Skip to main contentLast week, as Oregon Right to Life officials were insisting they're not seeking to roll back Roe v. Wade in Salem, an out-of-state ally was laying an ambush for Planned Parenthood in Portland.
The American Life League has spent 18 years fighting against the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, contributing to the closure of several clinics across the nation. Its confrontational tactics were clear in Portland, where it had scheduled a "Planned Parenthood Hurts Women," press conference at the downtown Hilton Thursday morning--just hours before roughly 700 delegates from 129 Planned Parenthood facilities across the nation were scheduled to meet in a ballroom of the same hotel during PPFA's annual conference.
It was strategy, not coincidence, says Jim Sedlak, vice-president of the Virginia-based group: "We wanted to offer an opposing viewpoint."
Planned Parenthood officials didn't know about the impending showdown until a WW reporter asked them about it. They persuaded Hilton managers to request that the pro-lifers move their press conference, says PPFA spokeswoman Nancy Bennett.
Speaking at a DoubleTree Inn a mile away, Sedlak berated the nation's No. 1 abortion provider to a handful of supporters and a trio of reporters, attributing the poor turnout to the sudden change in venue.
Meanwhile, local antiabortion activist Paul deParrie, a past contributor to the group's newsletter, cruised downtown in a pickup truck plastered with the words "Hilton * Abortion," and a larger-than-life photograph of what appeared to be a bloody fetus. (His friend's truck, similarly festooned, is pictured above.)
Sedlak's most serious charge is that Planned Parenthood has economic incentive to promote abortion to clients.
But Bennett says the nonprofit actually loses money on abortion procedures by providing the service at below-market costs to its mostly low-income clientele. In the Portland area, as in the rest of the nation, she says surgical abortions account for roughly 4 percent of all services provided. "Right to Life wants people to think we're this abortion factory, and it's really false," Bennett says. "We spend the bulk of our resources on prevention."
That doesn't satisfy Sedlak, whose group subscribes to Catholic doctrine and thus opposes all forms of contraception except for natural family planning.
That hard-line stand is at odds with Oregon Right to Life and its effort to promote a moderate message as it pushes for an "informed consent" law requring that women to be told of alternatives to ending their pregnancies and wait 24 hours before getting an abortion. The group takes pains to note that it doesn't oppose contraception. Nonetheless, Sedlak is a featured speaker at Oregon Right to Life's "Say 'Yes' to Life" conference April 5 in Salem, where he'll lead a workshop titled "STOPPing Planned Parenthood from coming to your community."
WWeek 2015