Planned Parenthood, the United States’ largest abortion provider, has recently found itself in the center of controversy as a series of four under-cover videos released by The Center for Medical Progress have shown Planned Parenthood employees very nonchalantly and sometimes graphically discussing the donating and selling of aborted baby parts. A couple of the videos actually show aborted baby parts. Planned Parenthood maintains the legality of its actions.
I have only seen clips of these videos on news broadcasts and it is enough to turn my stomach. The longer videos can be found on the Center’s website. These disturbing videos naturally have elicited strong reactions. Some corporations like Coca-Cola, Ford, and Xerox have distanced themselves from the abortion giant, and many politicians are pushing for an investigation of possible illegal actions and a cease to federal funding for Planned Parenthood. There are many levels to this sad and abominable situation: political, legal, and most importantly, moral. Fortunately, it seems these videos are causing people to pause and to consider what it is really going on in our society and in the abortion industry.
Fr. Robert Barron, the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and recent appointee as auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, CA, also responded to the Planned Parenthood scandal by addressing what he believes to be the deeper issue at hand, namely, the loss of human dignity caused by a loss of belief in God.
He logically correlates the rejection of God with an increasing association of sentiment and feelings with human dignity instead of an objective and innate human dignity bestowed by God. He reminds his readers that feelings are fleeting and mercurial. Fr. Barron writes, “Once the human being is untethered from God, he becomes, in very short order, an object among objects, and hence susceptible to the grossest manipulations by the powerful and self-interested.”
To me, this latest Planned Parenthood scandal is just another sad example of this truth played out in modern society. The babies talked about and seen in the videos are certainly not being treated with the dignity and respect they merit as human beings. For that matter, their mothers were also not accorded the respect they deserve. Let us hope and pray that God’s grace and people’s actions will bring good from this darkness.
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