By Randy Sharp
New owners of national kitchenware company, The Pampered Chef, have opted to end their practice of giving money to fund the abortion industry after many Pampered Chef sales representatives quit their jobs in protest.
The Pampered Chef is one of the nation's largest and fastest-growing kitchenware companies. The company, founded in 1980 by professing Christian and stay-at-home mother Doris Christopher, has been driven mostly by stay-at-home moms who sell the products from home. The company boasts more than 67,000 Kitchen Consultants and sales of $700 million annually.
But, according to Citizen magazine, many Christian mothers began walking away from the company because Pampered Chef's new owner, billionaire Warren Buffett, is a huge supporter of abortion. His Buffett Foundation, using company profits, has donated tens of millions of dollars to abortion-related causes.
Citizen reports that Buffett's conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. — owners of such well-known names as Dairy Queen, See's Candy, and Fruit of the Loom — has funneled millions of dollars to the Foundation. The Foundation, in turn, last year donated at least $11 million to pro-abortion and “reproductive-rights” groups.
Among those recipients are international abortion-provider Planned Parenthood, the Population Council — chief promoter of RU-486 in the U.S. — and International Projects Assistance Services (IPAS). That organization, beneficiary of a five-year, $20-million commitment from the Foundation in 1999, is the principal manufacturer of the suction pumps used in abortions.
According to Business Week, that financial backing permitted IPAS to double its capacity to produce and distribute manual vacuum aspirators used in abortions.
New Policy
That practice is changing, though, according to company officials. In a news release, Berkshire Hathaway said it is ending its shareholder-designated contributions program, because some of the contributions were hurting the careers of its Pampered Chef consultants. However, not only were consultants suffering; the company itself suffered as consultants quit the organization to keep from funding the abortion industry.
According to Citizen, the exodus of Pampered Chef distributors who are pro-life had been gaining steam. It says resignations of top-selling distributors began catching the attention of company officials.
Among those who have decided to quit the company is Tammy Gillespie of Tupelo, Mississippi.
“I cannot bow before the Lord when I get to heaven and have Him look me in the eye and say, 'You knew that your money was going to fund abortion,'” Gillespie says. “That's why I'm quitting The Pampered Chef.”
Gillespie said the policy reversal does not mean she will return to the company.
“It doesn't change my mind because Mr. Buffett is known for personally giving money to population control and to fund abortion. If I were to make money for Pampered Chef, I would be putting money in his pocket, money he'd give to fund abortion — and I can't knowingly give money to those causes.”
(Randy Sharp is director of special projects for the American Family Association. This article appeared in the August 2003 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of AFA. This article courtesy of Agape Press).
