Actress Elizabeth Banks has been a big supporter of the abortion industry for years.
On Wednesday, the actress, known for her roles in “The Hunger Games” and “Scrubs,” hosted a fundraising dinner for the Center for Reproductive Rights, a pro-abortion group involved in challenging pro-life laws across the country, People Magazine reports.
Banks told her audience that abortion is supported by most Americans, and blasted the Trump administration for trying to defund Planned Parenthood.
“I think that there’s a vocal minority, but the fact remains that nearly 1 in 4 American women will have an abortion in their lifetime,” she said. “Most people know a woman who has had an abortion, and for the majority of abortions, that decision is made my women who are already mothers, who are trying to plan their families. And this is about families, not just women. Seven in ten Americans support abortion rights, so it’s not that controversial.”
But Banks’ statements are misleading. While it’s true that a majority of Americans say they support Roe v. Wade, a statistic to which Banks appeared to be referring, research also indicates most Americans do not know what the infamous abortion case did. However, when asked specific questions about abortion, polls consistently indicate that most Americans oppose most abortions.
According to a 2018 Gallup poll, 53 percent of Americans said abortions should be illegal in only a few or no circumstances, while 43 percent said abortions should be legal in all or most circumstances.
“No fewer than 51% of Americans have favored more restrictive abortion laws since 1994, when Gallup first asked the follow-up probe of those saying abortion should be legal under certain circumstances,” the pollsters wrote.
SUPPORT LIFENEWS! Help us take on the abortion industry, please help LifeNews.com with a donation!
Earlier this year, a national poll by Marist University found similar results. Three in four Americans (75 percent) say abortion should be limited to – at most – the first three months of pregnancy. This includes most Republicans (92 percent), Independents (78 percent) and Democrats (60 percent).
In fact, the opposite of what Banks claimed appears to be true. There is a disconnect between public perception and actual positions on abortion that polls have suggested repeatedly, but the disconnect is that more Americans are pro-life than what the public thinks.
A 2013 Gallup poll found that more Americans believe the public is pro-choice than it actually is. When asked how they think most Americans feel about the abortion issue, 51 percent of U.S. adults said the public is mostly “pro-choice,” while 35 percent said “pro-life.” The number of people who actually identified as pro-life was 48 percent, while 46 percent said they were pro-choice. Similarly, a new NBC poll out this week found a small majority of Americans think the Democratic Party position on abortion is “mainstream,” according to a new NBC poll.
Banks’ misleading comments did not end there. She went on to slam the Trump administration for its efforts to defund Planned Parenthood through a new Title X rule.
“It undermines women’s rights, patients’ rights. It keeps important information from women,” Banks said, according to the magazine. “I think that silencing doctors’ abilities to speak freely with their patients violates the ethical standards of doctors. It affects so many women in need of this information and this care.”
Planned Parenthood labeled the effort a “gag rule” and is suing the government, but the rule does not prevent doctors from speaking about abortion. The rule prohibits “referral for abortion as a method of family planning,” but it still permits “non-directive counseling on abortion.”
Banks has been an abortion activist for years. She repeatedly has talked up the abortion giant Planned Parenthood in her celebrity interviews, and worked on pro-abortion media campaigns.
Actress Busy Philipps (“Dawson’s Creek,” “Cougar Town”) also attended the pro-abortion fundraiser, according to the report. In her memoir, she revealed that she had an abortion and described it as a painful experience.
