EDITORIAL: Shame on Planned Parenthood

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Planned Parenthood has reached a new low. Planned Parenthood-Indiana is giving the "gift of death" to the unborn this holiday season.

The organization has announced that gift certificates in $25 increments can be purchased for exams, insurance copays and medication at its 35 clinics in Indiana. The certificates can also be used to pay for abortions, adding to the 5,000 it says it performs each year in Indiana. This means that girls and women will be given another means and economic incentive to choose death rather than to choose life.

Planned Parenthood is trying to cast the certificates as benevolent, the usual tactic used to mask their heinous agenda. The vouchers are merely intended to assist the uninsured or those who are delaying their health care due to its costs, said Betty Cockrum, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood-Indiana. She said the vouchers provide potentially lifesaving care and can help prevent abortion. "Birth control is the best way to avoid unintended pregnancy. Avoiding unintended pregnancy is the best way to reduce abortion," she said. Chrystal Struben-Hall, vice president of Planned Parenthood-Indiana, also tried to cast the certificates in a benign light: "People are making really tough decisions about putting gas in their car and food on their table, so we know that many women especially put health care at the bottom of their list to do."

These justifications are disingenuous. Women do not need Planned Parenthood for their basic health care. And the vouchers are not lifesaving, they are political instruments of the pro-choice movement. More importantly, contraception and abortion are not forms of "health care": They are lifestyle choices with life-altering consequences.

The gift certificates rile pro-life supporters, as they should. Indiana Family Institute President Curt Smith told WISH-TV in Indianapolis that there is a better way to help women: "I think the way to help family planning is to give the money where there's no agenda. So if somebody wants to help a woman at a time of crisis, they can support the life centers throughout Indiana."

Shame on Planned Parenthood for granting death certificates. The organization fails to grasp the meaning of life, let alone the spirit of the holiday season.