The Green Bay Packers Foundation is drawing criticism after awarding a grant to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.
Pro-Life Wisconsin drew attention to the Packers’ grant to the abortion business, which, the team’s foundation says, will help “Latino families.”
“If the Green Bay Packers Foundation truly wanted to promote families and ensure the safety of children, they would not be financially investing in an organization that violently destroys children’s lives each and every day,” said Pro-Life Wisconsin in a Facebook post Sunday:
The pro-life group created a petition that notes:
The Green Bay Packers Foundation was founded in 1986 by Judge Robert J. Parins with a mission to ‘support charities possessing one or more of the following goals: perpetuates a community environment that promotes families and the competitive value of athletics; contributes to player and fan welfare; ensures the safety and education of children; and/or prevents cruelty to animals.’
The grant awarded to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin Inc, Milwaukee, directly contradicts this mission.
Dan Miller, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin (PLW) said in a letter to the Green Bay Packers Foundation:
Any perceived benefit Planned Parenthood provides to society is wiped out every time they kill a baby, which in their case is 4,639 times a year in Wisconsin alone. In just one day, they wipe out the approximate equivalent of an entire football team.
Pro-Life Wisconsin continued that with its grant to Planned Parenthood, the Packers have engaged in “unintended racist implications.”
“If Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin truly wants to help, it can refrain from killing 8.6% of the Hispanic population as it has done for nearly five decades,” the organization asserted.
In response to the criticism for its award to the abortion chain, Aaron Popkey, director of public affairs for the Packers, said in a statement:
The grant you reference is for Planned Parenthood of Milwaukee’s Cuidándonos Creceremos más Sanos (CCmáS) program, which means ‘growing healthier together.’ It is dedicated to reaching Latino families in southeastern Wisconsin, an underserved population, with language and culturally specific health education they would not normally receive. The Packers and the foundation certainly understand there are individuals who disagree with some aspect of one or more of the 2,800 organizations that have been supported since 1986. The organization respects those views. Grant applications are considered specific to their initiatives and do not necessarily imply endorsement of other actions by the organizations.
“Unfortunately this initiative (CCmáS) is not only tied to the state’s largest abortion provider, but furthermore continues to perpetuate the systemic racism that Planned Parenthood has promoted for over a century—something the Green Bay Packers Foundation has seemingly overlooked,” said Anna DeMeuse, Pro-Life Wisconsin communications director. “The Green Bay Packers Foundation’s defense of their egregious donation to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin shows just how out of touch they are with the reality of what Planned Parenthood stands for.”