Top Stories of 2003: Pro-Life 'Chefs' Exiting the Pampered Life
by Rusty Pugh and Jody Brown
December 23, 2003
(AgapePress) - A growing number of Christian, pro-life mothers are leaving lucrative careers with a national kitchenware company because of the new owner's support of abortion."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 now, according to Citizen magazine, many Christian mothers are 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-choice 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, 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 (MVAs)."
According to Citizen, the exodus of Pampered Chef distributors who are pro-life is gaining steam. It says resignations of top-selling distributors are catching the attention of company officials. Among those who have decided to quit the company is Tammy Gillespie of Tupelo, Mississippi. She excludes Buffett from her decision.
"It's not between me and Warren Buffet, it's between me and God," Gillespie says. "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.' And that's why I'm quitting the Pampered Chef."
Gillespie says the decision was not a difficult decision for her and her husband to make. "We searched God's Word and found a ton of scriptures that I believe that God led us to find and know exactly where God stands," she says.
"The Book of James it says if you know what to do and you don't do it, it's a sin. So if you know where God stands on something and you choose not to do it because of finances or because you like the product, it's sin."
She says there was never any hesitation on her part about quitting a company that helps finance the killing of innocent babies. Citizen quotes a West Virginia mom and a 33-year-old Arizona mother of three who both also have resigned from The Pampered Chef over its financial support to abortion-related cayses,
Buffett purchased The Pampered Chef in September 2002 and remained under the management of Mrs. Christopher at that time.
