Planned Parenthood & Why I Choose Life

The irony, urging to protect women’s health given my premise about what abortion can do to a woman’s psyche.
The irony, claiming abortion “protects women’s health” given my premise about what abortion can do to a woman’s psyche.

The Planned Parenthood video scandal continues to dominate the minds and hearts of our nation. And it appears, regardless of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs, the grisly visuals and references to selling baby body parts are hard for most of us to stomach, despite party affiliation.

While the recent video debacle places focus on a tax-funded organization and again on the much-argued debate over a woman’s right to control her body’s destiny, many of us are calling back into question our own stand. The abortion debate and Planned Parenthood’s stature as a national women’s healthcare center strike many of us on a very personal level.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

I believe abortion doesn’t inherently empower women but rather compromises the female psyche with guilt.

My friend, Utah politico and attorney Dan Burton recently posted Utah AG: Planned Parenthood ‘cavalier and dehumanizing’ in videos. His philosophical anecdote lays the foundation for my position as a transformed pro-life advocate:

“It’s a strange day when the debate has moved from if and when abortion should be legal, to whether it is okay to sell the remains of aborted fetuses. Life should matter at all stages—and indeed, it’s odd to hear one medical technician point to an ultrasound and describe a growing baby while another, removed by just a couple of weeks development, will call it a medical condition remedied by an abortion.”

As it turns out, I wasn’t always so pro-life, although I never fully embraced pro-choice either. Almost 30 years ago I first entered a Planned Parenthood clinic to support a friend going through an abortion procedure. I remember the disdain I had for the pro-lifers badgering us with graphic images on posters of dead fetuses and forcing us to walk through their vocal picket line. It was humiliating and frightening. Yet we broke through and completed the task. I never asked about the sale of fetal tissue as it never occurred to me to do so. I suppose I was too young and naïve to know better.

The nascent Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice movement emboldened by Roe v. Wade—further framed by feminist leaders such as Gloria Steinem—dominated my friend’s and my decision-making process. For the record, Steinem was president and co-founder of Voters for Choice, a pro-choice political action committee for 25 years, then with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund when it merged with VFC for the 2004 elections. She was also co-founder and serves on the board of Choice USA, a national organization that supports young pro-choice leadership.

I digress, but humor me because it all ties together to support my current position. Feminists like Steinem and Hillary Clinton and the debate that abortion is a woman’s right to control her own reproductive system were pervasive at the time. I too fell captive to this ideology without delving for more intellectual understanding.

With the national Planned Parenthood organization under continued scrutiny, I am convinced that the time I’ve spent soul searching for my personal pro-choice versus pro-life position moved me in the right direction toward life. My belief system today is fundamentally cemented to the idea that abortion in fact diminishes a woman’s psyche. While legally and safely being able to abort may be necessary in certain medically warranted circumstances, the actual act of taking a life proffers a life of psychological torment that does not equate to total happiness or empowerment.

Did you know that abortion is the number one cause of death worldwide? As it turns out, the abortion rate in our country is nearly twice as high as the death rate from heart disease. Even more disturbing, according to a WesternJournalism.com report, nearly 1.3 million innocent human beings are killed annually due to abortions.

When you dissect the sales figures for individual fetal tissue and organs that Planned Parenthood leaders and doctors recently corroborated on videotape, the numbers do add up and they are staggering…and sickening. As the national pro-choice organization fights back against allegations of profiteering, human ethical and moral behavior is at stake. If this correlation doesn’t make your blood chill, then I have to assume you are with Gloria and Hillary.

The death toll is staggering. We as individuals and as a nation can no longer claim ignorance. The videos are readily available, real, and damning…for all of us. It’s our obligation as taxpayers and voters to decide how we allocate our funds and to whom. There are millions who donate organs upon death for transplant and research purposes, with more than 50 percent of Americans on the side of life, do we really need to continue funding a national pro-choice organization like Planned Parenthood to the tune of more than a half billion dollars a year?

At this point in time until further evidence materializes, my conscience votes “no.”

Lee Bagdasarian Rech

A lifelong Republican who hails from Boston, Lee Bagdasarian Rech arrived in the Beehive State in 1991. Rech founded LBR Communications Inc., an independent marketing/public relations and professional writing agency in 1996. LBR has placed numerous editorial and local and national broadcast segments including: Forbes.com, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Utah Business, Salt Lake Magazine, Phoenix Business Journal, OC Register, Bloomberg, Fox13, KUTV Channel 2, ABC4, KSL TV Channel 5, FNC, among others. When she’s not hunkered down in her office strategizing on political campaigns, working on PR projects, freelance writing, or blogging, Rech can be found spending time with her husband and two children, working out at the gym, gardening or riding her horse. She received her master’s degree in literature from King’s College, University of London, and a bachelor’s degree from Denison University.

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