Any distrust Women of Color felt toward Planned Parenthood was kept out of the public eye until July 28, when the abortion giant blew any remaining shreds of good will.

It was on that day a story Planned Parenthood shopped to the New York Times was published, within which Planned Parenthood failed to give WOC credit for the concept of “reproductive justice” and submitted names of only white female leaders of the abortion lobby to interview – seven to be exact – but no WOC.

Enter into the fracas Melissa Flournoy, pictured right, Louisiana State Director for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast – until August 15, that is, when she was forced to resign.

PPGC already had problems fending off three Medicaid fraud lawsuits as well as pro-lifers battling its plan to open an abortion clinic in New Orleans, where the population is 67% minority.

So Flournoy threw gas over a few fires on August 13 when she attended a screening of We Always Resist: Trust Black Women and took over the discussion afterward, telling WOC they needed to drop what they were doing and get behind Planned Parenthood’s political agenda and also telling a black leader she needed to kick a black Democrat pro-life representative’s ass.

Kris Ford of Women’s Health And Justice Initiative detailed Flournoy’s ghastly behavior in an open letter to Flournoy and PPGC. The entire letter is well worth the read. Here are excerpts (bold emphases theirs):

You felt that last night’s discussions should have centered on how organizations like Women With A Vision, the communities they serve, and women of color as a whole could “show up” for Planned Parenthood’s pro-choice fight….

The pro-choice/pro-life framework that Planned Parenthood supports and fuels largely leaves marginalized women behind. We gain nothing from joining your parade or lending our faces or our children’s faces to your billboards.

You, Melissa Flournoy, are a perfect example of the schism in work around reproductive rights. Your refusal to listen, your insistence on centering the conversation on your personal wants, and your flippant disregard for the work that organizations led by women of color have done. Worse, the huge organization that supports you is guilty of the same.

Part of why I’m wary of Planned Parenthood is that I lead an intersectional life by default…. You push us to the front of one charge after another so that you can wave your diversity banners. We fall first and are left bleeding every time….

Trust Black Women… [is] produced by Sister Song, the same organization whose member Monica Simpson wrote an open letter to Planned Parenthood on August 5th. Monica’s letter details the ways that Planned Parenthood consistently omits the intersectional work of grassroots organizations on reproductive issues….

Monica published her letter barely two weeks ago, and yet here I am publishing this one today because of your appalling behavior last night….

There was a feeling of reverence for the heaviness of the topics we’d discussed. Out of the three seconds of silence, your hand went up and the whole meeting went off the tracks. You started by introducing yourself as the Louisiana State director of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. After that, you proceeded to ask Deon what she could “do about Katrina.” Though you didn’t pause to give context, you were talking about Katrina Jackson, the state representative out of Monroe, Louisiana who penned HB388. The bill effectively shuts down some of the abortion providers here in Louisiana. You complained about the representative’s unwillingness to hear your pleas, and jokingly said that you wanted to “put (Deon) into a ring and let you kick her ass!” Didn’t we JUST get done talking about how hurtful it is for black women to constantly be profiled as dangerous? Violent? Subhuman? How is this helpful? Deon had told us about the police reports she sees where police officers describe black women as primarily “big,” “black,” and “angry.” YOU TURNED AROUND AND DID THE SAME THING. Deon stated that she’s not going to go fight any other black women. She’s not doing this work to go be the black person who can tame other black people for you. None of us are. It was clear that you weren’t getting the answers or feedback that you wanted. I’m sure you were aware of the people expressing their dismay in the background as you charged on to talk at length about how what we REALLY need to just focus on less race stuff and more political stuff. According to you, the solution lies in pressuring elected officials and voting the bad eggs out of office. You asked question after question, made statement after statement, and barely paused for Deon or anyone else to answer. When she was able to sneak a word in edgewise, you cut her off again! This went round and around. You interrupted most of the people who spoke last night, including me. I explained that I rejected the Pro Choice vs. Pro Life framework because it leaves behind many of the communities represented in that room. I stated that while I was glad you came, I didn’t want this entire conversation to become us simply focused on and responding to you. I also said that when you ask questions of people like Deon, like Paris, like the many activists and organizers in that room who have exactly the kind of analysis that your organization sorely lacks, you need to shut up and listen. You didn’t. In fact, you cut me off before I could finish talking. Here’s more of what I want to say:

How dare you, Melissa? How dare you show up to an event by and for women of color, then go ahead to tell us that we’re not focusing on YOUR organization enough? That we aren’t showing up for YOU enough? We afforded you every opportunity last night to get a feel for where women of color are coming from on this issue. The answers to why we aren’t as common as we could be among the Planned Parenthood ranks was staring you in the face, and you turned away every time. You heard it from black women, you heard it from black men, you heard it from faith leaders and scholars and activists and average folks walking down the street. You even heard it from Laura McTighe, a white ally who was so upset by your behavior that she stepped forward to name that you had effectively derailed the entire conversation and wrapped it around yourself, and that it was inappropriate of you to ask women of color why they weren’t doing more for YOU. Did you listen to her? Did you listen when she said that she felt the more appropriate question to ask was how you, your organization, and white people in general could show up and be better allies for US?

I don’t think you did. What you did was talk over people, take up too much space emotionally and physically in the room. I knew you weren’t really engaged with us because people were standing uncomfortably in the back of the room while you sprawled across two chairs of your own…

If the Louisiana State director of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast can listen to the lived experiences of women of color and then try to mock us and disrupt our meetings, then what hope is there for Planned Parenthood to work in an anti-racist framework? Why should I bother with trusting or investing in any of your political ventures if you can’t see the merit in my community based activism?

Black women’s bodies are the scapegoat here. No matter how you turn it, when we view ourselves on your terms, the jokes fly about how we should go fight people for you. We are damned for having children, damned for having abortions, damned for refusing to navigate our bodies within your framework, and then chastised for not showing up for you….

Rather than resist the urge to stack oppressions like a playground contest, you tossed out you’re a lesbian from Shreveport and that I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I think I judged you appropriately. I think I had you figured out when I reluctantly had to lump you in with the rest of the big money non-profits that just want to hijack our stories for convenient marketing. I think I had you right when I assumed that you wouldn’t be able to simply be a member of the community that night. I think I was correct in assuming that you and the organization that you represent have a long way to go. If you commonly behave this way professionally, expect to alienate more and more people.

Well, wow. I’ve certainly been impressed by the depth and insight of these open letters. I may disagree with the bottom line of these particular WOC, who believe they need abortion in their equation, but I certainly come away with a better understanding of where they are coming from. It is also clear there is unbridled animus against Planned Parenthood.

TheHayRide.com added:

This is Deon Haywood… 

So naturally, telling a room full of people that you’d like to put Katrina Jackson in a ring with her so she could kick Jackson’s ass isn’t going to go over all that well.

By the next day the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast issued an open letter apologizing for Flournoy.

By August 15 Flournoy had posted news of her resignation on Facebook (now private)…

While it relieves me to see WOC “wary” of Planned Parenthood for using them to further its political agenda, this is only the display of a deeper insidious agenda, which is to profit from their woes. WOC must know by now they have a disproportionate share of abortions. This is because Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry target them.

The roots of the abortion industry are in the eugenics movement, which became popular in America after blacks were freed from slavery and no longer needed or wanted.

[HT: @Defund_PP; LifeNews.com; thehayride.com]

This week 300 members of the groups Operation Save America and Abolish Human Abortion have descended on New Orleans for OSA’s annual gathering and to remind the pro-abortion world, “No justice, no peace.”

Holding prayer meetings by night and prayer vigils by day, the pro-life/abolitionist activists have been busy – protesting two abortion clinics, a Planned Parenthood construction site, the homes of two abortionists (Mary Gardner and Roshanda Dean), the day care business of an abortion clinic manager (yes, you read that right), a pro-abortion church, and more. I can’t keep up. They also held a wake for an aborted baby.

The abortion crowd has responded by sending “[h]undreds of residents, students, and pro-choice volunteers…  to support doctors, clinics, and patients,” according to Ms. Magazine.

So if you follow the news, you know the home of the Mardi Gras has been a different kind of wild this week.

In the midst of the mayhem there has been at least one moment of comedic relief, when New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu issued a Certificate of Recognition to OSA leader Rev. Flip Benham for “Outstanding service to the City of New Orleans, which he later said was given “in error” and rescinded.

A Los Angeles Times writer is asking, “Where’s the outrage?” among conservatives after OSA/AHA disrupted the Sunday church service of New Orleans’ United Universalist Church, a denomination she admits is “among the most liberal of organized religions,” i.e., radically and inexplicably pro-abortion.

The church’s pastor accused pro-life activists of “terroriz[ing] children,” even as she and her church support tearing them limb from limb. You won’t get any condemnation from me for holding their blasphemous feet to the fire while there’s still time to repent.

Pro-lifers spotlighted another disgusting contradiction when they held a protest yesterday at Brown Bear Child Care Center, owned by Javonne Turner, who runs Delta Abortion Clinic on the side, believe it or not. Parents need to know their children are being watched by a child killer…

Also at this particular OSA gathering, Flip Benham handed over the reigns of leadership to Rusty Thomas. I’ll forever be indebted to these  two stalwarts for holding a prayer vigil in front of Christ Hospital when news broke it was committing live birth abortions. I pray for more of their boldness.

For an example of pro-abortion revulsion at this week’s OSA/AHA activities in New Orleans, watch MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow’s shocked and appalled segment from last night.

[Top photo via nola.com, photo of Fr. Frank Pavone blessing a victim of abortion via OSA; photo of certificate via Cal Zastrow on Facebook; photo of abolitionists in front of Unitarian Universalist Church via AHA on Facebook; poster of Javonne Turner via Leslie Hanks on Facebook; photo of protest at Brown Bear Child Care via thecreole.com]

Click to enlarge…

Photo caption:

Rabbi Edward Cohn of Temple Sinai, talks about compassion and open mindedness during a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Planned Parenthood health center at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans on Clairborne Avenue, May 22, 2013.

~ On Planned Parenthood’s plans to build a 7,000 sq ft abortion clinic in New Orleans, “the first Planned Parenthood clinic in Louisiana that will offer the procedure,” according to The Times-Picayune, May 22

[Photo via The Times-Picayune]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• “I wanted to throw up when I saw it.” That’s how one high school student describes finding images of abortion in a high school bathroom in Texas.
• A pro-life protest featuring Abby Johnson and a pro-abortion counter protest in New Orleans received some local media coverage. Planned Parenthood is planning on building a large 7,000 sq. ft. abortion clinic on an empty lot.
• At National Review, Michael J. New says NARAL is utterly stunned that the activities of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List are – gasp! – pro-life!
  

  According to [NARAL’s] report, Susan B. Anthony List 1) raises money for pro-life candidates, 2) supports pro-life laws, 3) hires pro-life people, and 4) receives grants from conservative foundations. Last spring the group even went so far as to hire a lobbyist to lobby against Planned Parenthood funding. Shocking!

• The wife of Michigan judge Wade McCree (both pictured left) testified about their plan to get the judge’s mistress to have an abortion:
  

  Earlier Tuesday, the judge’s wife, LaVerne McCree, testified that her husband told her about the affair and also informed her that [Geniene La’Shay] Mott said she was pregnant. She said she and her husband hatched a plan to get Mott to terminate a pregnancy she really wasn’t convinced existed.

  LaVerne McCree, who has been married to the judge for 25 years, said her husband filed for divorce to appease Mott, who was threatening to go public with their affair. LaVerne McCree said her husband told her that Mott was refusing to terminate the pregnancy unless he filed for divorce.

  There were also concerns, she said, that if Mott did not have abortion, the judge could be liable for child support and the child could have a claim on the inheritance his mother left him. Wade McCree withdrew his divorce petition a few weeks later.

• Nebraska’s attorney general has filed disciplinary charges against one of abortionist LeRoy Carhart’s nurses:
  

  The petition accuses Lindsey Creekmore, the sole registered nurse employed at the clinic since April 30, 2011, of administering incorrect intravenous dosages of sedatives and a labor-inducing drug to 11 patients between January 2011 and March 2012.

  The charges filed against Creekmore do not indicate whether any of the patients were injured or hospitalized as a result of the incorrect dosages. The complaint also alleges that the clinic did not routinely staff its recovery room with licensed medical staff, in violation of a rule that prohibits a registered nurse from delegating complex nursing care to unlicensed staff.

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

• At Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, Reggie Littlejohn shares a WND article which questions the supposed “easing” of China’s One-Child Policy:
  

  “The core of the problem is not whether the government is allowing one child or two children,” Reggie Littlejohn… told WND on Wednesday.

  “The government is still telling how many children people can have and is enforcing that limit with coerced abortions,” she said. “And it’s not clear to me that there are fewer abortions. Women and babies still are dying.”

  Littlejohn pointed out China still requires a birth permit for the first child and for the second child.

  “Without a permit, there still are forced abortions, unless you’re rich enough to buy your way out,” she said.

• Congratulations to Secular Pro-Life, whose “baby” – AbortionSafety.com – is graduating to the next level, thanks to the help of Online for Life:
  

  We’ve found that it’s just not realistic to expect SPL’s volunteers to stay on top of the constant reports of malfeasance and negligence at abortion centers. Online for Life, with a full-time staff, is in a better position to keep the site up-to-date. It also has a much larger advertising budget, enabling it to reach more people in need. And although Online for Life was founded by Christians, it has experience with secular projects (such as the awesome Faces of Pro-Life) and has made a commitment to maintain AbortionSafety.com’s secular character as well.

• Saynsumthn’s Blog says the First Presbyterian Church in New Orleans recently welcomed Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, hosting a “Stand with Women” rally at their church, “in support of a new abortion facility in the Crescent City.”
• Pro-Life in TN posts video of testimony from a Knoxville based abortionist, Dr. Susan Dodd, who took the time to come to Nashville to testify against a bill requiring informed consent and a 48-hour waiting period for women considering abortion. In it she compares an abortion to getting a face lift or a colonoscopy.
• Pro-Life Action League says Planned Parenthood will honor Fay Clayton on April 15 – the woman who “along with her husband, Lowell Sachnoff, served as the lead attorney on the epic NOW v. Scheidler case,” which Clayton lost, after “dragging [the Scheidler] family through the federal court system for 20 years”:
  

  Despite losing the biggest abortion case since Roe v. Wade, Clayton and Sachnoff are still the darlings of the pro-abortion movement, and next Wednesday they’re getting a big award: the Clayton-Sachnoff family will be honored at Planned Parenthood’s annual “Generations Celebration” at Chicago’s Navy Pier.

  A protest is planned. See more information here.

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

• ProLife NZ says just as the word “abortion” is used less and less in favor of other terminology, the culture of death is now searching for a term to replace “suicide”:
  

  [A] survey asks readers what they think of the following terms: self-deliverance, dying with dignity, rational suicide, humane self-chosen death and a freshly-minted euphemism, dignicide.”… However, after mulling over the proposed words, I must say that “dignicide” has some merit. This coinage means not death with dignity, but the death of dignity – which is exactly what assisted suicide is.

• Reflections of a Paralytic applauds the showcasing of American Horror Story actress Jamie Brewer (pictured left), who has Down syndrome, as a runway model in New York Fashion Week.
• At ProLife365, Kevin Kukla shares his most memorable experiences with sidewalk counseling, and encourages pro-lifers to get involved.
• Pro-Life Action League reports on a fundraising email from Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards in which she accuses pro-lifers blocking a New Orleans mega abortion facility of “hate”:
  

  Cecile Richards and her team of expensive consultants at Planned Parenthood know full well that talking about abortion is a loser for her side, and it doesn’t take much grey matter to understand why. The latest proof comes just this week with the release of a new Gallup poll showing increasing discontent with current U.S. abortion policies among the general public.

  And so, consequently, the nation’s largest abortion chain talks about abortion as little as possible, and spends twice as much time saying that those of us who oppose it are guilty of that most contemptible of sins, hatred. This sounds an awful lot like the “war on women” rhetoric that was — and, to a much smaller extent, still is — so popular among committed abortion supporters, although it’s pretty clear that this strategy has been a failure.

  So too, from a P.R. standpoint, playing the hate card isn’t going to work. But it will surely make Planned Parenthood a lot of money.

• Wesley J. Smith reports that not one, not two, but three physicians have signed declarations that Jahi McMath is not brain dead and a request is forthcoming asking the state of California to rescind her death certificate:
  

  The family attorney Chris Dolan says he will petition the California Secretary of State to rescind the death certificate….

  Attorney Dolan says that if the Secretary doesn’t give relief, he will sue.

  But why should that be necessary? Given the declarations by three reputable brain specialist doctors and others, at the very least the Secretary should conduct a thorough investigation, including a full medical reassessment.

  Jahi is owed that.

  The integrity of the system demands it.

  And if the unprecedented has happened–that a declared brain dead person ceased being brain dead–finding out what happened and why is absolutely in the interests of science.

This week, due in part to connections I’ve been able to establish across the pro-life spectrum, I was able to:

• do original pro-life reporting in my post, “Planned Parenthood captures abortion monopoly in Texas”
• delve much deeper into a story barely covered by the mainstream media in my post, “Judge blocks Kissimmee Planned Parenthood from committing abortions”
• provide the sorely missing pro-life angle in my post, “Pro-life activists wreak havoc on New Orleans’ pro-abortion peace”

Each of these stories took several hours to several days to investigate and pull together. I was only enabled to do this thanks to the generosity of pro-lifers who freed my time to focus on pro-life journalism.

Due to amazing supporters we have reached 40% of our $10,000 goal, which would carry our budget through the first two months of 2015.

Please consider donating this weekend and help maintain JLS.com’s online presence. There is one pencil drawing by the talented Bethany Kerr still available to the next $150+ giver!

There are two giving options – one time donations and/or monthly giving. Donating even $5 a month would be helpful. Thank you in advance, and thanks to all who have contributed!

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast took the occasion of Texas Governor Rick Perry’s signing of a new omnibus pro-life law today to announce it was closing three of its 12 clinics. The reason, per Huffington Post:

The three clinics are located in Bryan, Huntsville and Lufkin, Texas. They are closing in response to a new package of  a new package of abortion restrictions signed into law on Thursday and funding cuts to Texas’ Women’s Health Program that were passed by the Texas state legislature in 2011. Out of the three Planned Parenthood clinics that are closing, only the Bryan clinic performs abortions.

Planned Parenthood timed its notice to steal media attention away from pro-lifers, while also trying to put Texas legislators on the defensive. But was this really an attempt to erase dots between the shutdowns and PPGC’s problem with Medicaid fraud?

Most interesting is the former employees who have accused PPGC of Medicaid fraud worked at two of the closing clinics.

Karen Reynolds, who filed a lawsuit in 2011, worked at the Lufkin facility; and Abby Johnson, who filed a lawsuit in 2012, worked at the Bryan clinic.

The charges may or may not lead to prosecutions, but my first thought today was that subsequent attempts by PPGC to clean up its books resulted in such a noticeable loss of profits it had to shutter the doors at 1/4 of its centers, two of which were surely under added scrutiny.

I spoke with Abby Johnson this afternoon, who agreed the Medicaid fraud charges had something to do with the closures.

“I think a lot of things went into account,” Abby added. “The loss of income from the State of Texas and the new regulations played a part. Then there was the constant presence of pro-lifers in Bryan that took away the bulk of its income from surgical abortions. Plus, all three facilities were 40 Days for Life sites. And, yes, PPGC also knows the state is watching their books, so they can no longer get away with charging for services they don’t provide.

“What’s makes this even more hilarious is PPGC just spent so much money on the Lufkin facility, which was abortion ready but not asc (ambulatory surgical center) ready,” Abby said. “With the passage of HB2, they knew they could never perform abortions there.”

Indeed, less than six years ago PPGC opened its 6,700 sq ft, $1.5 million Lufkin clinic….

Major donors to the Lufkin clinic included Buddy and Ellen Temple and David and Jean Dolben, now had.

Not one to let poor planning stop it, PPGC broke ground in May for a new $4.2 million, 7,000 sq ft abortion clinic in New Orleans, Louisiana, to open in late 2014/early 2015.

This action prompted the Louisiana legislature to open its own investigation of the PP affiliate in June.