Should an organization responsible for killing off a portion of the Santa Barbara population be recognized for its “community involvement”? According to the City of Santa Barbara, the answer is “YES!”
The State Street Flag Program (SSFP) recognizes organizations that it says have contributed to the downtown Santa Barbara community. By hanging a flag with Planned Parenthood’s logo in January, Santa Barbara implies that Planned Parenthood meets its criteria for participating in the program, and that Planned Parenthood has in some way contributed to the Santa Barbara community.
Planned Parenthood’s flag in the SSFP.
To see whether or not the city is in conformity with its own policies by hanging a Planned Parenthood flag, let’s look at the rules. According to its website, the City of Santa Barbara wants “to schedule flags that recognize downtown community events and celebrations[.] … Community service organizations and other appropriate institutions will be considered for the SSFP as calendar space allows.” Furthermore, the organization claims that the SSFP “is not intended to promote businesses or advocate political messages.”
So, Planned Parenthood must contribute to the local community and not be advocating a political message in order to meet the city’s own guidelines for participating in the State Street Flag Program. Let’s start by examining whether the flag advocates for a political message.
The Planned Parenthood flag went up during the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in late January. As Roe v. Wade was a court case whose ruling federally legalized abortion on demand, it does seem that the flag and the organization it represents both advocate a political message.
And how, exactly, has Planned Parenthood met the criterion of contributing to the Santa Barbara community? According to the region’s Planned Parenthood website, their community involvement in Santa Barbara consisted of building a larger facility. “The Healthy Families, Healthy Communities Campaign was launched in 2010 to support the acquisition and renovation of a larger, more comprehensive Thousand Oaks Health Center,” the website says. Is creating a larger abortion center – a place where more babies can be killed and more Santa Barbara women and families brutalized by abortion – really the kind of “community involvement” the SSFP was created to celebrate? Or does Santa Barbara love Planned Parenthood so much that it is willing to break its own rules in order to promote the business responsible for perpetrating an enormous number of abortions?
Planned Parenthood isn’t the only abortion-friendly business that has been featured by the flag program. Girls, Inc., with notorious ties to abortion, was featured in April. The United Way, which has documented ties to Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, was also given the opportunity to flaunt its logo in the flag display.
If you live in or around Santa Barbara and would like to voice your opinion about the State Street Flag Program, you can do so by emailing the program at info@sbdo.org.
