Mother’s Day is a wonderful time to honor our mothers, who have done so much for us. Our mothers carried us in their wombs for nine months, brought us into this world, raised us and helped to form us into who we are today.

I am very close to my mother and grandmother. These women have so much to share and are two people I greatly admire. They accepted their gift of femininity and were open to life according to God’s plan. They remained faithful to their vocation of motherhood even when times were difficult, by putting their children first and making tremendous sacrifices for their families. I look forward to having children some day and passing on their wonderful examples of honoring life, as my grandmother and mother did for me.

My grandmother conceived 12 babies, but only five girls survived after birth. Although she is now almost 88 years old, I can still hear the pain in her voice when I ask her about these deaths. Losing seven children must have been horrific. Nonetheless, my grandmother persevered and raised her five girls, one of whom is my mom. She and my grandfather lived on a dairy farm and life was not always easy for them, since they had to live off whatever the farm produced.

My grandmother made her sacrifices as she took care of her girls and worked in a maternity ward as a nurse’s aide. She even delivered one of these babies in the maternity ward by herself! Despite the hardships she has endured, my grandmother still has her same spunk and witty personality, which is what so many people in her community love about her.

My mother conceived nine babies, but my older sister died in my mother’s womb the day before my mother delivered her into this world. As painful as that was, my mother remained open to God’s almighty will and He blessed her with more children. She and my father have raised eight beautiful men and women.

My mother and grandmother lost babies because of natural causes and God’s timing. These babies’ lives were not ended by some abortionist or by their mothers ingesting a chemical. However, even though they had the consolation of knowing these being natural deaths, my parents and grandparents never wanted to lose these babies, nor did they even imagine such tragedies would happen to them. What is worse than a death of a child?

Tragically, however, in today’s society, some mothers choose to have their innocent  preborn babies murdered and Planned Parenthood Federation of America is publicly celebrating this fact. Yes, unbelievably, Planned Parenthood, which recently slaughtered 289,750 babies in just one year, is celebrating the approach of Mother’s Day.

This organization attempts to deny the reality of motherhood, even though – no matter what – a mother is a mother forever, once fertilization has occurred. Planned Parenthood tries to manipulate our young people into accepting the lie that motherhood can be “erased” by packaging it as “reproductive rights.” Planned Parenthood would like our young people to believe that “reproductive rights” means that a woman can “take control” of her body so that she does not have to deal with the “consequences” of sex – even when those “consequences” are a brand new human being.

God is the creator of life, but Planned Parenthood takes away the gift of life. Planned Parenthood tries to convince an expectant mother that she is not a mother so that it can then kill her preborn baby. However, this bears repeating: A mother is a mother forever. My grandmother is a mother of twelve children, not just five. My mother is a mother of nine children, not just eight.

Rights come with responsibilities, but where is the responsibility in “reproductive rights”? In fact, Planned Parenthood ignores the reality that women can control themselves, women can respect their bodies and women can respect the opposite sex by living as women with true dignity. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and are not to be used for lives of sin and lust. Sex is intended for a married man and woman, to create unity and to procreate.

Once contraception enters the picture and then a new baby is created, the parents will often consider the baby a “problem.” In this situation, Planned Parenthood says you can just kill your baby because you do not have to be a mother! Well, guess what? Planned Parenthood has it completely wrong. How dare anyone say that this new person, created in God’s image and likeness, is not worthy to enter this world?

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, recently sent out an e-mail asking for donations to be made “in honor of someone you love for Mother’s Day.” This e-mail campaign makes absolutely no sense! This baby-killing organization – in fact, the nation’s largest abortion chain – is asking for more money, supposedly in honor of Mother’s Day. For what – to kill more babies?

Note that Planned Parenthood will only use the title “mother” when it deems it convenient for a woman to be considered a mother. One of those times is when Planned Parenthood is exploiting the Mother’s Day holiday to ask for money. Richards’ e-mail is full of praise for mothers, grandmothers and children. However, we need to take a closer look at the impact that Planned Parenthood has actually had on motherhood.

Planned Parenthood reported having killed 264,943 preborn babies in 2005. In 2006, it killed 24,807 more babies. Planned Parenthood claims to be reducing the number of abortions; yet one out of every four abortions in the United States is committed at a Planned Parenthood facility.

Planned Parenthood received $356.9 million in clinic income over the 2006-2007 fiscal years and had a total income of over $1,000,000,000. You read that correctly: over a billion dollars. The $356.9 million in clinic income comes from the sale of over 1,400,000 Emergency Contraception Kits, over 2,500,000 customers for its birth control products, the killing of over 289,700 preborn babies in 2006 alone and other clinic sales. This total clinic income is an $11.8 million increase over the 2005-2006 figures.

Planned Parenthood now kills 5,572 innocent human beings every week. This means that, every week, Planned Parenthood kills twice as many innocent human beings as died in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

This year’s death toll brings the total number of babies who have died at Planned Parenthood facilities to 4,358,499.

All this and Planned Parenthood attempts to celebrate Mother’s Day? Planned Parenthood has taken over four million babies away from their mothers. These mothers will never be able to teach these children how to ride a bike, how to paint their nails or how to watch a movie, or experience any other special moments that a mother shares with her child.

This is not about “reproductive rights”; this is about killing children. It is well worth repeating: One out of every four abortions in the United States is committed in a Planned Parenthood facility. Of course, Cecile Richards is not going to tell you that. This organization attempts to project an aura of warmth and understanding when in reality, Planned Parenthood misleads women and young people in general in numerous ways.

If this organization knew how to respect women’s bodies and the gift of sexuality, then it would not be selling contraception, it would not be promoting promiscuous sexual activity, it would not be forcing pornography onto children, it would not be covering up statutory rape, it would not be accepting donations to kill black babies and it certainly would not be killing our next generation!

Copyright by Marie Hahnenberg

Marie Hahnenberg is a researcher at American Life League and the director of American Life League’s Map Room: Activism Against Planned Parenthood. For more information, visit http://www.all.org.