Predator and Prey

            If animals could talk, they would probably say “thank you” to Marlin Perkins.            He turned many of them into celebrities.  Back in the ’60s, the zoologist brought his fascination with animals into American living rooms.  Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom took viewers all over the world in search of wild animals in their natural habitats.  Wild Kingdom ran until 1987 and was later re-made for cable. 

            In 2005, the cable network Animal Planet took the study of our furry friends to the next level. Meerkat Manor documented the communal habits of the Whiskers gang, a group of meerkat families living in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert.  Meerkats are small mammals, just about as cute as can be.  Unfortunately, good looks hardly count in the harsh desert wilds.  Homes must be burrowed.  Food must be caught. And dangers must be avoided. Predators like eagles, snakes, and jackals find meerkats more tasty than cute.  Even roving bands of meerkats might unexpectedly attack a family.

            God put man at the top of the food chain, but sadly, dominion over God’s lesser creatures is not enough for some people.  All too often, man turns on his fellow man.  We live in a world of human predators, some violent.  Whatever the hour, an unsuspecting victim becomes their prey.  People have committed brutal crimes over things as trivial as a pair of sneakers or a baseball cap.  But probably more often than not, they commit crimes over money.

            Financial predators can be cold-hearted brutes—like muggers or armed robbers.  But some money-grabbers get the job done in a different way.  They are the con artists, and there are lots of them working the fields.   Con artists display a general profile.  A good con artist knows how to lock into a victim’s emotion trigger, things like pride, fear, or the desire for fame, success, passion, or adventure.  Because it takes time to stalk the prey and set the trap, a con artist must be patient and have a keen sense of timing.  Above all, a con artist must be able to establish a bond of trust between himself and his prey.  A good con man can make his prey believe that he is acting in the prey’s best interest.  That’s why a con artist’s sting can be as painful as a kick in the gut.  The prey thought that his “friend” would never hurt him.  For the predator, friendship rarely enters into the picture.

            We’ve all watched enough television shows to learn about penny ante artists.  We’ve read enough newspapers to know about the well-heeled wizards who bilk investors out of millions.  But there’s a particular player out there, one operating nationwide with the protection of our elected officials, even with taxpayer support. This one has notched more victims than one would think possible.

            Planned Parenthood is a tax-exempt organization owning over $1.2 billion in assets and receiving over $87 million in revenues in 2011-12.  That takes savvy.  Planned Parenthood does it by adopting a simple business philosophy: sex sells.  At the heart of its game is sex education.  Holding itself out as the “oldest and most trusted provider of sexual health care,” Planned Parenthood works its way into school systems.  From there, it teaches its own brand of sex education.  For example, PP’s full-color illustrated book, It’s Perfectly Normal, teaches ten year olds the ins-and-outs of masturbation and sexual intercourse.  Ten year olds are fourth graders.

            It doesn’t end with grade school.  High schoolers—kids whose hormones are running hot and heavy—are schooled in the pleasures of touching, masturbation, intercourse, orgasm, and oral and anal sex.  Planned Parenthood sets up on high school campuses and provides free birth control to students.  And under Obamacare, the federal government has authorized $75 million for Planned Parenthood’s school activities.

            Planned Parenthood is into the college and community scenes, too.  Not only ago Planned Parenthood targeted colleges with its “Where Did You Wear It?” campaign encouraging condom use.  It’s VOX program seeks to recruit impressionable students into its ranks.  Almost 80% of all Planned Parenthood facilities are within five miles of college campuses. At the community level, Planned Parenthood works with such unlikely organizations as the Girl Scouts.  PP’s community awareness efforts are hardly pretty.

            All of this education takes time and money.  But having built a false sense of trust, PP’s payday comes.  Remember: sex sells.  Encouraging birth control provides a steady stream of customers.  Pills cost $5-15 monthly.  Implants cost $400-800 “up front” for three years.  A birth control shot is $35-100 quarterly, not counting exam fees.  Even “protected” sex leads to sexually transmitted diseases, and there is an epidemic of them.  Planned Parenthood will test for it—at a price in the hundreds.  And surprise, sex also leads to unwanted pregnancies.  Planned Parenthood can end them for an average cost of $300-$950 per first trimester abortion.  It performed 333,964 abortions in 2011-12.  The business is so lucrative that Planned Parenthood now mandates that all PP facilities provide abortion services.  And the final kick in the gut is that taxpayers gave Planned Parenthood $542.4 million in 2011-12 alone. It’s all a sting of the worst kind.

            Those cute meerkats stay on the watch for danger and warn others when it is near.  God gives us children to raise in right ways and protect from harm.  If we won’t protect them from the likes of Planned Parenthood, then perhaps we are the lesser creatures.