The Green Bay Packers Foundation announced its annual list of grantees earlier this month, and on the the list was Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.
“This year’s focus included health and wellness, and included a grant for the Cuidándonos Creceremos más Sanos (CCmáS) Program, which means ‘growing healthier together,'” said Packers spokesman Aaron Popkey in an email response to an inquiry from RightWisconsin. “It is a Planned Parenthood of Milwaukee initiative 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 would not disclose the actual amount of the grant, but the organization said the type of grant typically “ranges between $3,000 and $7,000.”
The CCmáS Program is described by Planned Parenthood as “a sexual and reproductive health program.” The program includes “home parties” as well as programs in churches in schools.
The latest Planned Parenthood annual report shows the organization performed 332,757 abortions nationally in a one-year period from 2017-18. It is the nation’s largest abortion provider.
According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, 25 percent of the abortions performed nationally in 2014 were for Hispanics.
The grant to Planned Parenthood was criticized by Pro-Life Wisconsin.
“If the 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 the organization in a message to its members. “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.”
Julaine Appling, the president of Wisconsin Family Action, also criticized the football team for its contribution to Planned Parenthood.
“The Green Bay Packers Foundation just gave a boost to an organization whose main reason for existence is to kill unborn babies,” Appling said. “For those of us who are unabashedly pro-life–and that position way supersedes our support for the Packers–this is very disappointing. The GB Packers Foundation either bought a lie or has core beliefs that make abortion ok.”
Popkey defended the grant to the abortion provider by noting, “Planned Parenthood initiatives have received the support of thousands of Wisconsin donors, including foundations, community organizations and individuals.”
“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,” Popkey told RightWisconsin. “The Packers and the Foundation respect those views. Grant applications are considered specific to their initiatives and do not necessarily imply endorsement of other actions by the organizations. Some specific initiatives that have received grants have been components of pro-life organizations, including Veritas, a program of Right to Life Wisconsin.”
