Americans, being a charitable people, love to participate in fundraisers for various worthy causes: fighting diseases, helping flood victims, and otherwise extending and improving people’s lives. Some, however, choose to raise money to do just the opposite — hence the third annual National Abortion Access Bowl-a-Thon, whose purpose is to bankroll the culture of death.
According to the Bowl-a-Thon’s website, hosted by the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), the Bowl-a-Thon is “a nationwide series of local events” whose purpose is to “raise money to help women and girls pay for abortions they couldn’t otherwise afford.”
“Abortion funds,” the website explains, “are local, grassroots groups that work tirelessly to help low-income and disadvantaged women who want an abortion and do not have enough money to pay for it. Abortion funds help women pay for their abortions, help them buy bus or plane tickets, and even offer a place to stay for those who have to travel for an abortion.”
Pro-life activist Kristi Burton Brown observed: “Apparently, the organizers of the Bowl-a-Thon consider abortion a charity category that people should be able to donate to. After all, how much more charitable can you get than killing your own child or paying for someone else to kill hers? People with a giving heart should definitely be lining up for this stellar opportunity to spread the love.”
Apparently a sizable number of such individuals did indeed queue up for the chance. The various bowling events (and one miniature golfing event) held across the country during the month of April raised a whopping $468,221 — well in excess of NNAF’s goal of $400,000.
What sort of person would participate in such an event? Judging from the crude language used on the Bowl-a-Thon website; the names chosen by the bowling teams, many of which (pardon the expression) cannot be reproduced here; and the photos of various bowlers, including some dressed as nuns and a priest engaging in lewd acts, it seems safe to say that, as Brown put it, Bowl-a-Thon participants “think that 1) abortion and promiscuity are absolutely hilarious; 2) children are an accident, so killing them is no big deal; or 3) you should be proud to support the killing of innocent, helpless babies.” “I’m not sure which is the worst,” she added.
“There’s simply something sick and beyond twisted about smiling while raising money that will knowingly be used to snuff out lives,” the Alliance Defense Fund’s Steven Aden writes. “And something even more disturbing about the fact that so many of the teams in the National Abortion Access Bowl-A-Than [sic] do so with pure glee, if not [bravado].”
As bad as the Bowl-a-Thon is, at least it raises money for abortions through voluntary contributions rather than through taxation. Not that NNAF is opposed to tax-funded abortion: It boasts that it “is a recognized leader of national efforts to repeal the Hyde Amendment,” which bans the use of federal dollars to fund abortions.
The event has also drawn attention to NNAF’s true agenda and its tactics. NNAF says it considers “the right to abortion as a fundamental human right, essential for women’s equality, health, and dignity.” Moreover, unlike most abortion-rights supporters who claim they want abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare,” NNAF clearly wants it to be anything but rare. One member fund, according to LifeSiteNews, loves abortion so much that it helped a 19-year-old obtain one to cover up for the fact that her father had raped her; and it paid for abortions for over 50 minors last year. NNAF also thinks that taxpayers should be forced to fund abortion and contraception and that private insurers should be forced to cover both, with no religious exemptions.
In addition, while NNAF helps pay for abortions, it does not always cover the full cost of the procedure. In such cases, reports LifeSiteNews, “NNAF encourages women to consider ‘lying to a friend or family member’ to get money for an abortion. It asks young women to join ‘medical testing groups’ and cultivate their ‘relationship’ with their landlord. It also suggests they drop out of college.” Were NNAF engaged in activism on behalf of a noble purpose, it would have no need to advise its alleged beneficiaries to perform deceitful and irresponsible acts.
The attention the Bowl-a-Thon is receiving may have one more salutary effect: mobilizing pro-lifers to raise more money for their own cause. As LifeSiteNews points out, the amount raised by the Bowl-a-Thon “outpaces pro-life groups, which usually set more modest goals” such as the $40,000 target for the Biking for Babies fundraiser for crisis pregnancy centers. Perhaps it’s time for pro-life organizations to set some more audacious objectives and then attain them. After all, if “Tenpins for Termination” can rake in $400,000, how much more could a truly joyful “Badminton for Birth” collect?
