TESTIMONY TO THE PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD
June 22, 2015
Maggie Anderson, parent & resident of Pittsburgh
Good evening.
I’d like to begin today by reading from the Pennsylvania Code—specifically, the preamble to the Abortion Control Act signed into law by Democratic Governor Bob Casey:
“The common and statutory law of Pennsylvania shall be construed so as to extend to the unborn the equal protection of the laws and to further the public policy of this Commonwealth encouraging childbirth over abortion.”
Let me repeat that last line: It is “the public policy of this Commonwealth [to encourage] childbirth over abortion.”
I hope, of course, that this is the public policy of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, as well. All of us here would prefer a culture, I hope, where life is welcomed and nurtured, not snuffed out. And after all, the Abortion Control Act is the law.
This is why it is so baffling and disturbing to me that the district has invited Planned Parenthood into our schools as an unbiased source of information and counseling on sexuality. For Planned Parenthood, the children of the Pittsburgh Public Schools are a captive audience of sales leads. Planned Parenthood has every incentive to make these impressionable children into long-term clients, and the big ticket item for Planned Parenthood is abortions.
It’s like inviting Phillip Morris to lecture middle school students on tobacco avoidance, Anheuser-Busch to teach alcohol safety, or Harrah’s to discuss responsible gambling.
Now, Planned Parenthood will say that only 3% or so of their services are abortions. But this is incredibly misleading. A conservative estimate, based on their own data, suggests that at least one third of clinic income is from abortions. After all, abortions are the most expensive item on the menu. And so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Planned Parenthood has abortion quotas, and distributes awards based on exceeding those quotas.
But perhaps the most stunning number is the percent of Planned Parenthood’s pregnancy services that are abortions: 94%. If 100 pregnant women walked into Planned Parenthood, 94 would get an abortion. And, based on recent figures from Pennsylvania, ZERO would get an adoption referral.
That’s not encouraging childbirth over abortion. That’s handing our children into the arms of a giant abortion business. That’s placing the bottom line of a politically-connected corporation above the well-being of the children of Pittsburgh. That’s irresponsible.
I urge you to reconsider inviting the world’s biggest abortion business into our schools. It makes a mockery of our state’s commitment to life, and of your duty to our students.