Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards promoted her radical, pro-abortion agenda Saturday at her alma mater, Brown University.
Richards, who runs the largest abortion chain in the United States, has been touring the country to drum up support as Congress works to defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups.
In her speech, Richards focused on women’s rights, a broad category that Planned Parenthood believes should include taxpayer-funding for abortions and birth control.
The Providence Journal reported on Richards’ speech:
One hundred years ago, when Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic, women didn’t believe they had the right to control their bodies, Richards said. Today, Planned Parenthood operates 650 health centers that provide services to 2.5 million patients. One out of every five women in the United States has visited a Planned Parenthood facility.
“There are 18 different kinds of birth control,” she said. “That, to me, is progress.”
Richards said birth control has opened up a vast world of opportunity for women — in medicine and in law, in politics and in the boardroom. Half of the latest class of astronauts are women. The majority of students earning master’s degrees and doctorates are female.
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Richards and her abortion chain blame conservatives for wanting to control women’s reproduction, but that sounds a lot like projection, given what Planned Parenthood does.
Planned Parenthood loves to talk about helping women to succeed, but its main focus is on women’s bodies, in particular their reproductive organs.
The problem (one of many problems, actually) is that the abortion chain treats women’s ability to bear children – a strength that men do not possess – as something to be stifled and controlled rather than embraced and supported. And Planned Parenthood often seems to imply that women cannot succeed without birth control and abortion. This is not only insulting but also sexist.
Planned Parenthood’s top “services” are abortion and birth control. Every year, it aborts more than 300,000 unborn babies in their mother’s wombs. Its annual reports show nearly 3 million birth control services annually. But for women who are interested in reproducing (having children), Planned Parenthood offers very little. Its prenatal care services basically are non-existent, and it provides ultrasounds only to women who want abortions, according to recent undercover investigations by Live Action. And while the abortion chain lists infertility among its services as well, according to Planned Parenthood’s annual reports, this service seems to be almost non-existent, too.
Progress and success should not be defined by the number of birth control methods that are available. Nor should women’s successes be defined by men’s. Women can succeed as mothers, and women can succeed by being mothers. Of course, success is not defined by motherhood either, and not every woman should want to be a mother. But under Planned Parenthood’s model, motherhood often is discouraged and left unsupported when it should be celebrated and welcomed. Progress should be defined by the support and acceptance that society provides to women to help them succeed, whether its by being an astronaut or a mother of six or both.
