The President of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards did her cause no favors in her appearance this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” (see above). Stephanopoulos was not a hostile interviewer, yet Richards failed to answer the simplest of questions put to her.
It was clear that she had a set of talking points that she was determined to repeat no matter what Stephanopoulos asked. Instead of actually answering the questions, she kept repeating the talking points ad nauseum. Her talking points were not aimed at answering the issues raised by the videos but at attacking the people who produced the videos. I kid you not. She even accused the makers of the video of murder and terrorism. In her own words:
“The folks behind this, in fact, are part of the most militant wing of the anti-abortion movement that has been behind the bombing of clinics, the murder of doctors in their homes, and in their churches.”
How embarrassing. Instead of offering a substantive defense of her organization, she makes a baseless accusation that speaks more to her panic than to the issues at hand. This is not serious.
She claims that Planned Parenthood doesn’t profit from abortions, but when asked about specific monetary figures she had no answer. She claims that Planned Parenthood doesn’t sell baby parts, but when asked about the money Planned Parenthood takes from buyers she said the exchange isn’t a sale. She claims that Planned Parenthood abortionists do not alter their procedures to harvest baby parts, but when shown the video of Dr. Nucatola talking about doing that very thing, Richards just reminds everyone how bad the makers of the video are.
Richards also claims that the first priority of Planned Parenthood is the health and safety of their patients. But I don’t think the average viewer is buying what she’s selling. If you lead an organization that presides over the deaths of 327,653 children a year (about 900 kills per day), you don’t get to lecture anyone about your scrupulous concern for the health of your patients. We all know better.
Richards’s main contentions are these: that Planned Parenthood has never broken the law and that the producers of the videos are liars. In light of the videos, however, these claims are questionable at best and demonstrably false at worst.
Even after all of her bluster, there are two facts that she does not dispute. Take note:
(1) Planned Parenthood routinely kills babies in utero through procedures that involve “crushing” the baby.
(2) Planned Parenthood harvests the body parts of dead babies and hands them over to researchers in exchange for money.
She doesn’t dispute these two facts because she admits that they are true. She knows what her abortionists are doing. We know what they are doing. And that is the scandal that she cannot conceal with her barrage of euphemisms.
Like I said, Richards did her cause no favors in this interview. It looked and sounded desperate and deceitful. And that is because it was.
4 Comments
brian darby
I do agree with your article she did not do her organization much good.
Don Johnson
I do not think she is trying to persuade anyone, she is preaching to her choir to try to stem the rout or at least pretend it is not happening. After 3 businesses wrote PP to take them off their donation list (as they were there in error, apparently), they took the list down.
Cindy
It was a PR exercise, plain & simple – she didn’t want to be there – you could see that. She HAD to do it. She used all the expected words (anyone who doesn’t agree with her is a ‘militant’), but she didn’t convince George Stephanopoulos or answer any of the questions, as Denny noted. Her polished, uptown image didn’t help either. She looked like someone who profited from all of those manipulated baby parts and drives a Jaguar. (a Lambo would be in bad taste for that image.) A little less polish if she was really trying to do damage control. It was lip service – she has gone for so long without having to explain herself or her organization that she has forgotten how. She thinks she has it in the bag & there’s no way she’s going to lose the funding – PP just has to sit tight & it’ll all blow over. We will see. This is more than political – it’s spiritual. We would do best to remember to fight this in that dimension first and foremost. Pray first. Then do whatever God puts in front of you – like sharing on your FB what you read.
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