Planned Parenthood’s Deadly Invasion
By Magaly Llaguno
2005

Unborn Americans who die at Planned Parenthood’s “health clinics”; and their mothers, who suffer abortion’s after effects and sometimes also die at these killing centers, are not the only victims of this evil organization. Planned Parenthood crossed over the border and invaded Mexico and other Latin American countries, over 30 years ago.

The Family Planning International Assistance Program (FPIA) was started in 1972 by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), U.S. associate member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation\Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF\WHR), which has affiliates in every Latin American country. FPIA’s objective is “to increase access to reproductive health services and strengthen support for reproductive rights in strategically selected countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean." 1 It supports those organizations that promote "sexuality education and contraceptive services among adolescents" and "safe abortion services". 2

In 1994, FPIA assisted 25 projects in 17 countries, including Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and Mexico. The Nicaragua project according to PPFA, also provided abortion and MR [menstrual regulation, early abortion] services." 3 A report on Family Planning International Assistance which accompanied a letter from FPIA dated July 10, 1995, states that Si Mujer clinic in Managua, Nicaragua, included “the provision of induced abortion services.” FPIA also supported “menstrual regulation services” in the “Sacaba health post” in Bolivia. By 1996, PPFA had already poured more than 285 million into FPIA, its international service arm.

Through the Global Partners program, PPFA’s “international public service policy and service initiative”, "partnerships” between PPFA affiliates in the U.S. and “family planning” organizations in other countries were established. 4

For example, the Tampico branch of IPPF's Mexico affiliate, MEXFAM, is receiving assistance from Planned Parenthood of Houston & Southeast Texas (PPHSET). When MEXFAM officials visited Houston, PPHSET threw a party attended by “the offices of several legislators and the mayor”, and the Houston Chronicle devoted “important space…to coverage of MEXFAM’s first visit to Houston.” “PPHSET, with the assistance of MEXFAM Tampico, has initiated its own “promotoras” program in Houston’s low-income, largely Hispanic East End neighborhood.” In Mexico and other Latin American countries, “Promotoras…go door to door in their own neighborhoods to offer family planning information, contraceptives and clinic referrals.” 5

These are some of the other Planned Parenthood “partners” in Latin America:

Planned Parenthood of Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle and MEXFAM, IPPF affiliate in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. 6

Planned Parenthood of Palm Beach and Treasure Coast Area in Florida, and APROFAM, IPPF affiliate in Guatemala. 7

Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette and Asociación Demográfica Costarricense, IPPF affiliate in Costa Rica. 8

Planned Parenthood of Southern Arizona and Asociación Demográfica Salvadoreña, IPPF affiliate in El Salvador. 9

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania and Sí Mujer’s “reproductive health clinic” in Nicaragua. Sí Mujer is that country’s main feminist pro-abortion group. 10 “Over 80 % of the FPIA funded projects are with women organizations or women’s leaders.” 11

“Youth partnerships” have also been established. 12 Planned Parenthood’s interest in reaching Hispanic youth is obvious when you see its very sexually explicit “Teenwire” website, which has an entire section in Spanish.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America has complained that “countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have the strictest abortion laws in the world.” 13 So through its international arm FPIA, it is promoting the legalization of abortion in Latin American countries, where for the most part it is illegal. In its 1991 Annual Report FPIA stated: “Abortion services became an increasingly important component of the FPIA program last year”; and it boasted that it had completed “abortion related projects” in Mexico and Peru, where laws still protect most unborn babies. 14 FPIA also works in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, as well as Asia and Africa, “to increase access to safe quality abortion services.” 15

What PPFA lost in U.S.A.I.D. funds because of the Mexico City Policy and its refusal to stop promoting and/or practicing abortions; American foundations such as Prospect Hill, Erik E. & Edith H. Bergstrom, The Prudential, David and Lucille Packard, Wallace Global Fund, William and Flora Hewlett, etc.; replaced more than adequately. The latter one gave PPFA for its FPIA international program $2,750,000 between 1999 and 2002. 16

Between 1999 and 2000, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation provided almost nine million dollars to anti-life groups and organizations in Mexico. Among them, GIRE (Mexico's main pro-abortion feminist organization) and the so-called Catholics for a Free Choice, which got 3 million of those funds "to develop a long-term regional plan for improving reproductive rights in Latin America" and $655,000 for a "collaborative reproductive rights initiative focusing on Catholic communities in Mexico". The Mac Arthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation have also given a great deal of financial help to the pro-abortion movement in Mexico. 17

FPIA was among the organizers and co-sponsors of a pro-abortion conference in Cuernavaca, Mexico in November 2001, called "Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion: Public Health Challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean."18 The program for the conference was painstakingly detailed, as if to design a how-to manual to procure legal abortion in the countries where it is illegal. Laws were reviewed, attitudes were researched and the use of surgical and chemical abortion methods were discussed. Some of the talks given during this three day conference included: "How to manage pain after D&C abortions...,” "Cost of maintaining abortion illegal in Chile", "Investigation as a strategy to improve abortion politics in Nicaragua" and "Talking about abortion to diverse audiences" by Frances Kissling, president of so-called “Catholics” for a Free Choice, which is another Planned Parenthood ally.19

The efforts of Planned Parenthood and its cohorts have paid off in one of Mexico’s states. In January 2002, seven of the eleven members of Mexico's Supreme Court, voted in favor of legalizing abortion in cases of rape and fetal malformation or disease, by declaring the pro-abortion Robles Reform, which had been approved the previous year, constitutional.20 Pro-abortion legislator Rosario Robles (the reform is named after her), claimed: "It is a triumph of the women's movement and an advance of the right to choose".21 Planned Parenthood Federation of America and American foundations, helped achieve that tragic triumph of the pro-death forces in Mexico and are active in other countries too.

NOTE: The author is Executive Director of Vida Humana International (VHI), the Hispanic Division of Human Life International in Miami. This article is based on a talk given by Mrs. Llaguno at the American Life League World Conference in New Orleans, July 14, 2002, titled "IPPF in Latin America". Other data was added. For more information (in English) on IPPF and Planned Parenthood’s activities, visit http://www.vidahumana.org/english/family/ippf-pp_index.html. For a list of Founders of Planned Parenthood’s Activities in Latin America, go to the section on Planned Parenthood (in English) at http://www.vidahumana.org/english/family/ippf-us.html. If you want to download free materials you can use to educate Hispanics on this evil organization, visit the section on Planned Parenthood in Spanish: http://www.vidahumana.org/vidafam/ippf/ppfa_index.html. If you wish to contact VHI, please write: vhi@vidahumana.org.