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HOUSTON–A diverse group of pastors gathered on the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision to condemn renovation of a six-story Houston building into what they described as “the largest abortion clinic in the world.”
Some of those same pro-life advocates days later questioned the Houston City Council about monitoring the proposed Planned Parenthood facility to ensure compliance with local, state, and federal laws. Houston Mayor Bill White’s director of health and environmental policy, Elena Marks, is national chairwoman of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Sonny Foraker, spokesman for the Greater Houston Area Pastor Council and pastor of First Baptist Church of Pearland, told the group of supporters and journalists, “We are standing here because [abortion] is a moral evil that destroys human life. We stand together as pastors to say this is not something we want in our community.”
The building, formerly the Sterling Bank at 4600 Gulf Freeway, loomed behind the pastors as they took turns on Jan. 22 speaking out against the new Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas clinic. Planned Parenthood officials did not return repeated phone calls from the TEXAN for comment.
“This building is an invitation that gives everyone the message that it is OK to take life away,” said pastor Hernan Castano of Iglesia Rios de Aceite in Houston. “This cannot be the answer to the world. We must respect life.”
Melvin Johnson, pastor of Heart of Christ Community Church in the Houston suburb of Brazoria, called the Planned Parenthood facility an “abomination” and talked about the racist ideas of the organization’s founder, Margaret Sanger.
Johnson, who is black, held up pictures of Sanger participating in a Ku Klux Klan rally in the early 20th century. The summer 2008 issue of the Guttmacher Policy Review stated that black American women have five times as many abortions as their white counterparts.
“As Jesus died on the cross, he proclaimed life,” declared Carlos Martins, a Roman Catholic. “Any Christian should see the evil of this.”
Martins quoted Mother Teresa’s famous chastisement of America when she spoke at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, calling abortion “the greatest destroyer of peace in the world.”
Martins made it clear that the community of faith is not angry toward the women who seek and follow through with abortions but with organizations like Planned Parenthood that promote and conduct them. “There is a caring community that is willing to stand with and next to pregnant women. You do not go through this alone,” he said.
Noting that the Planned Parenthood site is just a few blocks from the University of Houston and historically African-American Texas Southern University, pastor James Clark of Park Place Baptist Church charged Planned Parenthood with targeting college students.
Foraker concurred: “This building is not by chance located here. I assure you, they are targeting our young people, African Americans and Hispanics,” he said.
Christine Melchor, executive director of Houston’s Coalition for Life, said the clinic would encompass 78,000 square feet–with one entire floor dedicated to abortions, including late-term abortions. She said she had reviewed building plans, permits and architectural drawings filed with the city of Houston.
“We’ve been following their expansion since 2006” when Planned Parenthood purchased the property, Melchor said, adding that she thought the most striking feature of the drawings is a planned ambulatory unit over the expanse of the third floor.
A Planned Parenthood clinic in downtown Houston performed late-term abortions until a state law was passed in 2003 to require that abortions conducted on women beyond 16 weeks of pregnancy be done in a center equipped with an ambulatory unit, which the clinic did not have.
Planned Parenthood clinics offer women a wide range of services, including pap tests, disease prevention and treatment, and birth control. Melchor acknowledged that the facility would be used for other these other services but added, “Planned Parenthood is all about abortions.”
Melchor said she suspects the clinic will be used to host international clients seeking abortions, especially late-term procedures. Dave Welch, director of the Houston pastors’ group, said he believes the new clinic could replace the notorious Wichita, Kan., clinic operated by George Tiller, who is on trial for violating state laws regulating the practice of late-term abortions.
Planned Parenthood came under scrutiny late last year following the release of a secretly video-taped encounter at an Indiana Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. The tape reveals a clinic employee manipulating the conversation with a supposedly 13-year-old girl. The girl, actually 20-year-old college student student Lila Rose, told the Planned Parenthood employee she was pregnant by her 31-year-old boyfriend, which, if true would constitute statutory rape.
By law the employee was required to report the case of sexual abuse to child protective services. Instead, the worker suppressed the information and convinced the girl to make up an alternative story.
The tape was produced by members of the pro-life Mona Lisa Project and distributed over the Internet. The Planned Parenthood clinic aide was ultimately fired, but not before national criticism arose concerning Planned Parenthood’s reporting practices and its servicing of minors.
It was that issue, along with questions regarding city regulations, which pro-life proponents brought before Houston City Council Jan. 27. They called into question the integrity of the abortion provider’s adherence to state regulations and asked Mayor Bill White and council members if they wanted Houston to be known as the home of “the largest abortion clinic in the hemisphere.”
Christine Kasper asked, in light of the Indiana violations, how the city of Houston would monitor the activities of the abortion clinic to ensure that Planned Parenthood complied with local and state laws.
Melchor was among those addressing the council. She asked if patients, prior to abortions, were tested for AIDS and other communicable diseases.
“How,” she asked, “will these babies be disposed of?”
Melchor later said her questions relate to the disposal of potentially bio-hazardous substances into the city sewage or waste disposal systems. There were no responses to the questions posed by the women.
Later in a phone interview, Melchor said the purpose of the questions before the council was to give them pause and to educate Houston citizens about the Planned Parenthood facility.
“Do they want to be known as the capital city of abortions?” she asked.
Melchor said she plans to ask more questions of the City Council. But she said she is dubious about getting an objective response because of Mayor White’s connection with Planned Parenthood’s national chairwoman.
Melchor asked White about the potential conflict of interest. He said he would respond at another time to her question.
Ironically, an animal-rights group attended the same meeting, demanding the city’s animal shelters stop the euthanizing of stray and unclaimed animals.
Supporters held signs as advocates spoke. Some wore T-shirts promoting the No Kill Advocacy Center whose policy, in part, states: “The No Kill Advocacy Center is the nation’s first organization dedicated solely to the promotion of a No Kill nation.”
Even if the city of Houston approves all the permits required to complete construction of the new abortion clinic, Foraker said area pastors, along with TexasFamilies.org, a coalition of pro-life organizations, plan to press contractors to disassociate themselves from the project. By asking church members, businesses and the community to stop doing business with Planned Parenthood contractors, they hope to bring enough pressure to force them to withdraw their services to Planned Parenthood.
At the beginning of the Jan. 22 gathering, David Fannin, pastor of suburban Nassau Bay Baptist Church, compared the 3,000 lives lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks—and the country’s resolve afterward—to the 3,700 lives lost each day to abortion. Will the nation, he asked, steel itself with the same resolve as the massive Planned Parenthood clinic rises from the ground?
