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Toys R Us, the beloved children’s store with well-known television commercials, was obviously in the business of kids. Without babies, toddlers, and tweens, Toys R Us and the affiliated Babies R Us simply would not have customers. This is a point so obvious, most people wouldn’t think stating such a fact would be necessary. Recent analysis of the Toys R Us bankruptcy and subsequent implosion indicates stating the obvious in this case was necessary.

After 70 years in business, Toys R Us announced the decision this month to close all of the 735 stores in the United States. Many economists and commentators were quick to point to online retail competition and the heavy debt load as factors that contributed to the company’s demise. Another factor was highlighted in a statement from Toys R Us. Representatives for the company wrote in an annual filing:

The decrease of birthrates in countries where we operate could negatively affect our business. Most of our end-customers are newborns and children and, as a result, our revenues are dependent on the birthrates in countries where we operate. In recent years, many countries’ birthrates have dropped or stagnated as their population ages, and education and income levels increase. A continued and significant decline in the number of newborns and children in these countries could have a material adverse effect on our operating results.

The sad fact that there were simply not enough babies to warrant the continuation of an iconic national chain of toy stores is not surprising to Pro-Lifers. Although abortion activists often use the overpopulation as a rationalization for the slaughter of the preborn, demographics show no such crisis exists.

As the Washington Post notes, the declining birthrate and subsequent lack of customers is not a phenomenon that will affect Toys R Us alone. Pro-Lifers noted, however, that Toys R Us directly contributed to worsening the problem by contributing to the single largest abortion business in the United States, Planned Parenthood. Toys R Us modified this position under pressure from Pro-Life activists. As Life Site News reports:

In August 2010, Life Decisions International (LDI) identified Toys R Us as a boycott target for its contributions to the abortion giant. In December of that year, LDI removed Toys R Us and several other companies from the list, a development it credited to pro-life activists who pressured the companies to reverse course.

Abortion supporters scoff at the observation that Toys R Us contributed to their own downfall by contributing to Planned Parenthood, because Toys R Us ended direct support in 2010. They also try to invoke the flimsy lie that abortion is “only three percent” of Planned Parenthood’s business. Nonetheless, before 2010, Toys R Us gave money to the organization that ends the lives of more than 320,000 preborn babies in abortion every year. That is a lot of future customers. What is more, Toys R Us continued to indirectly fund the abortion chain by matching gifts to Susan G. Komen, which was bullied into continuing a partnership with Planned Parenthood.

While there are many reasons that Toys R Us will shutter more than 700 stores and 31,000 employees will be out of a job, the company’s contributions to America’s largest abortion business endorsed an anti-Life world view that is antithetical to a healthy and growing society. Hopefully, Planned Parenthood’s other corporate contributors take note.