Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards has become a darling of the mainstream media, frequently sitting for interviews that promise to flatter her and her abortion chain.
The Houston Chronicle recently featured the highly paid abortion activist ($590,928 in 2013) during her visit to campaign for pro-abortion Democrat Hillary Clinton in Texas.
Richards spoke about her life, her work and her own abortion experience. The abortion giant CEO said she has faced criticism for telling her abortion story, but she does not care.
“That’s because people like to judge women about the decisions they make,” Richards told the Texas newspaper. “I didn’t really know what the reaction would be, and honestly I didn’t really care. … Almost one in three women in this country will have an abortion. And they make these decisions for a whole host of reasons. … Women are the best people to know what’s the right decision for them.”
The details of Richards’ abortion first came to light in October of 2014. Planned Parenthood does about 330,000 abortions on an annual basis, and Richards opened up about her own abortion in an essay published in Elle — writing that she thinks if more women share their abortion decisions it will stop the “stigma” surrounding abortion.
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“I had an abortion. It was the right decision for me and my husband, and it wasn’t a difficult decision,” Richards wrote then. “Before becoming president of Planned Parenthood eight years ago, I hadn’t really talked about it beyond family and close friends. But I’m here to say, when politicians argue and shout about abortion, they’re talking about me — and millions of other women around the country.”
Later, in a 2015 interview with Katie Couric, Richards admitted she had the abortion for birth control reasons.
“It was a decision my husband and I made. It was a personal decision. And we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life. And we decided that was as big as our family needed to be. That was really the story. It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that. But I can’t imagine a woman being in that circumstance — with an unintended pregnancy–and not being able to make her own decision about that pregnancy.”
Richards did not provide the details surrounding her abortion — how old the baby was at the time of the abortion or why she ended her baby’s life rather than carrying the pregnancy to term or considering adoption.
Since then, a number of other abortion activists have followed Richards’ lead and told their abortion stories in an attempt to normalize abortion, too. During the Democratic National Convention in July, NARAL president Ilyse Hogue shared that she aborted her unborn baby and it was a “compassionate” decision.
However, women who regret their abortions and had painful experiences largely have been shut out from the mainstream media. Kathy is one of them. She had an abortion when she was 19 years old after the baby’s father abused and threatened her.
She wrote:
I hear people talking about the right to “choose.” I wish like HELL I didn’t have the right to choose that day.I wish there had been counseling. I wish there had been adoption agencies out there trying to reach the youth. I wish THOSE things were easy access; NOT Planned Parenthood. I wish more than anything, ANYTHING, I could have taken away MY right to choose and allow my baby to have their right to choose life. I wish there was support out there for girls like me. And maybe there was…but Planned Parenthood was easy to find. Abortion is easy. Walk in, walk out. Done. Pregnant. Not Pregnant. Simple. Except…it’s NOT that simple. They forget to tell you about the rest of the story.
The truth is they don’t tell you about the memory you live with for the rest of your life. For awhile I was able to forget. I had to suppress the memory in order to survive MY right to live. But slowly the memory began to resurface. Back to the room…back to the smells…back to the empty eyes of broken women. Back to the face of the man that literally sucked life out of my body.
Abortion is not about choice. It’s about selfishness. It’s about desperation. And I can say that because I have had one. I have walked a mile in those shoes…and it’s a mile that never ends.
Recently a friend asked me if I had ever named my baby. Immediately I thought, “No, because that would make it real!” Then the “fetus” would become human. Become a baby. But I knew in that moment I needed to acknowledge that my baby is real. I needed to mourn the loss of my child. I realized how deep the pain still ran from my right to “choose.” I began to pray that God would give me a name. A few weeks ago while driving in the car I heard God speak to me: “Her name is Joy.” Tears streamed down my face. It was a girl! I had had a daughter.
