Awaking a Sleeping Pro-Life Giant

Details: 06 May 2011

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (operating in Iowa and Nebraska) recently announced its intention to open offices in five Nebraska communities: Fremont, Norfolk, Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney and North Platte. This is deeply alarming news coming from our nation’s largest purveyor and apologist of abortion.

Planned Parenthood (PP) has been promoting its degrading, hedonistic view of human sexuality for decades out of its offices in Omaha and Lincoln. In the mid 1990s, PP opened an abortion center in Lincoln and has since killed about 10,000 unborn babies in that one facility.

Nationally, PP abortion centers kill more than 300,000 unborn babies each year. In 2009, PP killed 332,278 unborn babies (more than 25% of U.S. abortions) and that number has been steadily rising for at least the last five years. And it will certainly continue rising as PP announced last year that it intends to increase the number of abortion centers in its franchise.

Unfortunately, many Americans (and Nebraskans) do not know about this dark side of PP because it has done a masterful job of portraying itself as a women’s health provider. Planned Parenthood does provide some health services (e.g. cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment), but by conservative estimates, more than one-third of its annual revenues come from abortion. Unfortunately, another third of its revenue comes from our tax dollars.

Planned Parenthood’s intention to open offices in five Nebraska communities is particularly troubling given the likelihood that it will provide chemical abortions at those sites via web cam (e.g. Skype). Planned Parenthood has been doing this in Iowa for the last few years.

In a web cam abortion the abortionist is in one city and the woman seeking an abortion is in another city. The abortionist speaks to the woman through an internet video connection. After obtaining the woman’s consent the abortionist uses the "mouse" on his/her computer to remotely open a drawer containing the chemical abortion regimen called RU-486.

A bill (LB 521) has been introduced in the Nebraska Legislature this year to prohibit web cam abortions. This bill, however, remains in the Judiciary Committee having failed to get the five votes needed to advance to consideration by the entire Legislature.

Committee members who voted for LB 521 are Senators Steve Lathrop, Scott Lautenbaugh, Colby Coash and Tyson Larson. Senators Brad Ashford, Brenda Council, and Amanda McGill voted against the bill. Sen. Burke Harr abstained from voting.

I and other pro-life lobbyists have been working with Sen. Harr and Sen. Ashford to address concerns they have expressed about the bill. I am still hopeful that we can sufficiently address their concerns and convince one or both of them to vote this bill out of committee. There is likely ample bi-partisan support for LB 521 in the full Legislature.

In addition to working for LB 521, the pro-life movement in Nebraska is mobilizing statewide and in the five communities to fiercely oppose Planned Parenthood’s expansion. The level of concern and mobilization I’ve seen so far indicates that PP’s announcement has awakened a sleeping pro-life giant.

Citizens in those communities (and throughout our state) will be informed about PP’s abortion advocacy and its deplorable view (and programs) of human sexuality. And every possible resource will be marshaled against PP’s expansion in Nebraska. Anyone in those five communities (or any Nebraskan) wishing to join in this effort can contact my office or local pro-life representatives.

In his column in this week’s West Nebraska Register, Most Reverend William Dendinger, Bishop of Grand Island, expressed a simple, yet powerful response to Planned Parenthood’s intention to expand in Nebraska: "WE DON’T WANT YOU." To this, I and many Nebraskans say: DITTO!

You can contact Greg at The Nebraska Catholic Conference, 215 Centennial Mall South Suite 310, Lincoln, NE 68508; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.