(See photo of Jonathan Abbamonte to left)… This past summer, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a series of undercover videos showing, among other things, that Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and other abortion-related companies allegedly have been engaged in the illegal sale of baby body parts. Many prolife organizations have joined this renewed call to defund PPFA. But among these groups, Population Research Institute (PRI) of Front Royal, VA, stands apart from most.
Because of PRI’s public testimony, the Mexico City Policy was crafted in 1984 to prevent millions of US tax dollars from underwriting abortions procured by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in other countries, thereby saving thousands of lives in the womb. And after PRI’s president Steven Mosher exposed the coercive abortions and other abuses resulting from China’s one-child policy, the 1985 Kemp-Kasten Amendment was drafted to allow any sitting U.S. President to deny federal funding for programs that promote these kinds of coercive measures.
Recently, Catholic Business Journal correspondent Joseph O’Brien spoke by phone with PRI research analyst Jonathan Abbamonte about PRI’s contribution to the growing effort to defund PPFA.
Catholic Business Journal: What experience does PRI bring to the effort among prolife groups and individuals to defund Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA)?
Jonathan Abbamonte: PRI has been at the forefront of defunding coercive population programs and coercive abortion programs for quite some time. We’ve been working for the past 25 years to defund population control programs and anything associated with them. For instance, our president, Stephen Mosher, was very influential and is considered one of the grandfathers of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment. President Ronald Reagan was the first to use that measure to defund a certain portion of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). They were involved with China’s one-child policy and the amendment helped deny a lot of funding for coercive abortion programs overseas. Stephen Mosher was also very influential in getting the Mexico City policy started, and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) received a lot of money through US foreign appropriations and with several administrations we’ve been able to siphon off and cut off millions of dollars of funding to the IPPF.
CBJ: How is the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IFPA) related to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) – and what role does Population Research Institute play in the domestic attempts to defund PFFA, especially since there are no ostensible coercive population control programs in the U.S.?
JA: I wouldn’t say there was never such a thing as coercive population control programs in the U.S.. There were several coerced population programs for people who were considered mentally inferior throughout southeastern U.S. – and across the entire U.S. in fact. There was a large sterilization campaign program in California for many years as well. There have been quite a few programs like that in the U.S.. PPFA promotes family planning very heavily to gain acceptors, in order to make their program seem better for the purposes of funding—to make themselves appear effective in what they do. They’ll push the family programs very strongly and are pretty good at hiding their tracks. But they’re quite strong in getting family planning programs implemented even when the countries are not open to such programs or the cultural sensibilities of the host country are such that they don’t really use contraception all that much. Nonetheless, they push strongly to implement their family planning programs all over the world.
CBJ: What interest has PRI taken in the Center for Medical Progress videos released over the summer and has it helped your cause?
JA: Actually we’ve done quite a bit in that area. We translated the videos into Spanish so they are easily accessible to the Latin American community here in the U.S. and abroad. So they can see these videos in their own language and see the atrocities firsthand. We’ve also been exposing the atrocities of PPFA here in the U.S. with the videos and throughout Latin America. We’ve worked hard to get that message out to the Latin American audience as well.
CBJ: What does PRI consider the global hotspots for IPPF activities?
JA: International Planned Parenthood Federation works largely through other organizations in Latin America. They have their heels dug in pretty deep down there, and they’re allied with organizations that run abortion hotlines that advise women how to obtain abortion-inducing drugs and how to have a self-administered abortion. Abortion is illegal in most of Latin America, with exceptions for the life and health of the mother. Usually these are the only exceptions. Generally speaking throughout Latin America, abortion is illegal. lIPPF has also invested a lot of money in programs in Africa, particularly Sub-Sahara Africa.
CBJ: Why these two areas – South America and Africa?
JA: These areas have strong prolife cultures, and for Planned Parenthood, that is something they see as necessary to overcome.
CBJ: Does PRI see defunding Planned Parenthood as a realistic goal?
JA: You always try for the best you can get. You always work as hard as you can to move the conversation forward. I think there is definitely a realistic vision in the long term to defund Planned Parenthood (PPFA). There is so much evidence that’s been mounting on top of them, and we have so much momentum going into it, that something has to give.
CBJ: Do you think that the undercover videos released by CMP have been a wakeup call for the rest of the country regarding abortion?
JA: I have a lot of hope that people will see PPFA and the abortion industry in general for what it is. I think the American public is coming to terms with this fact. Earlier this year, in February, Gallup had a poll out that a majority of Americans are unsatisfied with the current abortion restrictions as they stand. They want more stringent restrictions – and there are a lot more people out there who believe that our abortion laws are too permissive.
CBJ: Since moral arguments don’t always persuade those who are OK with legalized abortion, what is the best practical argument for defunding Planned Parenthood? For instance, contrary to what PPFA executives have said, Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms – but is that the best argument to make for defunding? “Planned Parenthood lied about mammograms, so therefore we should defund them.” It seems they could simply start doing mammograms and that argument becomes obsolete.
JA: We can approach that from a number of different angles. Yes, Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms – but I think it would be an enormous expense if Planned Parenthood started doing mammograms. I don’t think that’s something they’re going to do tomorrow.
They take in a heck of a lot of taxpayer money and what do we have to show for it? We see PPFA funding organizations in other countries to pressure those governments and administrations and public society to liberalize their laws on abortion. What PPFA is promoting is primarily abortion; they promote a lot of family planning services as well, HIV services and whatnot, but a significant part of what they do is procuring abortion. That isn’t healthcare. It’s the absolute opposite of healthcare. It’s not healthy for the children who are aborted; it’s not healthy for the women involved on an emotional level, and it can be risky to a woman’s physical health too. It can even put women in life-threatening situations.
CBJ: Can you give us any examples of how Planned Parenthood has put women in life-threatening situations, aside from having the abortion itself?
JA: Yes. For instance, Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa run “tele-med” abortion clinics where a woman doesn’t even have a doctor present in a clinic. Women are simply given the abortion-inducing pills and they take the drugs remotely. They may never see a doctor, they may never have follow up care and, if they have an incomplete abortion, it will be really up to them to present themselves to a doctor or to a hospital. There are a number of different angles to approach Planned Parenthood from a practical standpoint.
CBJ: Since Planned Parenthood is a business – is there anything practical that Catholic business leaders can do to fight fire with fire, as it were?
JA: PRI has the perfect answer to the culture of death [which Catholic business leaders would do well to invest in —ed.]. We are promoting the culture of life by establishing women care centers in the Caribbean. We just opened a pregnancy center in St. Lucia and it’s gong to help economically disadvantaged women who may not have the support to give them access to quality prenatal and postnatal care, job training to support themselves and their children. These centers will save a lot of children from the grips of Planned Parenthood and similar organizations, to reclaim them from the culture of death. Instead of always being reactionary, we’re trying to be a bit more proactive, working not just to fend off Planned Parenthood, but also to build a culture of life.
To learn more about the work of the Population Research Institute (PRI), click here: www.POP.org