Apathy & Outrage: the real scandal at the heart of the Planned Parenthood story…

Many of you will have seen or at least heard about the secretly filmed Planned Parenthood video broke a couple of weeks ago. The 8 minute video, easily searchable, showed a senior Planned Parenthood executive describing specific techniques for carrying out late term abortions which allow for intact baby body parts to be harvested for medical research: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.” Since the release of this clip the full video and the transcript have been released. The President of Planned Parenthood, which is the largest provider of reproductive health services in the US, has since issued an apology for the “callous tone” of their executive but have decried the video itself as edited, defamatory and unreliable.

Responses to this video have been as mixed as you’d expect, with the pro-choice (pro-abortion) crowd calling the news a hoax, and just another misguided failure on the part of anti-abortion lobbyists. The pro-life (anti-abortion) camp have been vociferous in their condemnation of Planned Parenthood as an organisation and of the filmed executive as a human being. These responses have been taken to almost unbelievable extremes with a famous supporter of Planned Parenting comparing the online condemnation of this executive with the suffering of Jesus himself, and a number of pro-lifers alleging (usually uncited) that the founder of Planned Parenting saw the creation of this organisation as a means of drastically reducing the black population in the USA.

What are we as Christians to make of all this? Do we resign ourselves to the fact that a largely godless society will commit godless acts, or should we join the cries of condemnation against the organisation and the individual at the centre of this story? In fact there seem to have been two unifying themes in the Christian response to this story: firstly, moral outrage and indignation that foetal organ harvesting is even a thing; secondly, disbelief at the manner in which this story spectacularly failed to make mainstream headlines. There are surely justifications for both of these viewpoints, but let me ask you, as I’ve asked myself, whether it might be possible that God, the creator and Lord of all things, means for the Planned Parenting story to move us in an entirely different way? Does this story tell us much more about ourselves as the church than it does about the world we live in?

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye…” (Matt 7)


I think it does: I think it reveals a pervasive and dangerous tendency in us, the western church, to lurch between the two extremes of total apathy and vitriolic opinion without really stopping to consider how we might instead stoop, or kneel, to make a difference. The real scandal behind the Planned Parenthood video is that so many within the church are sleeping through or spitting rhetoric at the darkness in our society when God, who is with us, and among us and for us, would have us do so much more.

Here’s what I mean: while the thought of baby body parts being considered more valuable than the babies themselves is truly horrific, it still only one small aspect of the bigger picture, namely the ongoing termination of hundreds of babies each year. Let’s look at some statistics: in the UK last year more than 180,000 pregnancies were terminated legally – in the US the figure is closer to 1 million. Back to the UK – each year far fewer babies under 1 year of age are adopted than are terminated: how many fewer? In 2009 there were 203,444 terminations in the UK compared to just 91 adoptions of babies under 1 year of age. Abortion is old news, par for the course and simply seen as a reasonable course of action – even the right course of action – for numbers of pregnant women. Abortion continues to be a popular option; a friend who visited an abortion clinic recently told me simply, “it was heaving, absolutely packed”. How does that make you feel? More than that, what will you, or your church, do about it? You could at least pray…

For I was hungry, and you didn’t give me anything to eat… I was a stranger and you didn’t invite me in… (Matt 25)


It’s not just abortion; in the year 2013 to 2014 6,508 people were recorded to have slept rough in London, one of the richest cities in the world, and there are an estimated 2,500 rough sleepers on any given night in the whole of England. These are men and women with stories, aspirations, hurts, hopes… honestly, how the hell did we get to the state we’re in now, where most of us rest easy each night, unconcerned that our pets have a better quality of life than many of these people? I’ve spent one night of my life ‘homeless’ when years ago, unable to get back from a late night and an argument, I slept on a thrown out-mattress in a London alleyway behind a pub; it was pretty grim, but at least I had a home to go to in the morning, people looking out for me and money in the bank. To find yourself truly homeless for a first night, then the next, and another must be a waking nightmare… imagine it. Much has been made of the fact that the Planned Parenting executive is wining and dining while she talks about harvesting foetal organs, but aren’t we the same? Even worse if we know Jesus Christ to be the Lord and Saviour of all and yet remain unconcerned… Brothers and sisters, don’t we eat, drink and make merry, unconcerned about the thousands on our doorsteps without shelter, food or hope!? Jesus help us. Honestly, how does that make you feel? More than that, what will you, or your church, do about it? You could at least pray…

“Let the little children to come to me, and do not hinder them…” (Matt 19)


Here’s a suggestion… what if Christians – en-masse, not the passionately concerned few who are there already – got serious about fostering and adoption? How would the church look – how would the landscape of our nation look – if each church in the UK got serious about producing disciples who are willing to provide a home to children in need? If we Christians pooled our considerable resources to buy houses for the homeless? Provided food for the hungry? Sure, as the info attached to these links proves, many Christians are doing these things, to the tune of an estimated £3billion each year; this is wonderful, but while it should be celebrated and seen as one of many signs of a gathering momentum for prophetic, Jesus-centred (Jesus led!) social change, it’s simply not enough. In fact, a little knowledge of what ‘the church’ is doing can also be a dangerous thing; God help any of us who sit back in comfortable indifference, feeling safe and self-satisfied, or voicing smug and condemnatory opinions about ‘the wicked’, while a minority rush to the aid of those in need. No, we need to believe for more, pray for more and do more, all in the glorious name of Jesus who gave everything so that we might be saved.

We are not called to condemn the world, but to shine within in it, to glorify God through our good deeds, and to love with a genuine love all those around us – the child, the murderer, the abortionist, the addict, the politician, the clergyman, the social worker, the thief, the banker, the terrorist, the prostitute, the movie star, the elderly, the poor, the weak… How would the church look if every member committed to serve the wider community in some tangible way. Even more radically, how would the church look – and again, how might the landscape of our nation change – if we even just got serious about praying? As our Muslim friends and relatives recently observed Ramadan I found myself impressed (and saddened) by their practical devotion to a distant god, and stirred to re-evaluate my own prayerfulness and life in the Spirit of the Living God, my Father (!!! what an astonishingly good-news gospel this is!). I came to the conclusion that apathy is at work in my soul: while I praise God for his grace in giving me living faith a love of prayer and genuine compassion for people around me I know for 100% that I would pray more if I simply cared more. This was a chilling realisation, but one which has had a profoundly positive effect on my prayer life. There is so much to be done, so much to stand for, so many to serve, love and win.

Over to you – how will you make a difference? How will you stir or lead your Life Group, your Pastorate, your venue, your church to make a difference? This is without a doubt the perfect time for us to shake off the twin evils of apathy and self-righteous indignation and to walk the narrow path of practical loving services which lies between the two. Sure, let’s be outraged, but let it be outrage at the world mankind has remade in his own image; let it be outrage at the work of a powerful enemy who lives to pervert, steal, kill and destroy God’s creation; let it be outrage at our indifference to the suffering in our streets; let it be outrage that fuels revival prayers and radical action. Don’t condemn others, particularly those dead in sin without Christ; instead, confess your own sin and weakness to God, call on him to show others the mercy he has shown you and then step up to make the difference God created you to make…