COLUMBIA – Approximately 250 people gathered in front of the Planned Parenthood facility on North Providence Road here Aug. 22 to protest the organization’s selling of aborted baby body parts. Pro-life protesters held up signs and chanted various messages directed at Planned Parenthood, calling for the end of abortions and for the nation’s largest provider of abortions to be defunded. Planned Parenthood receives more than $500 million in taxpayer money each year.
Several states, including Missouri, have launched investigations to see if any laws have been broken by Planned Parenthood. Congress attempted to defund the organization earlier this month, but could not muster enough votes. It is expected that Congress will try again, perhaps later this year.
The Columbia protest was one of 320 held in cities across the nation that day. Several Missouri Southern Baptists participated in the protest and two were featured speakers: Pathway Editor Don Hinkle and Susan Klein, legislative liaison for Missouri Right to Life and wife of Dusty Klein, pastor of Cedar Grove Baptist Church in Holts Summit.