Planned Parenthood has responded to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s recent comments on appointing pro-life judges to the Supreme Court by declaring him a “nightmare.”
Last week, Trump told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that “I will appoint judges that will be pro-life” and that “as many as five judges [may] be appointed over the next four and a half years.” On Friday, Planned Parenthood sent out a fundraising email denouncing the prospect as “a nightmare we can’t afford to live through” and hoping he loses the election “a gamble we can’t take.”
“Trump is now the leader of a Republican Party hell-bent on outlawing abortion,” the abortion giant went on, calling the pro-life cause an “extreme” agenda. “Donate to Planned Parenthood Action Fund now to make sure our grassroots leaders have what they need to stop Trump.” The email also suggests Trump specifically promised to “overturn Roe v. Wade,” though he hedged on whether his nominees would specifically do so in the actual interview.
The comments are a sharp departure from Planned Parenthood President and CEO Cecile Richards thanking Trump for his “kind words” in February. “This is one thing I agree with Donald Trump on, is that Planned Parenthood does amazing work for two and a half million patients every single year,” she added.
Richards was referencing Trump’s recurring habit throughout the primary of praising the abortion giant’s “very good work” on non-abortion women’s health services, going so far as to suggest Planned Parenthood might deserve to retain partial tax funding for those services (a position he later took back, though he has not apologized for the praise itself).
Trump is running for president on a pro-life platform, though pro-lifers remain divided on his reliability. It remains to be seen whether Planned Parenthood’s recasting of Trump as an enemy to their cause will unify pro-lifers around him.
