“Catholic Obstetrician Responds to Planned Parenthood Videos”
August 7, 2015, St. John’s, Newfoundland:
This summer, grotesque videos were and continue to be released, to the media of directors and staff of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) discussing the selling of human remains obtained from abortions and partial birth abortions.
The Globe and Mail reported that:
They talked about second-trimester fetal humans as if they were fetal pigs. They talked about asking doctors to alter their abortion procedures in order to obtain better specimens for research. As the second executive puts it, she’ll see “… how he feels about using a less crunchy technique.”
While we recoil from the imagery of these conversations, had over drinks in restaurants, we should remember to be outraged and demand government funding be withdrawn from every organization, and every associated organization, that treats the human person and the human body as if it were an extractable commodity.
This is happening in the United States. The U.S. is one of only 17 countries worldwide where more women are dying in childbirth than in decades prior. This is the legacy of leaving women’s health care in the hands of the PPFA.
It is reprehensible that an organization that claims to be a provider in women’s health care would show such callousness towards a human being. It wakes us up to the fundamental question, which is, what does success in maternal health look like?
Does success look like helping women to end their pregnancies, because they don’t have the resources available in order to carry them to term and care for their children after birth? Or does success look like giving women the freedom to have their children, safely, with access to resources, support, and care both during and after pregnancy?
Success in maternal health looks like caring for the whole person, and beyond that, caring for the whole community. Educating fathers, involving community elders, providing pre and postnatal care, providing medicine, transportation and doctors, providing nutritional information, providing breastfeeding support.
The ONLY way to adequately reduce maternal mortality is to be comprehensive. We can no longer dismiss the child in the womb as an extractable commodity.
-Dr. Robert L. Walley, founder and executive director of MaterCare International, is an emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists of England, and has a Masters degree in International Health from Harvard University.
MaterCare International is an organization of Catholic health professionals dedicated to the care of mothers and babies, both born and unborn, through new initiatives of service, training, research and advocacy, which are designed to reduce the tragically high rates of maternal mortality, morbidity and abortion. MCI’s mission is to carry out the work of Evangelium Vitae (the Gospel of Life) by improving the lives and health of mothers and babies both born and unborn, through new initiatives of service, training, research, and advocacy designed to reduce the tragic levels of abortion worldwide and maternal and perinatal mortality, morbidity in developing countries.
Contact: Dr. Robert Walley, Executive Director of MaterCare International
Ph: (709) 579-6472 (Office hours M-F 8am – 4pm Newfoundland time)
Mobile: (709) 753-3705
Email: info@matercare.org
