Screen shot from the Planned Parenthood/Clergy for
Choice brochure
The Six Rivers Planned Parenthood of Eureka,
The initiative, “40 Days of Prayer: Supporting Women Everywhere,”
provides 40 different prayers that can be offered up in support of abortion
rights.
The conservative Liberty Council, a legal and education non-profit,
claims that the prayers include consideration for “the mothers, the escorts,
the abortionists,” but that there are no mentions of the unborn children. The
campaign is being supported by a group called Clergy for Choice, which describes itself as follows:
We are religious leaders who value all human life. We accept that
religions differ about when life begins. We are here to help.
We believe that human life is holy. That’s why we believe in your right to
choose to be a parent or not.
In a brochure published on the Six Rivers Planned Parenthood web site, some
extremely controversial prayers are touted. On Day 4, the clergy encourage
people to give thanks “for the doctors who provide quality abortion care” and
on Day 5, they encourage prayer “for medical students
who want to include abortion care in their practice.”
Liberty Council is less than pleased with the group’s intentions and, in a
press release, goes on to compare its tactics to those used
by Nazi Germany:
The concerted effort of this group to dehumanize children based on their age
is similar to a tactic once used in Nazi Germany towards the Jews and other
non-Arians: first ostracize them from the rest of society, and then annihilate
them. Planned Parenthood’s attempts to develop a “spiritual” aspect to the
pro-abortion argument can seem comparable to the religious leaders in
The group goes on to call Planned Parenthood’s “40 Days of Prayer” a
“desperate attempt to regain positive attention and funding.” Additionally,
Liberty Council accuses the abortion provider of mimicking and mocking a Christian group
that works to prevent abortion called “40 Days for Life.” Often times the
group, which claims to have already saved 804 babies this
year, targets Planned Parenthood locations with protest activities.
There is also another anti-abortion initiative called “40 Days to Save
America,” which was created by Vision
“Planned Parenthood’s ‘prayer’ campaign is offensive,” proclaims Mathew
Staver, Founder and Chairman of
Liberty Counsel. “As much as they might not like the comparison, Planned
Parenthood today is no different than the eugenics promoted by its founder
Margaret Sanger who advocated the elimination of ‘undesirables,’ just like the
most famous eugenicist, Adolf Hitler.”
The prayers are intended to be uttered between March 18 and April 27 (here’s the PDF of the entire brochure). Planned Parenthood,
via its web site, even offers to connect women to clergy to discuss questions
and concerns.