In a Washington Post feature on Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, President of the nation’s largest abortion chain, says every abortion restriction in this nation must be challenged and removed. Richards says, “We need to challenge or repeal every single restriction that’s out there.”
Of course, “every single” restriction includes restrictions on late-term abortions as well, which means Richards is arguing that abortion should be allowed at any time for any reason, literally up until birth.
The congratulatory piece on Richards reads more like a press release from the abortion chain itself than it does a feature story from a top newspaper. Writer Caitlin Gibson flatters her subject:
She is, as always, immaculately put together, her tall frame draped in a merlot-colored sheath and matching cardigan, gold earrings twinkling beneath her short, white-blond hair. Her alto voice conveys the subtlest hint of a Texas twang, and more than a hint of sarcasm…. In person, the 59-year-old Richards exudes both a warm authenticity and a subtle impenetrability; there’s the sense that she means everything she says, but she isn’t saying everything.
After Gibson’s presentation of Richards as some sort of cultural heroine, she cuts to the chase in a way no flowery language can conceal: Richards is fighting to make all abortion available at all times, and insisting that taxpayers pay for it. Richards continues to condemn the Hyde Amendment prohibiting deferral funding for abortions, saying, “For too long this country has punished low-income women seeking abortion, forcing those who have the least to pay the most to access care.” But repealing Hyde isn’t all she wants. As Gibson writes:
Gone is the vaguely conciliatory mantra of the past, the ideal of keeping abortion “safe, legal and rare” once advocated by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Today’s activists are bringing the passionately debated procedure into the light, encouraging women to talk openly about their abortions and giving the movement an unapologetic human face.
That ‘human face’ means getting what the abortion industry wants—all abortions allowed all the time — even when it goes against common sentiment, even among those who support abortion access.
A Knights of Columbus/Marist Poll in July showed that 87% of Americans think there should be some restrictions on abortion; 78 percent of people who consider themselves pro-choice, likewise, support some abortion restrictions.
But Richards says:
There are still enormous barriers to women who need access to safe and legal abortion. We need to challenge or repeal every single restriction that’s out there.
Obviously, her sentiment does not reflect even those who consider themselves supporters of legal abortion. As Anna Paprocki, staff counsel for Americans United for Life, said in the Post story, “[Richards] really has made Planned Parenthood more about abortion than it ever was before.”
And indeed, Richards now makes no bones about her goals of widespread abortion. Despite American sentiment and state laws, Richards is leading a charge of a fringe group of people seeking to normalize child-killing, even when that child could be born at that moment and survive.
The Planned Parenthood rhetoric may use phrases like “women’s health,” but upon hearing Richards’ ideas, it seems apparent that in her radical abortion-minded worldview, a woman can only be truly healthy if she can have unfettered access to kill her preborn children, all the way up until the moment before birth.
