All the proaborts I know speak so cavalierly of abortion, that I ask them of their abortion preferences to make a point. However, my other question remains: I wonder what would you have said had I criticized Adolph Hitler's Third Reich (I will replace "Final Solution" with Third Reich for a better analogy)? Would you have said, "I just wonder how Jesus' saying "you who without sin cast the first stone" fits into telling Adolph Hitler's Third Reich that their sins will find them out.
As regards the "moral outrage" comment: I did not think you expressed outrage at all. That was my point. Rather, than being pleased that PP's motives are being brought to public attention, you took a snipe at me, a fellow Christian and prolifer. Just seemed a little odd.
Posted By: Dan | November 7, 2009 3:34 PM
Jesus said it would be better for a person to have a boulder hung around their neck and thrown into the sea than to harm one of these little ones...
Posted By: CJ | November 9, 2009 3:08 PM
Clarification: i'm not actually a fellow Christian. I can never understand why you guys are always so focused on each other's "sins."
Posted By: kate | November 11, 2009 3:36 PM
@Kate: 1. Not a fellow Christian? And you're prolife, too. Haven't met many non-Christian prolifers. Have you considered the claims of Christ? If not read the gospel of John and jot down His claims. I would hope you would trust Him and receive Him as your Savior. 2. But focused on each others' sins? I must say God/Jesus certainly focused on people's sins. That's why He came. To die as a sacrifice for our sins. So we could find forgiveness and eternal life. 3. But I merely pointed out much earlier I was pleased PP's sins were being brought to light. Why? Oh, I don't know? I guess b/c they have been responsible for the mass murder of little babies. You know, Kate, if you broke an eagle's egg and the authorities found out, you would be fined something like $10,000 and put in jail for 6 mos. (Or something like that.) And yet you can go down to a PP aboratorium and kill the innocent little baby. Now that seems criminal to me. So, yes, I guess if that's what you call "focused on others sins", I am guilty of that. And I feel tremendously sad and helpless to do anything to stop the slaughter of the innocents.
Posted By: Dan | November 11, 2009 4:51 PM
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Posted By: Nick Matyas | January 3, 2010 6:10 AM