I just recently discovered how many companies supposedly donate or have donated to Planned Parenthood. I am very pro-life and don’t want to support any of them, but boycotting them all seems next to impossible without completely cutting myself off from the world. And what seems even more impossible is contacting each company and telling them that I am boycotting them. How should I handle this?
This is an endless problem. Here’s my scenario, a true one.
I and a fellow researcher/friend have developed a new technology that a large international software firm might eventually be interested in licensing from us. Let’s call this company XYZ Corp. (It’s not Microsoft or Google or Apple…please don’t ask.)
So I did some investigating into XYZ Corp. to see if they have associations with Planned Parenthood. Could not find any, so that’s a good sign. I did learn that they have a charitable fund. So now I thought to myself, let’s see what the charitable arm of this company gives its money to.
Turns out they sponsor a lot of good things, like aquariums, schools, parks, etc. Then I found they (along with a lot of other corporations) also sponsor a charity which in turn parcels out money to a large number of charities local to the donor charity. (In this way, these big corps can donate to a charitable group in say, Los Angeles, which can then parcel out the money to local charities in LA that they know are needy. Not a bad idea I think.) Anyway, so which secondary charities receive the money?
Turns out many of these look pretty good too - lots of places/programs like schools, food pantries, anti-gang programs, etc…and also a pro-gay group, a George Soros group, ACORN, something called the Ms. Foundation (which promotes abortion, among other things), the UN Population Fund, and a couple of other bad places.
So now I have to wonder if I can get into bed with XYZ Corp.? My feeling (although I am still not 100% confident of this) is that my cooperation with evil would be rather remote and is counterbalanced by the good I would be able to do by (a) improving a software product which is used by businesses to become more efficient, (b) advancing my career and putting into practice my ideas in a real world scenario, (c) helping in a small way XYZ Corp., which employs a lot of people, and (d) securing financial support for university students who will be paid by XYZ Corp to help defray the cost of their education.
It is impossible to do anything in society without eventually interfacing with grave evil. If we as Catholics were called upon not to have any cooperation with evil, then we could not hold down paid jobs because every year over $300,000,000 of our federal taxes go to Planned Parenthood. We could not collect a paycheck because some of that money would have to go to the government and would thereby wind up in the pockets of baby killers. No Catholic could own a business because invariably a supplier or wholesaler could be a PP donor, and we would indirectly support PP by buying products from the supplier. You can take this whole problem to a great extreme. The sad fact of the matter is that abortion and support for abortion are so tightly integrated and interwoven into our society and economy that it is impossible to divorce yourself from abortion without literally living in the woods and growing your own food. Every time you buy something at a store you are, without question, at least indirectly supporting abortion because somewhere along the chain of products and services that were needed to make that product available for you to purchase there is a company or a person who is helping Planned Barrenhood.
BTW, not to depress you, but support of abortion is not the only thing we are called upon to avoid. Consider, for instance, the many, MANY companies that provide “partner benefits”, that is, marital benefits to “domestic partners” (which can include homosexuals) of employees. The pro-homosexual group Human Rights Campaign even rates companies on how friendly they are to cohabitation and “gay marriage”. The whole situation is quite revolting.
