A Southern Baptist Minister Working with Planned Parenthood?
by T. C. Pinckney Vol. XIII, No. 5, May 2000
Being an editor is sometimes a lot of work but always interesting. And one of the most interesting things is that every once in a while someone sends you information you would not otherwise see. This article conveys to you one of these items ... one that a few years ago I would have found hard to believe, but which today — sadly — is not that surprising.
Below is the testimony of Rev. Bethany McLemore before the Virginia Senate Education and Health Committee, 24 February 2000, in opposition to HB 1482 requiring a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion. The bill failed in committee by an 8 to 7 vote.
I am Rev. Bethany McLemore. I'm a Southern Baptist minister, ordained at Waverly Place Baptist Church in Roanoke. I am a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and I have Masters degrees in both family counseling and religious education. I am a professional counselor with a Christian-based clinical practice. I am also the coordinator of pastoral education and counseling for Planned Parenthood of Blue Ridge (Va.), and on Tuesdays for the past 14 months, I have provided pre-abortion counseling to women seeking abortions.
I am here today to testify in opposition to house Bill 1482. My greatest objection to this measure is a 24-hour waiting period. In southwestern Virginia about 50 percent of our patients travel more than 90 miles round-trip for their abortion procedures. Some travel more than 300 miles. The 24-hour waiting period would effectively require that the informed consent process for these patients be obtained by telephone, a method that is vastly inferior to the face-to-face individual counseling we now provide.
House Bill 1482 may look good on paper. In truth this legislation is harmful to the very patients it purports to protect. The bill presumes that the legislation somehow needs to protect women from the likes of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.
Does it surprise the committee members that a Southern Baptist minister provides counseling in an abortion clinic? Or that there are at least two other ministers in Virginia providing abortion counseling? Does it surprise you that full adoption services are available on-site at our clinic and that we provide 30-minute counseling and education sessions to the partners, friends and family members who accompany abortion patients to our clinic? If you are surprised, then you do not fully understand the caring and concerned manner in which abortions are provided in Virginia.
Our system for ensuring that all abortion patients have freely given their consent, and are fully informed about this procedure, reflects the collective wisdom of our staff and our focus on the needs of our patients. I respectfully submit that the honorable members of the Senate will never be able to protect or empower women the way Planned Parenthood does. If you pass this bill you will only harm the women of Virginia by disrupting the thoughtful screening programs that exist among clinics throughout the commonwealth.
The above testimony is complemented by the following excerpt from a letter to the editor published in the Charlottesville Observer on 10 December 1999. The letter was signed by David Nova, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge, Inc., Roanoke. “We employ an on-site ordained Southern Baptist minister to provide religious and spiritual counseling in our abortion service.”
Note the attitudes both explicit and implicit in Rev. McLemore’s testimony. She speaks of “our focus on the needs of our patients”, by which she clearly means the pregnant women. Of course these women need care, concern, and Christian counseling. But nowhere does McLemore evince any concern and care for the babies who are to be murdered. Consider Psalm 106:37-39: “Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions.” She does not even mention the unborn babies, but no one could be more innocent than a baby still in the womb.
Next, think about her major objection to the bill, the proposed 24-hour waiting period. Someone might have to drive the round trip to Roanoke a second time! Horrors! What a burden! Think of the poor woman with all that driving. Let us just go ahead and tear the baby apart of the first visit! Be reasonable!
Now see her perspective on the role of Planned Parenthood. “The bill presumes that the legislation somehow needs to protect women from the likes of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.” Amen and amen. Babies are killed in such slaughterhouses, and the mothers are scarred for life. The knowledge that they are accomplices in killing their own children produces guilt and trauma years and decades later. Protect women from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers? Oh, were it possible to do so right today.
One of Israel’s great sins as recorded in Psalm 106 was that they sacrificed their sons and daughters to heathen gods. Of America’s many sins perhaps the foulest is that we sacrifice our sons and daughters to the gods of convenience, career, and cupidity.
May we each appeal to God in shame and sorrow that He lead our nation to repeal the Roe vs. Wade decision, reform our laws, and hound these baby butchers out of their bloody business. Pray for every woman facing such a decision that the Lord will speak to her heart and she will not permit the baby to be killed. May we also pray for the lost souls of the abortionists and those like Rev. McLemore who assist in the slaughter that they too may be moved by the Holy spirit to understand what they have done, repent, and enter Christ’s kingdom.