Culture Challenge of the Week: Blood Diamonds: Baby Blood

Tiffany’s.

Even the name sounds beautiful. America’s most elegant jeweler is synonymous with engagements, weddings, births, and anniversaries. Its stunning diamonds, jewelry, and silver mementos become enduring gifts to celebrate life’s most important occasions. The problem for most Americans, of course, is that Tiffany’s is way over-priced.

And now there’s another moral reason to avoid them: Tiffany’s has blood on its hands. Baby blood. The blood from some 350,000 abortions each year performed by Planned Parenthood on preborn American babies. As one of Planned Parenthood’s high-profile corporate sponsors, Tiffany’s helps underwrite the killing of pre-born babies.

I never would have guessed. I love the artful windows at Tiffany’s. Who knew that behind the beauty is a deadly, ugly secret? Who would have suspected that along with every purchase by young couples in love, or by husbands honoring their wives on anniversaries, that a portion of the money they hand over goes to fund the largest death mill in America?

The sparkly trinkets Tiffany’s sells are a stark contrast to the ugly, death-dealing business of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is not about “parenthood” at all – it’s an abortion business that generates nearly a billion dollars in income a year, with over a third of it coming directly from abortions.

The term “blood diamonds” now has a new meaning, thanks to Tiffany’s.

It’s a number that Planned Parenthood is absolutely driven to grow.

Like any other business, Planned Parenthood’s sales (in this case, abortions) depend on getting new “prospects” into the sales pipeline. How? By marginalizing parents’ influence, for one, and then reaching teens directly, through the Internet, schools, and entertainment media.

Teens drink up the Planned Parenthood-promoted cocktail of early sex and free birth control. And when the morning after rolls around, Planned Parenthood is there, providing abortions to “fix” the inevitable “contraceptive failures.” Now their business is set to expand further: Planned Parenthood has decreed that every one of its clinics must expand their facilities to include abortions. And then they’ll push more teens and women of color through the pipeline faster and earlier.

Ka-ching.

Abortion. That’s where the money is.

So Planned Parenthood grows rich on the blood of preborn children, with support from our government (a third of Planned Parenthood’s budget comes from the federal government–our tax dollars) and corporate sponsors. As of this writing, it’s not clear whether our Senators will muster enough votes this time around to end the funding for Planned Parenthood.

The American people, however, seem to be waking up. A new poll shows that 54% of Americans say that family planning organizations that perform abortions should not receive federal funds. And more than four in ten very strongly opposed giving any more funds to Planned Parenthood.

While we cannot vote on the budget question (but do call your Senator and tell him to defund Planned Parenthood!), it is clear that we families can have an impact on corporate sponsors.

How to Save Your Family: Boycott

In her excellent column, “Breakfast at Planned Parenthood,” writer Ashley McGuire details the effectiveness of Planned Parenthood’s propaganda machine and the greedy reach of its development efforts, which has found sponsorship from a whole parade of Fifth Avenue companies like Tiffany’s.

Ashley’s solution? Boycott. She recounts her own childhood memory of her family’s participation in a boycott of K-Mart for selling pornography. The boycott worked, leaving a big impression on Ashley. “I grew up knowing that consumers have a voice and can use it to weigh in on moral issues, one company at a time.”

Like Ashley’s family, our own families can pressure the companies that sponsor Planned Parenthood into thinking twice. For starters, don’t buy from them. But at least as important, tell them why you’re not shopping there any more.

Do boycotts work? In this case they clearly do.

Life Decisions International monitors an ongoing boycott effort against companies that support Planned Parenthood. Since the boycotts began nearly two decades ago, Planned Parenthood has lost nearly 40 million dollars in corporate sponsorships. And the pace at which they are losing those sponsorships has picked up markedly in recent months.

Ashely’s closes her column with a challenge. “How do you bring down Planned Parenthood?”

Her answer: “One donor at a time.” Amen, Ashley. And we’ll do it one diamond at a time too.