Celebrities Speak at Planned Parenthood Abortion Event at GOP Convention

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Aug 31, 2004   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Celebrities Speak at Planned Parenthood Abortion Event at GOP Convention Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 31, 2004

New York (LifeNews.com) — Pro-life advocates may outnumber abortion activists within the Republican Party, but the vocal minority were able to hobnob with celebrities at a Planned Parenthood-sponsored event on Monday.

Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson said she thought it was important for pro-abortion protesters to be at the Republican convention, even though most delegates did not personally see the protests.

"That’s what makes America," Clarkson said of the few thousand pro-abortion protesters who gathered on Sunday and marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. "I think the protests do have an effect."

According to an Associated Press report, actor David Eigenberg, a character on the controversial HBO series "Sex and the City," said it was important for men to participate in the Planned Parenthood event "to counter the men who run the pro-life movement."

Eigenberg said the pro-life movement has done a good job of casting abortion advocates in a negative light.

"Pro-choice is all about having the ability to make a very, very hard decision if the circumstances of your life take you to a place where you have to make a decision," Eigenberg said.

Eigenberg’s character marries actress Cynthia Nixon’s character and Nixon also attended the pro-abortion event.

Pop musician Joan Osborne, a one-hit wonder with the infamous song "What if God Was One of Us," is determined to keep abortion legal and spoke at the Planned Parenthood shindig despite the fact she is only "a few months away" from having a baby.

"The Bush administration agenda is really quite specific about trying to take a lot of these freedoms away, not only from American women, but from women around the world," she said according to an AP report. "I think it would be a disaster for four more years of this administration."

But not every Hollywood celebrity backs abortion. Others say women deserve better than abortion.

Two-time Emmy award winning actress Patricia Heaton, a star on the hit comedy series "Everybody Loves Raymond," is unabashedly pro-woman and pro-life.

Heaton, who has been the honorary co-chair of Feminists for Life since 1998 believes it is better to "make the system conform to what is best for you and your baby instead of making the baby go away to conform to what is best for the system."

She decries groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL who make it appear that abortion is preferential to motherhood.

"Even though we are a very baby-friendly environment, I still think that there’s a lot of feeling out there that [mothers have] second-class status in society," Heaton said.

Kathy Ireland, the first "supermodel," agrees that the rights of women and unborn children can go hand in hand.

"I’m liberal about the rights of the unborn child," Ireland explained. "I’m [also] a person who always has and always will fight for the rights of women."

Ireland says that once she realized the humanity of the unborn, she could no longer take a pro-choice position. "From the moment of conception, a new life comes into being with a complete genetic blueprint. The sex is determined. The blood type is determined. It doesn’t start out as one species and suddenly become a human being."

Musician and activist Moby also performed at the event, held at the Beacon Theater. Others at the event included Chuck D of the rap group Public Enemy and Lou Reed.