Without federal tax money, the new abortion mega center could not have been purchased

KISSIMMEE, Florida (www.forerunner.com) – Almost 200 Osceola physicians, pastors and community leaders packed a 3-1/2 hour open microphone forum at Kissimmee City Commission meeting on Tuesday night, April 1st. Over 100 concerned citizens sat and stood the chamber. Dozens more stood in the hallways not able to gain immediate entrance.

610 Oak Commons Blvd, Kissimmee, Florida is the location of a proposed Planned Parenthood abortion mega center.

Mayor Jim Swan listened patiently and at times responded testily as dozens expressed their outrage and concern at the audacity of Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando’s (PPGO) strategy to open a $2 million abortion “mega-center.” The location is in the heart of Kissimmee’s Hispanic community at 610 Oak Commons Blvd. directly across the street from Osceola Regional Medical Center.

Several of the speakers, including John Barros, a local pro-life evangelist, explained to the City Commission that Orlando area abortion clinics have brought urban blight to the properties immediately surrounding them. Orlando abortions centers are a magnet for pimps and prostitutes associated with the tourist industry. They bring into the abortion center the worst kind of human trafficking imaginable, as well as drug users and all sorts of criminal activity.

“You have no clue as to what this will bring to your neighborhood,” said Barros.

John Barros spoke about what goes on around abortion clinics.

Several other doctors spoke of the patients they deal with daily whose lives have been ravaged by abortion. They spoke of the emotional and physical problems that continue for many years.

Some expressed concern that an abortion clinic would make neighboring buildings unmarketable and would drive down the property values of the medical complexes along Oak Commons Blvd.

Dr. John Littell, who heads a local family medical practice near downtown Kissimmee, spoke passionately about the financial and moral impact the abortion center will have on families. Littell argued that it is nearly impossible to get a pain clinic licensed in the city. Strip clubs are not allowed within city limits. Recently, a funeral home was not allowed to open next to a MacDonalds. Littell urged the city to consider how an abortion center could be allowed to open, when more stringent laws are applied to far less less dangerous and offensive businesses.

Dr. John Littell and several Kissimmee area doctors defended the sanctity of life.

Others strongly urged the city of Kissimmee to take a long, hard look at zoning laws that might prohibit PPGO or at least a future abortion center from opening in Kissimmee.

At 9:30 pm, Mayor Jim Swan cut off further comments saying that it might take several more hours to hear from every person who signed up to speak.

He noted ironically that not a single pro-abortion advocacy comment had been heard among the dozens who showed up to speak at the meeting.

Stop Planned Parenthood of Kissimmee

Kissimmee is the principal city in Osceola County, a fast-growing family community populated by many Hispanic families who work in the service industry related to the many tourist attractions. The city serves as the “South Gate” to Disney World in neighboring Lake Buena Vista with hundreds of hotels and restaurants.

According to an Orlando Sentinel interview with the president and CEO, Jenna Tosh, the Kissimmee mega center will target “a largely Hispanic population.” Tosh emphasized several times in the article that the center would target the “ethnic” community and “the young and diverse population” of Osceola County.

The Sentinel article stated that funding for the new Planned Parenthood $2 million mega center came from over 30 individuals and foundations.

According to Rachel Burgin of Florida Right to Life, a large tax-payer funded federal grant enabled PPGO to expand their operation into Osceola County. A PPGO prospectus lists their 2012 federal grant revenue at $731,870 up from $388,831 in 2011. Individual contributions were $110,948. Foundations and corporate contributions were at $94,877. Without federal tax money, the new abortion mega center could not have been purchased.

Ironically, the pro-abortion leaning Sentinel made no mention that Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America or that the Kissimmee center would provide abortions. The article reads as little more than a cheerleading piece for PPGO. Jenna Tosh, in fact, is a frequent guest columnist.

In a Channel 13 News report, Tosh used a Planned Parenthood talking point to claim that “less than 10 percent” of what they do involves abortion.

The stark reality of PPGO’s 990 forms tells a different story. In fiscal year 2011, PPGO reported that the total revenue of the non-profit organization was $3,891,501 while $1,412,162 was earned through surgical abortion. In addition, $104,211 went to the salary of the President/CEO, a position formerly filled by Susan Idtensohn and then Jenna Tosh who took the reins in mid-2011.

To say that $1.4 million out of $3.9 million amounts to less than 10 percent is either deceptive or else Jenna Tosh is extraordinarily bad at math.

The key word here is “services.” PPGO’s claim is akin to a Cadillac dealership claiming that they do preventative car maintenance, oil changes, charity car washes, and provide free bottled water in the show room for thirsty customers. It would be a ridiculous statement for Cadillac to claim that their business isn’t about selling Cadillacs because less than 10 percent of their “services” involve car sales.

It is also revealing that Planned Parenthood takes pains to downplay the fact that they are America’s largest abortion provider. If they believe women have the right to abort their unborn children, then why do they try to minimize what they do?

Jenna Tosh is once again underestimating the moral outrage that will result from her audacity. She claims that she is targeting Hispanics. Well-organized education will be mounted by the local pro-life medical community, as well as hundreds of local churches and pro-life ministries in the central Florida area, will show that Planned Parenthood harms, but does not help ethnic minorities. What Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando really does is to earn millions from abortion to enrich a few. This will be exposed.

A Facebook page called Stop Planned Parenthood of Kissimmee was launched by several Orlando area pro-life evangelists in an effort to alert the community on March 19th. Grassroots efforts resulted in a turnout of about 200 concerned citizens at the Kissimmee City Commission meeting on April 1st. In addition, a prayer vigil and awareness campaign is planned for Saturday, April 5th at 610 Oak Commons at 9 am.

The Legacy of Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood

Many of the comments before the City Commission stressed that the Hispanic community of Kissimmee would be harmed by the abortion mega center. Some of the residents spoke of Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, who favored eugenics and spoke of ethnic minorities as being “inferior” and as “human weeds.”

Sanger once wrote, “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

While I do not want to believe that Planned Parenthood’s leaders today are as overtly racist and opportunistic as Sanger, the effect of the abortion giant on ethic communities has been more devastating than anything Sanger herself would have sanctioned.

In another passage in her autobiography, she writes of meeting with a female branch of the Ku Klux Klan.

I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing. My letter of instruction told me what train to take, to walk from the station two blocks straight ahead, then two to the left. I would see a sedan parked in front of a restaurant. If I wished I could have ten minutes for a cup of coffee or bite to eat, because no supper would be served later. I obeyed orders implicitly, walked the blocks, saw the car, found the restaurant, went in and ordered some cocoa, stayed my allotted ten minutes, then approached the car hesitatingly and spoke to the driver. I received no reply. She might have been totally deaf as far as I was 1 concerned. Mustering up my courage, I climbed in and settled back. Without a turn of the head, a smile, or a word to let me know I was right, she stepped on the self-starter. For fifteen minutes we wound around the streets. It must have been towards six in the afternoon. We took this lonely lane and that through the woods, and an hour later pulled up in a vacant space near a body of water beside a large, unpainted, barnish building. My driver got out, talked with several other women, then said to me severely, “Wait here. We will come for you.” She disappeared. More cars buzzed up the dusty road into the parking place. Occasionally men dropped wives who walked hurriedly and silently within. This went on mystically until night closed down and I was alone in the dark. A few gleams came through chinks in the window curtains. Even though it was May, I grew chillier and chillier. After three hours I was summoned at last and entered a bright corridor filled with wraps. As someone came out of the hall I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses. I waited another twenty minutes. It was warmer and I did not mind so much. Eventually the lights were switched on, the audience seated itself, and I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak. Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand. In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York. Under a curfew law everything in Silver Lake shut at nine o’clock. I could not even send a telegram to let my family know whether I had been thrown in the river or was being held incommunicado. It was nearly one before I reached Trenton, and I spent the night in a hotel.

Margaret Sanger An Autobiography, 1971 reprint by Dover Publications, Inc. of the 1938 original published by W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 366-367.