The Dr. Mengele of Philanthropy

Even cynical people have noted that by giving his money to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Buffet has resisted the inevitable egotistic temptation to reinvent a working wheel by aggrandising his existing charity foundation in his wife's name, but there's just no pleasing some people.

Pro-Lifers Against Buffett-Gates Alliance:

Warren Buffett's new philanthropic alliance with fellow billionaire Bill Gates won widespread praise this week, but anti-abortion activists did not join in, instead assailing the two donors for their longtime support of Planned Parenthood and international birth-control programs.

The Gates' Foundation has donated less than 1% of its grants to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood, which is the leading provider of abortions in the United States, has received $34 million from the Gates Foundation over the years - out of a total of $10.5 billion in grants worldwide, according to foundation spokeswoman Jacquelline Fuller. She said the foundation does not fund abortion services, earmarking the grants for other Planned Parenthood programs.

Joseph D'Agostino, a spokesman for the anti-abortion Population Research Institute, said the foundation position "is simply dishonest."

"Abortion services are the primary mission of Planned Parenthood," he said. "If you fund one side of an organization, that frees them up to transfer funds to the other things they do."

Besides, it's not just abortion that's baaaad anyway.

Beyond the issue of abortion, some critics oppose the Buffett and Gates foundations' support for global family-planning and population control programs.

"Some of the wealthiest men in the world descend like avenging angels on the populations of the developing world," wrote Population Research Institute president Steven Mosher, a frequent critic of Gates and Buffett. "They seek to decimate their numbers, to foist upon vulnerable people abortion, sterilization and contraception."

Most of the time such extreme antiabortionists merely make me sigh. But occasionally they exhibit a real flair for polemic one can't help but admire while deploring its targetting:

"The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world," said the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, a Roman Catholic priest who is president of Human Life International.

Referring to Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi death camp doctor, Euteneuer said Buffett "will be known as the Dr. Mengele of philanthropy unless he repents."

Hat-tip Stefan, who is jealous that no matter how many zombie books he writes he'll never have enough money to afford that nickname.