OPINION: Defund Planned Parenthood - or fund the church?

The Christian church is an organization vitally needed in our society as well as around the world. It not only provides spiritual and psychological assistance to millions, it provides for the poor both at home and abroad. It helps needy women with health issues and offers a multitude of resources to them as well as the total family.

It is supported by those who support it and to my knowledge for the most part does not receive government funding. I can imagine the uproar of the atheists and liberals if the government were to support the Christian church and its work.

I am close to several Russians who have migrated here. The old Communist regime in Russia could have and would have boasted of the services they provided for the people and how the people needed those services and that may have been true. However, the two siblings of one of my dear friends that were martyred in Russia experienced the effect of the evil empire. So did Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and all the others in the gulags.

The Nazi regime would also have boasted of the good and helpful things they were doing for their country and their people. Multitudes in Germany cheered and lauded their fuhrer. Still, it was an evil empire that did not consider Jews and those of other nationalities as human.

I do not doubt Planned Parenthood provides some helpful services, but Planned Parenthood is an evil organization. There will be a day when it is recorded in history as a thing of the past and remembered as a barbaric expression of the women of its day. The spirit of the organization is deceptive and promotes women to be selfish to the extreme of even sacrificing their own offspring to the god of self. Their mantra could be summed up as: Ask not what you can do for others but what you can do for yourself.

They will try to convince others that those who insist on defunding Planned Parenthood hate women and want to deprive them of the services they need and of their free choice. This is another of their very deceptive and untrue allegations used to promote getting their way and robbing others of their free choice. Christians love women and desire to do all in their power to provide whatever they can to those in need.

Those of us who follow Jesus and His teaching love every one of those who are involved in Planned Parenthood, but we do not support what they are perpetrating on our culture. We have no animosity against them yet oppose that we are forced to support their organization and will fight to have our free choice to give our money to those causes we firmly believe help and bless others.

If the government funded all the many Christian organizations who are helping others, then I would agree with all those trying to get the government to defund these organizations. I would support their individual right to be free from supporting what they may have strong convictions against even though I disagree with their convictions.

As Ronald Regan said: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

I would say: President Obama, senators, representatives — Defund Planned Parenthood!

Olson is a resident of Kalispell.