Catholic University to Host Fundraiser for Planned Parenthood

Loyola Marymount University (LMU) will host a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood on Friday, November 5.

The Catholic university, located in Los Angeles and sponsored by the Jesuits (Society of Jesus), the Marymount Sisters (Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary), and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, states on its website the school and its religious leaders “share a common dedication to academic excellence, spiritual growth, and social justice as hallmarks of a contemporary Catholic university.”

A petition sent from RenewLMU to school President Tim Snyder, however, requests the event be cancelled, as PJ Media observed.

“Founded by the eugenicist and virulent anti-Black racist Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States and has been caught red-handed in the illegal sale of fetal tissues and has been complicit in sex trafficking,” LMU alumna Samantha (Stribling) Stephenson wrote in the petition.

RenewLMU recommends LMU Women in Politics, the fundraiser’s sponsor, “might select a more worthy recipient of funds, one that more effectively supports women’s dignity and whose primary purposes are not at odds with the Catholic Church.”

The petition continues:

Selecting Planned Parenthood as a recipient for fundraising on a Catholic campus is decidedly divisive. A fundraiser in support of an organization that affirms rather than undermines the dignity of women would be an opportunity to build bridges, bringing together people from all sides of the table in support of women’s advancement.

This LMU event is not an academic debate but a fundraiser. As such, LMU is making an in-kind donation to the nation’s largest abortion provider.

A federal appeals court ruled the Texas Heartbeat Act can remain in effect while litigation continues over whether the law is constitutional. https://t.co/m11c4vmxp2

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 15, 2021

Breitbart News reached out to LMU for comment on the Planned Parenthood fundraiser and received a statement from the university that said, “The fundraiser being hosted by Women in Politics is not a university-sponsored event. However, the existence of these student organizations and their activities are living examples that LMU embraces its mission, commitments, and the complexities of free and honest discourse.”

Breitbart News asked LMU if the school is at odds with Pope Francis who has asserted, “Abortion is murder.”

LMU responded:

LMU remains committed to its Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount heritage, values, and intellectual traditions, taking its fundamental inspiration from the founding orders that enliven its threefold mission. The freedom of expression, inquiry, and speech enables an integration of knowledge in which “faith and reason bear witness to the unity of all truth.” (Ex Corde Ecclesiae, 1990, #17) LMU’s core principles, reflected in its decisions, are consistent with Pope Francis’ guidance that “Catholic academic institutions cannot isolate themselves from the world—they must know how to enter bravely into the current culture and open dialogue, conscious of the gift they can offer to everyone.” (Plenary Session of the Congregation for Catholic Education, February 2014)

As a foundation for co-curricular learning, the university encourages students to establish and participate in student organizations, which enrich our educational environment and foster dialogue that often invites varying or opposing viewpoints. The university registers approximately 200 independently-operating student organizations that host activities, communicate with community members, or engage in advocacy. The events, actions, or positions of student organizations, including Women in Politics, are not endorsed by the university.

A column in September in the school’s student newspaper, the Los Angeles Loyolan, written by “social justice intern” Anish Mohanty, featured members of the LMU Women in Politics organization. They condemned the Texas Heartbeat Act, stating the law “jeopardizes reproductive rights.”

LMU Women in Politics President Claire Davis, a junior political science and journalism double major, said her experience of watching the enactment of the Texas ban on abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected is “like watching a plane crash.”

“A plane that also has a part of your body in it,” she added. “It is terrifying and it feels like there is nothing you can do.”

Democrats in the Illinois legislature voted late last week to repeal the state’s final restriction on abortion, which required parental notification for minors seeking to end the life of their fetus.

https://t.co/Po0xPC9YHv

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) November 1, 2021

“I feel disheartened by these new laws,” LMU Women in Politics Executive Director for Events Caroline Baker said. “I don’t believe that the government has any right to infringe on my personal health decisions and for laws like this to continuously be passed at the state level is concerning.

“The new Texas laws about abortion are even more disconcerting because they take things one step further and [incentivize] regular citizens to take action against [people] in need of abortions,” she added, referring to the Texas Heartbeat Act’s unique enforcement mechanism whereby any private citizen may file a civil lawsuit against an abortion provider or any other individual who “aids or abets” a “criminal abortion.”

“This puts already vulnerable [people] in even more compromising positions as it allows the government to further target them as criminals,” Baker reportedly said.

A UK court ruled against a woman with Down syndrome who challenged a law allowing the abortion of children with her condition up to birth. https://t.co/TuDpAVWd1T

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) September 26, 2021

As Breitbart News reported in July 2020, unsealed video clips of the testimony of officials from Planned Parenthood and others in the abortion industry revealed disturbing details of infants surviving abortion and either being left to die or having their organs harvested.

The unsealed deposition testimony, released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), whose undercover journalists exposed the fetal tissue trafficking activities of Planned Parenthood and others in the abortion industry, contained testimony from Perrin Larton, the procurement manager of biomedical company Advanced Bioscience Resources Inc, which has sold the organs of aborted babies to researchers in the United States.

In the deposition video, Larton testified about aborted babies, “They just, sometimes, they fall out” of the mother, “once every couple of months,” when a woman delivers an entirely intact fetus.

Larton also testified that the fetus is still intact when she receives it in her lab and nothing is “done to the fetus” by the abortion clinic before handing it over to ABR.

Asked if the intact fetuses that “fall out” of the woman have a heartbeat, Larton testified, “It would depend. I can see hearts that are not in an intact P.O.C. [product of conception, the term the abortion industry uses for fetus or baby] that are beating independently” after they are removed from the fetus.

The same video featured the sworn testimony of Jon Dunn, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties, who testified he was aware of at least one situation at his Planned Parenthood facility in which a fetus had been born alive during an abortion.

“I know they kept it warm and comfortable for the very brief period that it was alive,” Dunn said. “I don’t think there was even time to call 911.”

LMU’s Davis, however, said she sees laws such as the Texas Heartbeat Act as a sign of “inequality.”

“I am lucky enough to live in a blue state, but inequality spreads like wildfire, and I’m afraid of what happens next,” she told the Loyolan. “Until all [people] are given the rights to their own bodies, gender equality is nonexistent. In one moment, a room full of male politicians could claim a part of who I am… it’s disgusting.”

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