That's where this all started.
Distributing information about contraception and 'birth control' was against the law in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Doing anything to help a woman avoid getting pregnant was illegal and doctors went to jail for it. It was the 60's before the furor died down. Margaret Sanger was an activist who led much of the public fight.
Margaret Sanger gets blamed for Planned Parenthood. She was there at the beginning and was president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation from its formation until she died at age 80. She was deeply invested in the issue of choosing when in life to have children. The birth control pill came out of work she sponsored.
Interestingly, she hated the idea of abortion. It was taking a life, she explained, and was wrong in every case.
Sanger's family planning advocacy always focused on contraception, rather than abortion.[1] It was not until the mid-1960s, after Sanger's death, that the reproductive rights movement expanded its scope to include abortion in addition to contraception.[2] Sanger was opposed to abortions, both because they were dangerous for the mother in the early 20th century and because she believed that life should not be terminated after conception. In her book Woman and the New Race, she wrote, "while there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization."[3]
In her 1938 autobiography, Sanger noted that her opposition to abortion was based on the taking of life: "[In 1916] we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun."[4]
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| 2008 figures above; Planned Parenthood did 333,964 abortions in fiscal 2011 |
Today, Planned Parenthood performs more abortions than any other agency in the world.
Abby Johnson worked for Planned Parenthood for two years as its director in Bryan, Texas. After seeing an abortion performed on ultrasound she resigned from her position with Planned Parenthood.
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One in three African-American children
are aborted.
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Johnson said she took the position because she was at the time very pro-choice and thought that it was the right thing to do.
It all started when a recruiter told her all about the services that the organization offers women. Johnson, captivated by what seemed to be a wonderful operation, ended up entering the fray.
“I was easily suckered into believing the talking points and what they had to say,” she told The Blaze. “I started volunteering with them, ended up getting hired after I graduated college. And I was there for 8 years.”
“The defining moment for me leaving was assisting and witnessing a live ultrasound abortion procedure and seeing a 13-week old child struggle for his life inside his mother’s womb,” Johnson recalled. “It was really shocking for me to witness that mainly because I had been told by Planned Parenthood that the fetus didn't have any sensory development until [later].”
"I watched him curl up his body in an attempt to protect himself from the abortion instrument. I watched him attempt to move away and try to get find a safe place. Then I watched his body twist and turn like you would ring out a dishcloth. I watched his arms and legs detach from his body. I watched as his perfectly formed backbone crumbled underneath the powerful suction."The pro-life advocate claims she was “in a state of shock” and that she instantaneously felt betrayed. At the same time, she remembers feeling like a liar, as she, too, had told thousands of women that fetuses wouldn't feel pain or struggle.
“I looked at myself and said, ‘I'm part of the problem’ — and I had been a part of the problem for eight years.”.
There were an estimated 43.8 million induced abortions in 2008
comprised of 22.2 million safe and 21.6 million unsafe abortions.
Statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO)
comprised of 22.2 million safe and 21.6 million unsafe abortions.
Statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO)