Catholic University Forces NPR Station to Refuse Funding From Planned Parenthood
I can't believe I just cancelled my membership to my local NPR station. Not only have I long been a member of WDUQ in Pittsburgh, but also I spent part of my undergraduate career working there while a student at Duquesne University. Yep, I'm hardcore Catholic: RC elementary school, high school and college. And a hardcore news junkie, listening to hours of NPR news shows on WDUQ, punctuated with all those annoying but necessary "underwriting" announcements.
But after two days of the current pledge drive, the perennially cash-strapped station got the message to "refuse underwriting from Planned Parenthood." The university is actually the station's license holder, and it objects to the broadcast of:
Support for DUQ comes from Planned Parenthood, offering healthcare services to men, including screenings for cancer and STDs. Planned Parenthood: Their mission is prevention.
Support for DUQ comes from Planned Parenthood, providing comprehensive sexuality education, including lessons on abstinence. Planned Parenthood: Their mission is prevention.
Support for DUQ comes from Planned Parenthood, whose community educators empower teens to make good choices by teaching self-esteem. Planned Parenthood: Their mission is prevention.
Support for DUQ comes from Planned Parenthood, offering cancer screenings for women and men. Planned Parenthood: Their mission is prevention.
Though founded by the Fathers of the Holy Spirit, the university is run by lay people (i.e. not members of the clergy, for you non-Catholics) who don't seem to have a good grasp of community relations, let alone journalistic integrity. The administration's stated rationale is that funding for WDUQ is actually "a gift to the university," and that Planned Parenthood doesn't jibe with every dot and tittle of Catholic doctrine. The Church actually objects to artificial assistance to help infertile couples conceive, as much as it objects to artificial methods of preventing conception, but, golly, DUQ accepts underwriting from IVF clinics.
OK, I understand that whoever is pulling the strings at my alma mater is making a hamhanded statement about abortion. Very little of what Planned Parenthood does involves abortion, but that doesn't stop the powers-that-be from threatening both the integrity and the solvency of the area's largest NPR station. (I shall refrain from making a bad joke about the Church's possibly objecting to Planned Parenthood's counseling for victims of sexual assault.) What most dismays me about the PWB's shenanigans is how so very counter-productive they are. Gee, wouldn't you think that an awful lot of the people who would give money to an NPR news station are the type who would also support reproductive rights? Is it really a good idea to tick off so many of the station's members?
Even more to the point, undercutting the efforts of Planned Parenthood is more likely to increase, not decrease the demand for abortion. Serendipitously, today's New York Times reported on a worldwide study of abortion rates, quoting Dr. Paul Van Look, director of the World Health Organization's department of reproductive health and research:
We now have a global picture of induced abortion in the world, covering both countries where it is legal and countries where laws are very restrictive. What we see is that the law does not influence a woman's decision to have an abortion. If there's an unplanned pregnancy, it does not matter if the law is restrictive or liberal.
The study, published in Lancet (you can read the 13-page pdf here), says the data also suggest that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make abortion illegal but to make contraception more widely available. The highest rates of abortion are in countries that outlaw abortion; not surprisingly, these are also the places with the highest rates of maternal death from abortion complications. The lowest abortion rates? In Western Europe, where abortion is not only legal, but contraception is also available as part of citizens' universal health coverage.
Although WDUQ did obey its bosses and refuse the underwriting, thus far it has been the only media outlet anywhere to carry the story, so I'm not sure what this says about being an NPR station at a Catholic University.
Personal rant: Don't assume you already know my stance on abortion. I'm Catholic, and I'm pro-life. This doesn't mean that I want the force of law (and tax money) used to persecute women and girls who think they need an abortion. The individual, not the government, should make decisions about one's personal health. The risks of pregnancy can be very high, and no one -- but NO ONE -- has the right to impose those risks on another. This also doesn't mean I am not totally repulsed by a casual attitude toward abortion and pregnancy, but I know only too well that barriers to legal abortion are enforced only for those without money and/or connections. The well-to-do will always be able to get a proper medical abortion for whatever silly reason they want, even as poor women are refused life-saving therapeutic abortions for ectopic pregnancies because of bizarrely legalistic misinterpretations of Catholic doctrine.
Under such bizarrely legalistic misinterpretations of Catholic doctrine, I should never have been born, or at best should have grown up without a mother. OK, here's my personal story. No abortion is involved, so it's not like my late friend Gwen Eliot's story. It's really my parents' story, and since they've both passed, I can't embarrass them by sharing.
Despite my strict Catholic upbringing, my father was openly disdainful of the Church. He rarely followed the fasting laws, never went to Mass or Confession. He didn't explain this behavior to us kids. Of course, he didn't have to, since he was the Man of the Family. I learned the truth only after my mother's death.
She had long been in poor health, and had been since the birth of her first child, my elder brother, in 1947. Her doctors warned her not to get pregnant again too soon. She was 21, and a married woman. The Church said using contraception was a sin, and she confessed that sin when she went to Confession. The priest called her a "whore to her husband," and sent her home in tears and without forgiveness. When her husband finally teased out the explanation for those tears, he stormed off to the church.
My future father was a devout Catholic, both a choir boy and an altar boy in his youth. His wartime love letters to my future mother were filled with references to God, and his wedding gift to her was a rosary, which I now cherish. Well, he loved God and he loved my mother, and saw no contradiction. He literally dragged the priest from his confessional and began to berate him. Before anything physical could happen, a friend pulled away my father, who would not re-enter a church for a long time.
My parents continued to use contraception until the doctors said a pregnancy might not be so life-threatening. Nine months later, I was born. It was a tricky birth, and the doctors told my mother she could not safely have another child. I had no other siblings, but I had two loving parents well into my adulthood. For that, my parents sinned?
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Voices of reason and compassion will always be attacked by those who have little tolerance for the complexities of life. Bless you for having the courage to be one such voice.
God, please protect us from your followers!
Michelle,
Thanks for confirming that not all religious people want to foist their beliefs on the rest of us. Religion does not belong in a courtroom, a school or a doctors office. The choice to have an abortion is between the woman and her god. Free will and all that jazz.
"Judge not lest ye be judged" never seems to enter into the minds of some of these evangelicals.
I personally prefer "Live and let live." You stay out of my backyard, and I'll stay out of yours.
I applaud the university for trying to stay true to its Catholic identity!
As for Ms. Pilecki, you can't be Catholic and pro-abortion. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Yes, you're claiming that you don't want to force choices on others. But I assume you support laws against homicide, theft, and rape. Why should our protection for babies be any less? What if I'm about to starve to death? I'll still be arrested for stealing food. There's no "health or life exception" to theft.
And please don't think that I'm trying persecute any woman for her choices. We all have difficult decisions to make in life, and sometimes we don't choose the best path. God offers His loving forgiveness for anyone who sincerely repents, including post-abortive women.
Women shouldn't be punished. Abortionists should. They're the ones murdering babies in cold blood.
See Michelle Pilecki's Profile
Wha?! I'm not "pro-abortion" and I don't know anyone who is. But I am opposed to giving the government the right to impose its medical choices on individuals.
You think that women facing life-threatening pregnancies should be considered criminals if they want to survive? And the medical professionals who try to help them should be persecuted? Do you dare call yourself a Christian?
Abortion should never have been criminalized in the first place, and the laws do nothing to prevent them. If you truly care about babies, why not support those organizations that help poor families? If you truly oppose abortion, then you should support those organizations whose efforts actually lessen the number of unwanted pregnancies and provide reproductive health care so that healthy women can bear healthy babies when they want to.
Or are you only interested in mouthing off and treating women as mere vessels?
Yes, I consider myself a Christian. In fact, I'm a Roman Catholic. Jesus taught us to tell the Truth in face of immoral lies. We aren't supposed to judge others, but we are supposed to teach our Lord's commandments. I believe one of them says "Thou shalt not kill." I have not said that women or abortionists are condemned to Hell or that they should be persecuted; I have said that abortion is killing and should be illegal.
I do care about women and babies. I care about ALL women, even those in the womb. I fully support organizations who care for needy people, such as local food banks, Goodwill, and soup kitchens. I also support health care for these people, but NOT by Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood is a $900-million dollar killing machine. It kills babies, women, and severely harms those that survive. It encourages a licentious, immoral lifestyle where there are no consequences. This is not the type of "non profit" group that $300 million of our tax dollars should fund.
--Andrew Flusche
I agree, I think Focus On The Right-Wing Bible Nazi is eminently better programming than Treehugger Monthly
;)
If this was the only case of its kind, I could get a little more excited.
Besides organizations and individuals routinely do not subsidize causes that do not align with their views.
And they should not be forced to do so!
I know, I know. "But this is NPR"!
I've got news for you, they lost credibility long ago. And now are little more than Public Begging Stations fronting special interests and corporate america.
See Michelle Pilecki's Profile
Excuse me, but you have this exactly backward. The NPR station was and is in NO WAY "subsidizing" the cause of Planned Parenthood, but vice versa. Planned Parenthood was giving money to NPR stations in several states to promote the messages noted above. WDUQ, during a pledge drive, i.e. specifically asking people for money, was ordered to refuse the money from Planned Parenthood.
Dear Ms. Pilecki,
I can only say... that's why I like your style, blessings on ya.
Get this one, I had to pay for my Mother and Father's sin for being married at City Hall and not in the Church, the Church refused to baptise me, by intent the (so called priest) was condemning my soul to hell.
Well I guess the Church is not as bad as a the times of the Inquisition, but not by much.
Agape, the condemned baby dap ;(
Duquesne's WDUQ is part of a Catholic University, it would be foolhardy to think that they could or should take Planned Parenthood money. It is that simple.
Sticking by one's principles is not easy and comes with its' own problems.
We have a right not to support the station if that is what we believe.
Since when do we all have to believe in the same thing? And why is it necessary to denigrate the Catholic Religion because it doesn't accept abortion? In America we have choices. We need to learn to make cogent arguments for our own side and quit villifying the other side for their beliefs.
We are becoming a winner-take-all society and because of that we are becoming more and more intolerant of each other. We are weaker as a society. We are being influenced by groups, on either side, who use hot button issues to lead us around by the nose. The Founding Fathers understood why church and state should be separated and why it makes us stronger as a nation...i
See Michelle Pilecki's Profile
Excuse me, but I'm hardly "denigrating" the Catholic religion. I'm a Catholic. My point is that the real way to lessen the number of elective abortions is to improve access to both comprehensive sexuality education and effective contraception. Legally persecuting women has proved itself entirely ineffective as a method to reduce abortion rates.
By denigrating the Catholic Religion I was referring to the posts...no
I also believe that the decision to have an abortion is so incredibly life altering that it is not up to me to judge the woman's motive for making the choice that conerns her future, her body and the future of the life growing inside of her.
I grew up in the era before Rowe v Wade, I remember girls and women being found dead or near dead because of botched abortion attempts -- we were too polite to talk about the cause back then.
I am aggravated with my Church because of our stand on contraception which is wrong-headed.
I actually agree with your premise but know that in the light of day the University must follow the party line.
Things may change in the future regarding the Church's stand on contraception but until that day we will remain irrelevant in the lives of the women who need us most.
If the university cannot handle the pressures of operating a National *PUBLIC* Radio station, then they should give it up to someone who can rather than try to impose their religion upon the station.
I agree that sticking by one's principles is not easy and comes with its own problems. But in this case, the conflict between freedom of the press and freedom of religion means that Duquesne needs to step aside and let someone else take over as they clearly do not understand the point behind freedom of the press. Nobody is making them host NPR.
For one who brought up the separation of church and state, you seem to have forgotten the point of what that means.
Michele and rlehman- According to most of the people who speak for the "pro-life" movement, you can't be "pro-life"' and not support making abortion illegal. And, according to people on the "pro-choice" side, wanting abortion to be safe and legal, even if you have a personal disdain for it IS pro-choice (like the vast majority of people in the U.S.). Guess what? In the current political situation, you are pro-choice and not "pro-life.
Knowing NPR listeners that won't be tolerated for long. I hope.
I'm pro-life but not anti-choice. To be anti-choice is to be anti-life as the recent study you cited proves. Women will have abortions and no matter what I believe to be the 'right' choice. I simply can't make it for another person.
Smoking is suicide. I continue to smoke. Neither my priest nor the RC guy down the street is going to refuse me absolution because I smoke. And though smoking is becoming less and less acceptable in more and more places, including inside my house, I don't hear any hue and cry for making it illegal.
Parking your kids in front of a TV several hours a day has a direct relation to their weight and their risk for high blood pressure and diabetes. You allow your kids to watch TV or play video games all day you make the choice for them to very possibly suffer an early death. Yet no one is going to make it illegal for you to allow your kids to watch hour upon hour of TV.
Early death by abortion, slow, painful early death due to TV. How is one different from the other? Yet no one would dare deprive you of your rights as a parent to decide whether or not your child should be allowed to watch TV.
It's not the religion thats bad - It's those that use's the religion for there own gains ...
Who among them - Can say they are GOD'S Judge's - To say to this child - Or that child - You are condemed to hell - and to this child - Or that child - you are forgiven forever ???
For what man or woman - Can so proudly proclaim - They Know the heart of God ....
For God has said beyond any doubt - Jugement is Mine ...
.
I listen to NPR more since Air America recently became less wonderful, but I loathe NPR a little more every day. In Bushworld, a radio network financed by the government and huge corporations is a recipe for disaster, and NPR delivers. They report Republican abominations each day without an iota of irony, skepticism or analysis, and certainly no criticism, making them good for nothing.
Next pledge drive I'm sending a big fat check to planned parenthood and stiffing the stiffs at NPR, and I hope other do the same.
You can bet your wisdom that i will as well raker!
Planned Parenthood is pro-life..
After your family's experiences, why on earth would you or your parents be Catholics? If ever there was a "shake the dust from your sandals" situation, you've just described it...
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