I was troubled by what I read as unconditional support for Planned Parenthood in the February 27th article, "Student forms a Planned Parenthood defenders group." Though it is true that Planned Parenthood does provide some needed services to women who are not pregnant, especially in economically disadvantaged communities, it should be recognized that Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortion services in the country. In addition, the claim that Planned Parenthood provides services like mammograms and prenatal care for pregnant women, has been refuted by a 2015 article in the Washington Post on Oct. 2, 2015, in which it records that PP president Cecile Richards admitted in Congressional testimony that PP does not provide mammograms. In addition, in almost 100 PP clinics surveyed nationwide about providing prenatal care, the consistent testimony was that they did not. In PP's own annual reports, they estimate that roughly 90 percent of pregnant women who walk into their clinics, leave no longer being pregnant. This underscores that a significant part of PP's business is providing abortions.

Biola has consistently been a life-affirming institution, and the sanctity of life from conception forward is written into our theological distinctives, and for good reason. Psalm 139:13-16 indicates that God is at work in the womb, intricately fashioning the unborn in his image. That should be sufficient to suggest that human beings should not interrupt God's creative handiwork in the womb. Abortion also ends the life of an entirely innocent person. The Bible affirms the value of life from the earliest points of pregnancy.  From conception forward, the embryo/fetus has all the capacities it needs to mature into an adult. After all, all of us were once embryos and fetuses, and we were the same person in the womb that we are today, just at a different stage of maturity.  

I am not necessarily suggesting that PP should be defunded, but it is puzzling to me why we would need to defend the nation's foremost provider of abortion services. It seems to me that the Bible calls us to defend the unborn.