Worlds collide: Planned Parenthood meets pro-lifers meet PETA
Pro-lifers say it looks like a cash register.
Planned Parenthood of Houston is in the process of remodeling a 6-story former bank building it bought in 2006 into a 78K sq ft abortion super center, with the entire 3rd floor dedicated to late-term abortions….
When opened “this spring,” according to a PP press release, the mill will carry the distinction of largest abortion clinic in the US and 2nd largest in the world, only to China.
Several pro-life groups and leaders are planning a major march to the site on January 18, Martin Luther King Day, including Lou Engle’s The Call, Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, Star Parker, former PP manager Abby Johnson, Richard Land, Ken Blackwell, Mat Staver, Bishop Harry Jackson, Bound4Life, and pro-life minority groups, because, of course, the new Houston mill is located right in the center of 4 African-American/Hispanic neighborhoods.
Here’s a great promo video by B4L…
And come Monday, 3 worlds are going to collide, because People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced yesterday it is negotiating to erect this billboard near the PP site in time for the pro-life march…
Reads PETA’s press release:
When pro-life supporters arrive in Houston on January 18 to protest the future opening of a 6-story PP facility, they may be met with a challenge. That’s because PETA is negotiating with outdoor advertisers to place a billboard ad near the building – an ad that shows newly hatched chicks and reads, “Pro-Life? Go Vegan. PETA.”
PETA’s goal? To urge people in the pro-life movement to respect the sanctity of life every time they eat – by rejecting the slaughterhouse.
“Eating meat supports horrible cruelty to animals, and of course, it also entails killing them,” says PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich. “Everyone who is ‘pro-life’ has the opportunity to show it every time he or she sits down to eat – by choosing a vegetarian diet.”
By its sign PETA is saying that killing preborn babies and killing animals are comparable, which should bother pro-aborts who deny abortion kills anything other than perhaps a parasite. Not sure of PETA’s position on killing parasites, although I suspect the group is against that.
Which brings me to a curious point, that so many pro-aborts are vegans, out of concern they usually say, for animal rights.
So pro-lifers should erect a counter-billboard stating, “Vegan? Go Pro-Life.”
[HT for PETA billboard: reader Susie A.]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“Planned Parenthood is a vital part of the health care safety net.”
Right. When I think healthcare I think abortion. Who will be paying for all of the Mexican women crossing the border for abortions? The American taxpayers, of course. What a boon to Mexican-American relations… how sad.
Well, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being vegan, but it’s been my experience that SOME people in the animal rights movement are very pro-abortion.
So let’s strike a deal: we’ll be vegan when you become prolife!
“So pro-lifers should erect a counter-billboard stating, ‘Vegan? Go Pro-Life.'”
Brilliant writing, Jill. Love it!
I was once handed a pro-vegan pamphlet outside an abortion clinic by a woman going in. (I took it on condition that she’d take my pamphlet for the pregnancy center next door.) It seemed so odd and incongruous that she was so concerned about pain felt by chickens and cows when she and her friend were there to kill a baby. I told her that unborn babies feel pain, too. Of course, I doubt it had much effect on her, but who knows.
“So pro-lifers should erect a counter-billboard stating, ‘Vegan? Go Pro-Life.'”
Ha! Awesome!
Jill – Brilliant! Thanks for keeping the heat on Houston. One thing that has really been niggling at me lately is their “research” in TX. On PP’s site (which now may be removed, but I have screen shot) is a detail of the research they do in TX. They convince moms that some good can come out of the abortion by donating the “blob of tissue” i.e. dismembered little baby, to research. This is the spirit of Nazi Mengele manifest, and it’s given its own floor in the new “super center.” God help us.
Pro-lifers say it looks like a cash register.
Maybe. Give it a column of steps and it’d fit right in with the Avenue of the Dead, wouldn’t it?
The PETA billboard is a waste of money. Clever? No. I’m betting that half the population doesn’t know what “vegan” means…
One of basics problems with these PETA people is flaw in their religio-philosophical perspective. Many (if not all of them) have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, a Monoistic view. They believe, like most Christians do that God is everywhere. But they reject a personal God instead have come to believe that God is everything. So in their world view human beings have the same value as anything else in creation – from animals to the smallest sub-atomic particle.
As Christians we are the stewards of creation. Our bodies come out of it, but there is something far beyond a bodies that is us too. That’s were PETA goes wrong and that’s they have no problem with abortion or euthanasia. After all if one is just part of God, how is one’s personal life of any a value?
I will burst into hysterical giggle when I see that sign.
And I will be covering the protest extensively with video and picture footage, and excited like no other to be going. Texas will give Planned Parenthood a welcome they won’t forget.
As a supporter of both unborn human rights and animal rights, I say “right on”.
It will be a very happy day when we stop killing both unborn children and animals.
I don’t know if this comment has been made yet, but it’s a fact that PETA is the largest “euthanizer” (killer) of pets.
How hypocritical of them to condemn the pro-life movement for not eating vegan.
Joe,
I guess we should only allow tigers, pumas, snakes, eagles, dolphins, orcas, sharks, and many other predatory animals to torture and kill animals.
We should treat animals with respect, dignity, and to reduce their suffering when we harvest their meat for a tasty hamburger.
It is human life that is paramount here. The lives of humans are vastly more important than the lives of animals (no matter how much we should be good stewards to animals).
While I am vegetarian, I’m extremely pro-life.
Human life is more valuable than ANYTHING. I hope this is Joe’s opinion also. But regardless, if I was to choose Human Souls are ALWAYS miles higher than animals.
I have a variety of reasons I’m vegetarian, but I think the billboard to me isn’t offensive, it may be taking advantage of an extremely sensitive situation but I would love to see us Pro-lifers put up that countersign “Vegan-Go Pro-life” THAT WOULD BE AMAZING. Plus, I think (along with some other comments) that vegans who are pro choice will NOT be happy and probably protest the sign, who knows maybe it will make some people think about HUMAN LIFE too.
Jay, very good points. :D
There’s nothing wrong with being prolife and vegetarian. Why can’t we care about both animals AND people?
I saw a movie called “Our Daily Bread” that shows how cows are slaughtered to make our hamburgers and steaks. It was horrible! And they showed pigs that had given birth. The poor piglets were just born on the cold hard ground in a steel pen. And don’t get me started on lamb and veal.
Since then I haven’t eaten any red meat. I would like to become a full-fledged vegetarian; but I do wear leather shoes and like leather handbags, and I want to be consistent.
Hi, Jay. :)
I’m a vegetarian, too. I would be a vegan, but I know that it’s expensive because you have to purchase goods that feature absolutely no animal products, which can cost a lot of extra money.
But I read in history last year where the different viewpoints of life’s value come from. In Christianity and religions of similar roots (Islam, Judaism), the belief is that God gave people control over the earth, that humans are in charge but must take care of the earth.
From my observations, Native Americans and Native American religions valued all life as connected and that is why they took measures such as thanking the food that they ate for giving them their energy- if they hunted a buffalo, they thanked it. I mean, obviously, cultures from Native American to Native American tribe differed, so I don’t know that every tribe did that, but the notion that all life is one is outside of the European sphere. I think that many traditional Asian religions felt the same way, but I can’t be too certain since I don’t know enough about Asian philosophy.
So those ideas carry on into today: are humans more valuable or are we all one? I personally favor that ladder, but I understand where you’re coming from. :)
amy @ 11:30,
The “research laboratory” concerns me too. I say let’s leave research to legitimate medical professionals outside the realm of Planned Barrenhood.
Really? PETA says it’s pro-life to eat vegan? Well, just a rhetorical question to you guys: when was the last time a baby chick’s life was equivalent to human life in moral and legal law?
Please, somebody tell me I’m not crazy here . . . .
I think its bizarre to equate a baby chick’s life, or any other animal’s for that matter, to a human being’s life, but SOME extreme animal rights people do. Peter Singer, the guy who thinks its okay to euthanize handicapped newborns, reasons that since there’s no difference between humans and animals, its acceptable to have sexual relations with them.
Uh, no.
“….when was the last time a baby chick’s life was equivalent to human life in moral and legal law? ”
Some people absolutely believe this. Not yet (they’d say)under law, but morally.
Anyone who buys into the notion that being vegan means no animals die for your supper needs to seriously educate themselves on commercial agricultural practices. If you are a vegan/vegetarian because that is simply the diet you prefer, more power to you….but before you get all uppity about being better than meat eaters because your eating habits are not directly responsible for animal suffering and deaths you need to spend some time on the internet looking deeply into the facts of your choice.
PETA is absolutely one of the worst perpetrators of animal euthanasia in the states. Anyone who doubts this fact is entirely welcome to educate themselves with some basic research.
Abuses of livestock animals occur primarily when the masses stop producing their own food and want to pluck their packaged chicken parts off the meat counter tree while holding their noses with one hand. If you want to support dignified lives for livestock there are many local resources for meat co-ops and natural producers that can prove their animals live a good life and die a quick and humane death.
The hypocrisy of the animal rights camp is almost as nauseating as the hypocrisy of the abortion camp.
Hooves, I think that most people realize that animals die in the production of food. Plowing a field under to produce grain kills thousands of small animals. I believe that their goal is to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
Like I said, I do think it’s possible to care about animals as well as people.
I wasn’t talking about tilling. As I stated before: those who hold the beliefs that animals are not made to suffer and die for “vegan” diets need to educate themselves. The information is out there. My friend in the Nature Conservancy can tell you agricultural horror stories that would make your skin crawl–and these are CROPS, not livestock.
End of statement.
I do care about both. Which is why I choose to raise my own meat. I know how it lived and how it died and I know it was given both the best life and the most humane death. That is my choice and I do not think myself better than those who shop at the meat counter. It’s the ignorance and holier than thou attitude of vegans that I don’t like.
People who truly care about animals should take some time to look into the REAL story of PETA and HSUS….
Humanely euthanizing an animal is not comparable to the inhumane ways many are slaughtered.
I totally agree that pro lifers need to have some kind of a comeback using a billboard in the same area. However, I know plenty of vegetarians who don’t eat meat because it is not healthy for you. I would not want to tag all these people using that billboard.
This thread just started and already we’ve seen posts by a good number of people who are both pro-life and either vegetarians or sympathetic to vegetarianism. This demonstrates that animal-loving vegetarianism and the pro-life movement are not antonymous. There have been pro-life vegetarian groups, you know.
We should be happy that PETA has this billboard. Even if they’re trying to piggyback onto another cause, at least they’re targeting pro-lifers as a group they want to reach. Isn’t that better than saying, “Pro-lifers are crazy! We’re the REAL compassionate people”?
I want to climb up on the roof and paint a giant bullseye!
With a mesage underneath that says, ‘Strike here first!
yor bro ken
Jesus was not a vegan.
He ate lamb and fish.
He fed people lamb and fish.
But Jesus is OK with people who choose to be vegans.
Jesus does not require or forbid people to become vegans.
In the late 80’s there was a photo in a Seattle newspaper of animal rights folks diggin with a dumpster of discarded chicken eggs in hopes of rescuing any surviving chicks.
I wonder what they did with any survivors they might have rescued.
Make pets of them.
Set them free to be eaten by other predatory animals or raise them til they were old enough to lay eggs or big enough to eat.
I give the wackos kudos for their committment to their cause.
yor bro ken
Many of us involved in the Houston project are undertaking a “Daniel” fast – no meats, no sweets, no snacks. We are fasting meat, because it is a sacrifice for us to do so. I think it is ironic that our fasting choice causes us to consider the same side of the menu as PETA; but our perspective is completely opposite. I think this is so funny – makes me giggle. I must have “fasting brain.”
See you in HOUSTON!
Why are animals better than plants?
Too different?
Well, there are major differences between animals and humans, too.
Pick your poison, I suppose.
The crux of the issue is this: many people these days prioritize animals and plants over human life…these vegans are such people, as are pro-aborts….sick.
It does look like a cash register because that is what they stand for: money. Profit is the only thing that matters.
The pro-life movement is on the rise. PP Clinics closed down last year and reduce their hours. Wouldn’t it be great if the trend continues and this PP center goes in foreclosure? I mean the morgage on that thing must be enormous! Then pro-lifers can buy it with private funds and turn it to a Pregnancy Center!!!
Get the shirt! Wear it on January 18, Martin Luther King Day! Well, maybe you can’t get it fast enough for that. And you’re already too late for the two-for-one Christmas sale (see their blog entry for December 13).
The women at Pro-woman Pro-life still have many PET-P T-shirts. Go to their home page and click on the ad just under their banner.
People for the Ethical Treatment of People–because you wouldn’t treat a dog like this!
I don’t want to fall into the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc , but this seems odd, especially in light of PP’s vehement denials that they target minorities for abortion.
A Rice University study in 2006 said that over 2/3 of the Hurricane Katrina evacuees to Houston said they had no intention of leaving. So now that they have settled in, primarily poor minorities from the ninth ward of New Orleans, what should appear? A PP super-center to “serve” them.
Are our memories really that short? This is horrible.
I believe this building was originally built as a bank. Still fits the image of PP. KA-CHING!
Hooves, I don’t feel superior to people who eat red meat, because I do eat fish and sometimes poultry, but I do eat a mainly vegetarian diet. I think it is admirable that you raise your animals yourself and treat them humanely.
Could you elaborate on the “agricultural horror stories?” I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
I’m glad we’re having this discussion — shows that the prolife movement is NOT monolithic!
They need to mail a copy of Maafa21 the new documentary on abortion and racism produced by Life Dynamics, to every resident of Houston. Maafa21 will educate ALL on the racist and eugenics foundations of Planned Parenthood. Take a peak here: http://www.maafa21.com
“I don’t want to fall into the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc…”
That’s an interesting comment, because I think some fall into that fallacy when they say they wouldn’t want to be a vegetarian because so many vegetarians are pro-abortion (and many aren’t). If a woman works tirelessly during the day at a soup kitchen, and then goes home and abuses her children and husband, that doesn’t mean she was wrong for working at the soup kitchen.
“I don’t want to fall into the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc…”
That’s an interesting comment, because I think some fall into that fallacy when they say they wouldn’t want to be a vegetarian because so many vegetarians are pro-abortion (though many aren’t). If a woman works tirelessly during the day at a soup kitchen, and then goes home and abuses her children and husband, that doesn’t mean she was wrong for working at the soup kitchen.
actually, in addition to looking like a giant cash register, it looks like one of those sacrificial aztec or mayan blood temples.
http://www.mexico-ecotourism.org/assets/images/El%20Tajin%20Pyramid%20300×200.jpg