Planned Parenthood still hasn’t gotten the memo
Do you believe that the lives of unborn babies deserve the protection of law? Then according to Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, you’re a hater.
Yesterday, Richards sent an email complaining about a “health crisis in New Orleans” that’s been brought about by a measles outbreak the Louisiana Health Department’s refusal to allow the opening of Planned Parenthood’s new $4 million abortion facility in New Orleans. In her message, Richards uses some variation on the phrase “New Orleans needs health care, not hate” no fewer than four (4) times.
“War on Women” Rhetoric Retread
From a fundraising standpoint, this is a brilliant move on Richards’ part. What better way to gin up the anger of your hardcore supporters — and get them to send you money — than by painting your opponents with the hate brush?
Consider further that in the donations page linked to in Richards’ email, the word “abortion” appears only half as many times (twice) as the phrase “health care, not hate.” But even when the word “abortion” does appear, it’s never by itself. Both times it’s preceded by the words — you might want to sit down for this — “safe” and “legal.” (Not surprisingly, Richards fails to mention the names of Tonya Reaves or Edrica Goode, both of whom died after undergoing abortions at Planned Parenthood. Imagine that.)
Cecile Richards and her team of expensive consultants at Planned Parenthood know full well that talking about abortion is a loser for her side, and it doesn’t take much grey matter to understand why. The latest proof comes just this week with the release of a new Gallup poll showing increasing discontent with current U.S. abortion policies among the general public.
And so, consequently, the nation’s largest abortion chain talks about abortion as little as possible, and spends twice as much time saying that those of us who oppose it are guilty of that most contemptible of sins, hatred. This sounds an awful lot like the “war on women” rhetoric that was — and, to a much smaller extent, still is — so popular among committed abortion supporters, although it’s pretty clear that this strategy has been a failure.
So too, from a P.R. standpoint, playing the hate card isn’t going to work. But it will surely make Planned Parenthood a lot of money.
