planned parenthood

Yesterday on Focal Point, American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer marked the anniversary of Roe v. Wade by predicting that America “will have to pay” for legal abortion: “It could be through civil war, it could be through anarchy, it could be through Muslim fundamentalists and terrorists attacks on the United States, but one way or another we cannot escape God’s justice.”

He went on to argue that Planned Parenthood clinics are no different from Nazi death camps. “You see a Planned Parenthood clinic, just think Birkenau, just think Auschwitz, just think Bergen-Belsen,” Fischer said, “because that’s what you are looking at, you are looking at an equivalent of a Nazi gas chamber.”

Watch:

Later, he repeated the false charge that Planned Parenthood promotes domestic abuse to its members.

Just like other conservative leaders, Fischer never found time to watch the video he is so angry about. If he did he would learn that it’s a British anti-violence video that uses an intentionally misleading title to deliver the real message: “Don’t cover it up.”

Sometimes you really have to wonder whether anyone on the Religious Right has ever used YouTube before. Last month, conservative news outlets including Fox News and groups like Concerned Women for America jumped on a LifeNews post which alleged that Planned Parenthood was promoting ways to cover-up domestic abuse. They were upset that back in August, a Planned Parenthood-affiliated Facebook page posted a video by a British anti-domestic violence group entitled “How to look your best the morning after”:

Even the author of the original LifeNews article admits that the video, made by the organization Refuge, is a shrewd message against domestic abuse, as towards the end the woman is confronted by her abuser returning home and ends with:

65% of women who suffer domestic violence keep it hidden.
Don't cover it up.
Share this and help someone speak out.

Using the video to attack Planned Parenthood was a bridge too far for one anti-choice blogger, who wrote that “the video is actually a clever, if chilling, parody opposed to covering up domestic abuse.”

But right-wing activists intentionally and flagrantly misrepresented the video, claiming that it was actually a pro-abuse video, while others like Concerned Women for America insisted that Planned Parenthood came up with the video’s title, “How to look your best the morning after.”

Of course, anyone who has used YouTube before knows that the account which uploaded video, not a Facebook page which simply shares it, creates the video title.

That brings us to today’s radio alert from Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, who unbelievably and almost comically claimed that Planned Parenthood promoted domestic abuse and gave the video its title.

Perkins: Planned Parenthood’s reputation isn’t the only thing taking a beating, so are its teenage followers. Hello, I’m Tony Perkins with the Family Research Council in Washington. The abortion industry can cover anything up and their latest video proves it. In the footage, Planned Parenthood coaches girls on looking good after they’ve been physically abused. “I’ve had a bit of a rough time,” says a girl with bruises, “but I’m going to be doing a talk today on how to cover-up.” She shows teenagers how to use makeup to hide the assault. “If you’ve got some bruising,” she says with a choking motion, “you can always pull your hair down to the side or use a scarf.” The tape is from the UK but Planned Parenthood calls it, “How to look your best the morning after.” And this is the kind of education taxpayers are spending millions on? When Planned Parenthood’s not promoting violence against babies, they’re condoning it among teenagers. So if anything should be sporting cuts, it’s Planned Parenthood’s budget.

Seeing that the FRC also opposes the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, we are not at all surprised that it is now grossly misrepresenting an anti-violence video to call for Congress to defund Planned Parenthood.

As Kyle reported yesterday, right-wing activists are jumping on what they claim is definitive proof that Planned Parenthood is teaching young women to conceal bruises that result from domestic violence.

Of course the charge is completely bogus. Planned Parenthood posted a video entitled “How to look your best the morning after” on one of its Facebook pages. The video, and title, were created by the British domestic abuse prevention group “Refuge” to draw attention to the issue and tell views to not “cover it up.”

However, an anti-choice website LifeNews reported it as if Planned Parenthood came up with the video’s title and is using it to assist women in covering up abuse. But conservatives who either never bothered to watch the video or know that the charge is ludicrous but don’t care ran with the story.

Fox Nation posted the LifeNews story verbatim and Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance even released a statement demanding Congress defund the women’s health organization over the matter:

Why are we giving $1 million dollars per day to an organization that thinks a practical way to end domestic violence is to coach victims on makeup tips to hide their abuse? Once again Planned Parenthood gets it so wrong. Between coaching pimps on how to obtain free abortions for sex trafficking victims, to support for sex selection abortions, to targeting minority babies, this organization is a toxic waste of taxpayer funds and is damaging to American culture. They deceitfully wrap their radical ideology in terms like 'women's health,' but all they really care about is perpetuating their insidious goals of coarsening our culture and undermining American families.

Since Planned Parenthood seems to be in cahoots with pimps and traffickers (see Live Action's expose), this makes perfect sense. After all, they want those pimps happy and able to keep making money so they can pay for 'their girls' to have abortions. Some johns won't pay for a prostitute with bruises, so learning how to cover them up means they can go back out on the street sooner. Planned Parenthood may be a non-profit, but they sure know how to make money. Congress needs to defund this parasite immediately.

Along with Nance’s shamelessly dishonest statement, CWA blogger Christian Shelby claimed that while the video is actually meant to fight abuse Planned Parenthood “has turned it on its head, posting the video with the simple headline: ‘How to look your best the morning after.’”

Actually the British organization gave the video that title, but right-wing groups like CWA have no use for basic facts when trying to smear Planned Parenthood.

Enter Planned Parenthood, who recently posted a video on their Facebook page that instructs teenage girls on how to hide the evidence of abuse with makeup. After all, why report the scumbag? You deserved it, didn’t you? It’s not your boyfriend’s fault that he’s a pathetic excuse for a man who can only win an argument with his fists. This isn’t a problem for police. No. This is a job for Covergirl.

Actually, the video is from a legitimate organization in the U.K. that’s fighting domestic violence. But Planned Parenthood — ever the friend of pimps, statutory rapists, and sex traffickers — has turned it on its head, posting the video with the simple headline: “How to look your best the morning after.”

At least one anti-choice blogger, Ben Johnson, apparently decided that watching the video and reading the headline might be important before writing about it and concluded that the video is clearly “opposed to covering up domestic abuse.”

But is it any wonder that the same activists who either never found the time to watch or are misrepresenting the anti-violence PSA in question are the very same ones who praised Live Action’s deceptively edited videos that targeted Planned Parenthood?

UPDATE: Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has also joined the smear campaign:

UPDATE II: LifeNews has updated their article to claim that “Planned Parenthood’s presentation of the video is problematic, not the video itself,” arguing that it is “problematic” because Refuge titled the video, “How To Look Your Best The Morning After.”

Maybe LifeNews, Concerned Women for America and Tony Perkins should take their grudge up with Refuge, as Planned Parenthood does not have control over the names of other organization’s videos.

On today's edition of Liberty Counsel's "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Mat Staver took issue with the idea that Planned Parenthood is a women's health organization, asserting that it is nothing of the sort. In fact, said Staver, Planned Parenthood "is not interested in the health and well-being of women" but is really only interested in "their death agenda" and in "damaging the very core and foundation of who we are as Americans and a people of faith and values."  Staver said that this nation needs to "erase this chapter of blood that has soaked America since 1973" and that begins by defunding Planned Parenthood while praying "that God will forgive this land": 

The former Susan G. Komen for the Cure executive who orchestrated the organization’s controversial and short-lived break from Planned Parenthood earlier this year, is out with a new book claiming that the funding dispute was all Planned Parenthood’s fault. In “Planned Bullyhood,” Karen Handel claims that Planned Parenthood turned its back on a “gentlewomen’s agreement” to not discuss the fact that Komen was withdrawing $680,000 a year in grants for breast cancer screenings through the organization’s clinics and then turned on Komen in a PR blitz.

Handel, an anti-choice activist and former GOP candidate who reportedly pushed the move within Komen, resigned shortly after the news of the break caused a national firestorm.

In interviews with right-wing radio hosts Janet Mefferd and Janet Parshall last week, Handel portrays herself as the victim of bullying by the “vicious” Planned Parenthood. She tells Mefferd that Planned Parenthood launched “a mafia-style attack” and that “Komen was held hostage for a mere $680,000.” She sees a double standard in the fact that President Obama didn’t call her after she was criticized, “like he did Sandra Fluke”:

Handel: The left and Planned Parenthood, they were threatening Komen’s corporate sponsors: “See what we’re doing to Komen? If you don’t stop supporting them, we’re gonna do the same to you.” They were just filling up the Facebooks, Twitter, Komen’s website crashed, there were bomb threats, corporate sponsors were threatened. It really was almost a mafia-style attack, if you will, and Komen was held hostage for a mere $680,000. And Planned Parenthood and the left, they wanted this to be about politics. I believe they used Komen purposefully as a pawn, if you will, in this ridiculous so-called “War on Women” and these cries of “women’s health.” And Janet, my question for you, and I just find this all so insulting, how in the world did the issue of women’s health get reduced to being about abortion and contraception?

Meffered: Right. I’m with you.

Handel: I just reject that. I reject that notion, and I think that most women do too.

Mefferd: Oh, completely. And what I found very interesting, Karen, doing the show that I do, and being pro-life and knowning a lot of pro-lifers, when Susan G. Komen made that decision and all the pro-lifers were going “Yes, finally, great!,” the next thing people were saying was, “Now watch what Planned Parenthood will do to them.” You know, we knew. We knew exactly how Planned Parenthood would react, though admittedly it was more over the top than I think a lot of us believed it would be. It was shameful what they did.

Handel: You know, it really was. And you know, they had such an amicable partner in all of it, which was the liberal mainstream press, which really served almost as an extension of all of it and really targeted the politics, my personal politics, Ambassador Brinker’s personal politics. And I’d like to point out, you did not see Susan G. Komen for the Cure endorsing presidential candidates the way Planned Parenthood has, you don’t see Komen investing, what’s Planned Parenthood gonna spend, almost $10 million in campaign ads to support Barack Obama. Nobody, the president didn’t call me and let me know he was sorry about the attacks that I faced, like he did Sandra Fluke.

Handel told Parshall that Planned Parenthood’s “agenda” is “not about women’s health” or “they would not have wanted to try to destroy” Komen.

Parshall: Planned Parenthood’s assault, to use your word, and by the way you started using that word back in February of this year, way before it became the title of your book, if they’re bullying people because they might have a pro-life position, it really calls into account whether they are pro-women or whether they are politically aligned rather than rising to a higher cause.

Handel: I think that’s right, I think you’ve really hit on it, Janet. And for Komen, that’s exactly what Komen was trying to do. Komen wanted to be in a place where everyone, regardless of whether they were pro-life or on the other side of the issue, would be able to embrace the organization and embrace the mission. We wanted to be neutral and we wanted to be good stewards of dollars. Don’t get me wrong, it was both. Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, they were willing to sacrifice Komen for the sake of their agenda, which is not about women’s health. If it was about women’s health, they would not have wanted to try to destroy an organization that was doing such good work in the area of breast cancer.

Lou Engle’s youth organization Bound4Life today is using the uproar over the Trayvon Martin shooting to attack Planned Parenthood for supposedly committing “black genocide” and to condemn “the hypocrisy of black America” for not rallying against reproductive rights. “Many in the black community are of the persuasion that abortion is merely a political issue of certain ‘rights,’” Corry Robinson writes, “My response is -it was Zimmerman’s ‘right’ to carry a gun and it was his ‘right’ to use ‘self defense’, right?” Robinson writes that if the police prosecute Travyon Martin’s killer, then the state should also go after Planned Parenthood “with accessory to 38 million racially motivated murders”:

Looking across the vast span of media coverage, it’s becoming increasingly evident that blacks are as passionate about ‘justice’ today as we were 50 years ago during the Civil Rights Era. Young adults are mobilizing and taking it to the streets by the hundreds to lift their voices on behalf of voiceless Trayvon Martin, one who had no way of defending himself.

This current situation raises many questions in my own heart for my fellow black Americans. Particularly, ‘Where are the unified protests of blacks against the holocaust of abortion in our nation?’ In the 54 million reported abortions in America since 1973, a staggering 38 million are innocent African American babies! In a wide sense, Trayvon’s tragedy is not much different than the tragedy of abortion in that he was helpless to defend himself. Many in the black community are of the persuasion that abortion is merely a political issue of certain “rights.” My response is -it was Zimmerman’s “right” to carry a gun and it was his “right” to use “self defense”, right? At what point do we differentiate our employment of rule of law between the two situations?

Some are saying, “Well…Trayvon’s murder was racially motivated!” This may very well have been the case…but so was the institution and practice of abortion in America-and history proves this without question. Others have said, “Zimmerman pursued Trayvon without a cause.” Such was, and still is, the case of the abortion industry. Abortionists and Eugenicists have actively pursued African Americans for almost a century. Please understand that the very fact of Planned Parenthood’s presence being primarily in black/minority communities (78% to be exact) is basic marketing strategy-Their target market is the African American/minority community! So again, where are the black voices on this issue? We cannot pick and choose when to ‘be righteous’ and when not to be! Either we are righteous people or we aren’t. In my opinion, there is enough evidence in Trayvon’s tragedy to bring charges. But in a greater measure there are heaps and stacks of evidence to charge Planned Parenthood and others in the abortion industry with accessory to 38 million racially motivated murders (just to be clear, I use the term “accessory” because of the cooperative response of participants to abortion. Abortion clinics never act alone).

Former Georgia Secretary of State and Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation vice president Karen Handel appeared on the 700 Club today where she blamed the controversy of Komen’s decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood’s clinical breast cancer screenings and mammogram referrals…on Planned Parenthood. Handel, who as an unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia pledged to defund Planned Parenthood, acknowledged her role in convincing the organization to break ties with the women’s health group, but claimed that she was not the sole authority behind the decision.

While speaking with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Handel tried to blame Planned Parenthood for the controversy, even though it was the Komen foundation which ended its partnership with Planned Parenthood following pressure campaigns from anti-choice organizations. She attacked Planned Parenthood for leading a “premeditated, orchestrated attack” on the Komen foundation “not for sake of women’s health but for the sake of politics and a political agenda.” Later in the interview, she said Planned Parenthood’s actions were “nothing short of a shakedown” and that the media was biased in the group’s favor.

Watch:

The problem with pre-recorded radio shows is that they don’t necessarily keep up with the news. On his radio alert today, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins pays tribute to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation for cutting off funding for breast cancer screenings and mammogram referrals at Planned Parenthood clinics. Apparently, no one at the FRC thought it was a good idea to pull the bulletin as last week Komen backed down from its move to defund Planned Parenthood, and listeners might be confused while Perkins is “tickled pink” about Komen.

After seven years of sitting out Susan G. Komen events, pro-lifers can finally get back in the Race! Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Pro-lifers aren't just happy--they're tickled pink about America's biggest breast cancer charity. After a seven-year partnership, Susan G. Komen finally cut ties with Planned Parenthood. Most people never understood the relationship to begin with. One group was setting out to save lines, and Planned Parenthood committed to ending them. But, since 2005, Komen sent millions of dollars to the abortion giant for breast cancer screenings. Then the news broke. Planned Parenthood didn't need the money for mammograms, because it never offered them! All they do are manual breast exams, which the NIH calls ineffective. Liberals are bashing the Foundation for politicizing the issue, but in reality, Komen's just trying to be a good steward. Planned Parenthood's under investigation by Congress for everything from fraud and criminal cover-ups. Any legitimate organization would walk away! It's just too bad the federal government isn't one of them.