By Judie Brown
The trail of distortions blazed by Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards is a thoroughfare of pain, agony, killing, back-room deals, and baby body parts marketing.
Despite all of this documented proof that Richards and her organization are up to their collective eyeballs in dangerous practices, two things happened last week that defy logic and common sense.
The first was the publication in the once-prestigious New England Journal of Medicine of an editorial by Richards that is chock full of half-truths and the manipulation of statistics. In the editorial, Richards claims that the birth control Planned Parenthood provides is responsible for a decline in teen pregnancy. However, in the Texas panhandle, for example, teen pregnancy rates began to fall AFTER Planned Parenthood closed its doors. In addition, Richards comments that “birth control is essential health care for women,” and proceeds to bemoan the fact that many women cannot afford it.
As we said in a recent press release, in a right-thinking world “women’s health equates with protecting them from dangerous chemicals that harm their bodies and can kill their preborn babies.” And as we know and can prove, “Planned Parenthood is synonymous with marketing birth control, abortion on demand, and sterilization to an ignorant public.” Contrary to what Richards claims, birth control has never been a healthcare imperative. In fact, the pill is a recreational drug whose most common reason for use is to avoid the possibility of getting pregnant. If a woman truly valued her body and wanted to avoid getting pregnant, she would not medicate herself but rather exercise her free will and avoid sexual relationships.
Of course Richards could never make that argument because Planned Parenthood makes a financial killing on the sale of those little pills and other devices. Sue Thayer, a 17-year employee of Planned Parenthood in Iowa, recently claimed that “Parenthood staffers routinely purchased birth control pills for just under $3, billed Medicaid $35 for the same package of pills, and got reimbursed for $26.”
There is no question about it. Richards is in the marketing business, not the truth business. This brings us to the second thing that defies logic and common sense. I was shocked to learn that Richards was invited to speak at the Catholic-in-name-only Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Explaining this invitation, a Georgetown spokesperson said, “Recently, The Lecture Fund, a student-run organization, invited Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, to speak on campus. Ms. Richards is not being paid to speak. Student groups may invite any outside speakers and guests to campus. An appearance of any speaker or guest on campus is not an endorsement by the university.”
While officials at the university might say “Our Catholic and Jesuit identity on campus has never been stronger. Georgetown remains firmly committed to the sanctity and human dignity of every life at every stage,” we are doubtful. We wonder if, as is the case in so many instances, the actions of a Georgetown-sponsored student group speak volumes about the university—much more so than a lukewarm media statement.
Georgetown has used this same boiler-plate response for other speakers on campus, including President Obama and Hustler publisher Larry Flynt. Nothing more needs to be said.
Furthermore, let’s not forget the most chilling of Richards’ forays into the business of aborting children clinically, medically, and surgically. Just a few days ago Planned Parenthood was exposed in another groundbreaking Center for Medical Progress video. In this video we learn that a California Planned Parenthood affiliate actually “alters the abortion procedure, sometimes delivers children ‘intact,’ and provides fetal organs to a company that charges $750 for babies’ brains.” If this is not the personification of evil in our time, what is?
As I said, Cecile Richards deludes with unbelievable persistence, and America apparently eats it up!
Pray, learn, and act now. Stop the madness!
JOIN AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE IN BUILDING A CULTURE OF LIFE.