Cain Hits Planned Parenthood as Racist, Abortion Biz Responds

Politics   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Oct 31, 2011   |   10:18AM   |   Washington, DC

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain went after the Planned Parenthood abortion business in a weekend interview on Face the Nation, saying the abortion giant was founded on racist roots and continues that racism today.

The host of the CBS program asked Cain about comments he made in January saying he opposes the racist agenda of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s biggest abortion business.

“I absolutely would defund Planned Parenthood — not because I don’t believe in planning parenthood, [but because] Planned Parenthood as an organization is an absolute farce on the American people,” he said then. “People who know the history of Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood, they know that the intention was not to help young women who get pregnant to plan their parenthood. No — it was a sham to be able to kill black babies.”

In the new interview, Cain says, “I still stand by that. If people go back and look at the history and look at Margaret Sanger’s own words, that’s exactly where that came from What I’m saying is, Planned Parenthood isn’t sincere about wanting to try to counsel them not to have abortions.”

“Seventy-five percent of those facilities were built in the black community. In Margaret Sanger’s own words, she didn’t use the word ‘genocide,’ but she did talk about preventing the increasing number of poor blacks in this country by preventing black babies from being born,” Cain told the program.

Veronica Byrd, director of African American media for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, slammed Cain in a statement.

“It is simply unacceptable for those who oppose legal abortion to use inflammatory and divisive language based on race to push an ideological agenda,” she said. “Herman Cain is wrong on the facts and clearly out of the mainstream in his attack on Planned Parenthood.”

Bryd points to a study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute claiming less than 10 percent of Planned Parenthood abortion facilities are in predominantly African-American neighborhoods. However, Guttmacher is a pro-abortion organization that is formerly a Planned Parenthood affiliate and named for a former Planned Parenthood vice president.  Life Dynamics released a report in August showing Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry in the United States target black and Hispanic Americans by placing abortion facilities in communities with high minority populations.

Cain tangled with Planned Parenthood a second time this year in March, when he said he supported de-funding the abortion business that receives about $360 million from federal, state and local governments.