Planned Parenthood's "Creative Subterfuge"

Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, is attempting to open a humongous, 22,000-square-feet abortion clinic in Aurora, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. No problem, right? Abortion's legal and all that.

Well, not so fast. Yesterday U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle denied the organization's request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the clinic to open. It seems that PP didn't disclose to city fathers that it owned the building--after applying for permits under another name--nor that abortions would be performed there. Not only is the clinic's opening delayed, now the county's states attorney is looking into whether any laws were violated.

Abortion-rights supporters, such as Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, applaud what PP did--calling it "creative subterfuge"--to sneak a "reproductive health clinic" into Aurora. Zorn writes:

Well of course Planned Parenthood representatives didn’t tell the truth to Aurora city officials while they were building a new clinic in the western suburb.

They hid behind the name of a subsidiary company, Gemini Office Development, and were misleadingly vague when asked along the way about the identity of prospective tenants for the $7.5 million facility.

Their goal was straightforward: To open a reproductive-health clinic on land zoned for such purpose.

But they had to use a certain amount of stealth because abortion is one of the services Planned Parenthood offers. And foes of abortion rights, longtime losers in the battle for public opinion, traditionally raise all kinds of rukus [sic] when Planned Parenthood comes into a community.

The foes not only picket construction sites, but they also send picketers out to harass subcontractors at their homes and businesses, try to spread alarm and disgust in the immediate neighborhoods and attempt to browbeat civic officials into implementing just the sort of craven, politically motivated delays we’re now seeing in Aurora.

Then when Planned Parenthood is revealed to have tried to prevent such pressure tactics by using a little creative subterfuge, the opponents of abortion-rights carry on indignantly, as though the deceptions were an effort to skirt the law.

Let me see if I have his reasoning down correctly: (1) the ends justify the means, if the ends are to promote abortion; and (2) it's all the fault of pro-lifers, anyway.

Such situational relativism may work on "24," but it doesn't work in the real world, Eric. Also, if you pro-choicers have really won in the court of public opinion, why do you have to resort to deception to get a clinic without the public's knowledge?

And what would you say if pro-lifers engaged in a little "creative subterfuge" of their own? It seems to me that they have been (unfairly) pilloried by abortion supporters because they don't advertise the fact that their crisis pregnancy centers don't offer abortions. They are criticized for not advertising a service they don't offer. Of course, who does? But in this instance, PP is not advertising a service they do offer. I wonder why?

This whole episode highlights a persistent problem for abortion-rights advocates: an aversion to telling the truth about abortion, which has taken the lives of 50 million unborn children since 1973.