Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, in an interview released Tuesday, accused some men in Congress of believing that “women are just not in their place anymore.”
“There are members of Congress who think that women are just not in their place anymore,” Ms. Richards said in the February issue of Esquire. “Things were going pretty well for them the past several hundred years — it all started when we chose to be able to decide when and whether to have children.”
Micaiah Bilger of LifeNews called Ms. Richards’ claims “not only outrageous” but “false.”
“It wasn’t women who ’chose’ to legalize abortion back in 1973, as Richards implied. An all-male U.S. Supreme Court handed down the decision, Roe v. Wade, that allowed abortion for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy,” said Ms. Bilger.
“And if Richards looked further back in history, she would find that most early feminists were vocal opponents of abortion,” she said. “Today, female lawmakers are some of the most vocal advocates for unborn babies in Congress.”
Ms. Richards testified in September before a House committee on hidden-camera videos released by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress linking Planned Parenthood to the sale of fetal tissue for medical research.
She has said repeatedly that Planned Parenthood affiliates broke no laws. So far, investigations in a half-dozen states have found no wrongdoing.
The nearly three-year Center for Medical Progress investigation was different from previous attempts by pro-life groups to infiltrate Planned Parenthood, she told Esquire.
“The videos were more of what I’d call a long con,” Ms. Richards said. “For years, we’ve had people pretending to be patients and undercover videotaping our staff, but this was a three-year effort — setting up a fake company, attending medical conferences, infiltrating the medical establishment. They weren’t interested in actually uncovering wrongdoing; they were interested in creating wrongdoing.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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