We simply could not let one of the most egregious examples of fact twisting in the name of propaganda in recent memory to pass without comment. On Thursday October 25,2007 a column by Joe Blundo ran in the Columbus Dispatch. The apparent purpose was to lionize Hattie Lazarus, who was instrumental in founding Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio (PP) in 1932, then euphemistically known as the Mother’s Health Service. Lazarus was married into the Columbus department store family and Blundo does his best to paint her as a courageous crusader for “reproductive rights” another euphemism for abortion.

It is interesting to note that the word “abortion” appears only once in the article, claiming that PP only does “first-trimester abortions,” as if an arbitrarily chosen time-frame makes a difference. Great care is taken to avoid discussing the fact that PP is one of the primary, if not the leading abortion mill in Franklin County, Ohio and the United States. Yet, the specter of the evil practice can be found everywhere in the article. Phrases like the aforementioned “reproductive rights” and “emergency contraception” take the place of words more descriptive of the actual practices. Words like “infanticide,” “poisoning,” “chemical burning,” “dismemberment” and others even more descriptive come to mind.

Blundo takes great pains to tell us that

Planned Parenthood calls itself the largest provider of health care for low- to moderate-income women in central Ohio. For most of its 16,000 clients last year, it was their only source of health care.

This is a lofty claim and no citations by way of proof are provided. But for the sake of argument lets grant this claim. If we grant the claim as true we have to ask so what? Al Capone ran soup kitchens for the indigent from the profits he made selling beer and bathtub gin to speakeasys over the dead and broken bodies of his rivals for control of the gang, his competitors and bar owners who dealt with those competitors. According to Dr. George Grant in his devastating book Grand Illusions (available in our store), the offering of free or low-cost health care is a strategy outlined by Margaret Sanger to do exactly what is being done by Joe Blundo in this column, i.e., create a smoke screen to obscure the truth about where the tremendous profits that allow PP to provide these services come from- abortions, the sale of condoms and birth control pills including to minors without the knowledge or consent of parents (see this Dispatch poll to see what others think of this common PP practice).

Especially egregious is the fact that PP has non-profit tax-exempt status and receives tremendous amounts of money from local, state and federal grants, despite making tremendous amounts of money from sales of items and “services” mentioned above. Probably the lowest blow however is that PP receives huge amounts of money from Christians who are duped or coerced yearly into giving to United Way. Christians are duped by being told that their United Way contributions can be designated. Of course, they can be but it doesn’t change how PP is funded, except perhaps to increase it. How’s that? A United Way board decides how money is distributed to charities by percentage of funds collected, and often forces pro-life groups to accept their funding as the sole source, thus restricting additional fundraising efforts and keeping them small and dependent. At the same time funds designated for these pro-life groups are simply subtracted from the money that would have come out of the general pot without the designations, actually making more money available for favored groups like PP.

Christians are also coerced to contribute to United Way by unscrupulous corporate heads who often compete among themselves for the prestige connected to having the highest percentage of participation or largest contribution amounts. This is communicated to department heads and managers who then pressure employees with veiled threats of career damage if the employee doesn’t donate (the author of this article was subjected to just this type of coercion while employed at a large Columbus corporation; He handled the problem by donating $5. This gave his manager his coveted 100% participation and the author the satisfaction that it cost United Way more money to process his contribution than he gave).

Blundo tells us that Hattie Lazarus passed on her zeal for “education, services and advocacy of reproductive rights” to her offspring and that her grandson has just finished a term on PP’s board. How nice that he was around to be able to perform this “service.” Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the thousands of central Ohio babies and the tens of millions of them in the United States who did not have a similar opportunity to reach responsible adulthood, having been the victims of the “services and reproductive rights advocacy” pushed by the likes of Lazarus and the eugenicist nurse and PP founder Margaret Sanger.

Contrast these two quotes from the article

She died in 1971, having done all that she could to make sure Planned Parenthood would endure.It not only lived on; it outlasted the department store.

and

As it turned out, her involvement in the cause did raise a few eyebrows in conservative Columbus but never seemed to affect the family business, Robert Lazarus Jr. said.

As firm believers in covenantalism we would disagree with Robert Lazarus Jr.’s conclusion on the Lazarus family’s support for abortion not having any effect on the family’s business. As the article points out, there is no such business as F&R Lazarus any more.

The answer to the opening question? No, You aren’t.