Catholic bishops call for prayer and penance to fight Planned Parenthood's barbaric organ harvesting

Even those who support a woman's "right" to kill her baby have been shocked, perhaps even dismayed, by the undercover videos posted by the Center for Medical Progress which prove that Planned Parenthood is generating revenue -- a lot of revenue -- by selling body parts from aborted children. Sometimes they'll even sell you a whole cadaver -- the result of a late-term abortion or even the killing of a baby born alive. See "Planned Parenthood accused of selling parts from babies born alive".

Even the liberal secular humanists who dominate America's media and politics were somewhat embarrassed by the crass barbarism of PP's traffic in dead humans. In one video, Melissa Farrell, the research director at Gulf Coast (Texas) Planned Parenthood, tells undercover reporters that her branch of the organization helps with the "diversification of the revenue stream." Directly contradicting the claim that Planned Parenthood only recoups its costs by the sale of fetal tissues, she says: "I think everyone realizes, especially because my department contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization..."

In discussing the prices that Planned Parenthood could command for fetal organs, Ms Farrell explains that administrative costs can be calculated along with "anything that we piggyback onto that for collection purposes." She also speaks about altering abortion procedures in order to maximize the chance that organs will remain intact; she says that "we deviate from our standard [crushing the child, particularly its head] in order to do that."

Some US senators found the courage to bring forward a bill which would have stripped Planned Parenthood of its $500 million in federal funding. But the "pro choice" (= pro baby-killing) lobby in Washington is strong, and the bill fell 7 votes short of the 60 votes needed to advance. The vote split along party lines, with only Senator Kirk (R - IL) voting with the Democrats, who undoubtedly didn't want to put the Prez or his putative successor (Hellery Clinton) in the embarrassing position of seeing their pro-abortion policies rejected.

Since the Democrats have stymied any action by the Senate, the only way for those who oppose the "harvesting" of the organs of the dead to fight this barbaric and immoral practice is to invoke the help of Almighty God. The Roman Catholic bishops of Colorado have asked the faithful to observe a day of penance and prayer on August 28th for recognition of the sacredness of life.

In a statement on July 31st, the bishops said, "We call on all people of good will in Colorado and beyond to pray that those involved in research and medicine will fix their sights on recognizing the sacredness of life and refrain from putting human life at the service of science. A society can only be considered socially just if it protects the most vulnerable among us."

On Wednesday, in "Another Boy, Another Question", Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, wrote that "for once we can actually take Planned Parenthood at their word, because in these videos they don’t use euphemisms, but instead they openly acknowledge the humanity of the babies they have aborted and are now dissecting. This makes perfect sense. The whole point was that the child was really a human person, and their organs and other tissue could be sold for experiments.

"In other words, the folks at Planned Parenthood finally told the truth about what they are actually doing when they abort over 300,000 babies each year –- that’s more than 20% of all abortions in this country: they are putting an end to an innocent, fragile, defenseless, human life.

"The importance of this is made particularly stark in a horrifying moment in one of the videos. A technician is exchanging small talk with the interviewer, all the while as she coldly describes her handling of the various organs of one of the aborted babies. She is then heard to exclaim, 'Another boy!'

"The pathos of that scene is almost beyond human comprehension. But the acknowledgement of the truth is a pivotal moment. Nobody can hide from it any longer. It comes right out of their own mouths. It’s not a thing. It’s not just some tissue. 'It’s a boy!' It’s a human, baby, boy."

And, in an op-ed published by the Chicago Tribune, Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago said that "the widespread revulsion over the tapes arose because they unmasked the fact that, in our public conversation about abortion, we have so muted the humanity of the unborn child that some consider it quite acceptable to speak freely of crushing a child's skull to preserve valuable body parts and to have that discussion over lunch.

"This newest evidence about the disregard for the value of human life also offers the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment as a nation to a consistent ethic of life," he added. "While commerce in the remains of defenseless children is particularly repulsive, we should be no less appalled by the indifference toward the thousands of people who die daily for lack of decent medical care; who are denied rights by a broken immigration system and by racism; who suffer in hunger, joblessness and want; who pay the price of violence in gun-saturated neighborhoods; or who are executed by the state in the name of justice."