Be Our Guest / Dr. Hans Geisler
The devil goes upscale with fancy,
suburban Planned Parenthood clinics
Not that man’s old enemy, Satan, has ever not tried to lure his victims—rich and poor alike—into Hell, but suddenly one of his allies, the biggest abortion provider in the U.S., is going upscale even as it tries to imitate Wal-Mart in the scope of services that it offers to the public.
According to the headline over a front-page article in the June 23, 2008, edition of The Wall Street Journal titled “Planned Parenthood Hits Suburbia,” some of the new clinics, either already built or on the drawing boards, will be upscale versions of the smaller Planned Parenthood clinics before which pro-life groups have picketed and prayed for years.
These new clinics will include mega-clinics like the one in Houston, which, when finished, will encompass 75,000 square feet.
In order to lure more customers through their doors, many of these new facilities will be situated in malls or smaller upscale shopping areas in or close to wealthy suburbs across the country from Boston to Seattle.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the new clinics will “feature touches such as muted lighting, hardwood floors and airy waiting rooms in colors selected by marketing experts,” and provide an environment more suited to the wealthier suburban customers that the organization is trying to attract.
Some of the clinics will even “sell jewelry, candles, books and T-shirts” along with providing contraceptives and abortion services.
Trying to turn the grisly truth of induced abortions into a chic enterprise should not make anyone forget that, while the number of abortions in the U.S. has declined—really, the only number to cheer about would be zero—to about 1.2 million to 1.3 million a year, the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics has risen to one in every five abortions.
This jump in the percentage of abortions carried out by Planned Parenthood has resulted in their income totaling $1 billion in the last year for which figures are available.
With 3 million clients on an annual basis, the new outreach by Planned Parenthood to suburban America is an obvious attempt to increase their bottom line.
According to The Wall Street Journal article, “The group makes a profit of nearly $22 on each month of [artificial birth control] pills sold” to those “who can afford to pay.”
Although listed as a non-profit organization, Planned Parenthood’s year-end profit in their last financial report was $115 million. The president of the organization accrued a salary in the $1 million range last year.
As a further signal of being in touch with contemporary sentiments, Planned Parenthood is giving a nod to the environmentalists by going “green” and building a clinic in Massachusetts with “recycled and eco-friendly” materials.
However, one of the most sacred environments in our world is that of a mother’s womb. This is a fact that the abortion providers fail to understand or don’t care to think about.
The womb must be held inviolate when a pregnancy is present within it. Aborting babies is the most brutal of violations of that sacrosanct setting.
Let us hope that the prayers and the work of the pro-life community will continue to bring good results and finally result in the closing of all abortion clinics, whether in poverty-stricken areas or at wealthy suburban malls.
(Dr. Hans Geisler is a retired gynecologist-oncologist in Indianapolis, and is certified in health care ethics by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. To invite him to speak at your parish, send an e-mail to Geisler_gynonc@msn.com.) †