UPDATE 5:10pm 4/24/13
President Obama will no longer deliver the keynote address at Planned Parenthood’s annual fundraising gala in Washington Friday. However, he is still speaking there on Friday morning.
It’s a move supporters of the unborn don’t like. They say the President of the United States shouldn’t be so closely tied to the nation’s number one abortion provider.
Single women were a big component of the president’s reelection victory in November. The campaign targeted them specifically with messages about government funded contraception and abortion rights.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said the group is proud to welcome the president, who they believe has done more for women’s health and rights than any other president.
“We fought alongside him to ensure that women’s health access was expanded in the Affordable Care Act,” she wrote in a statement. “And now we have to fight hard to ensure that the full promise of health care reform is realized for millions of women.”
If by “women’s health” Planned Parenthood means abortion access, many pro-life activists would agree.
“There’s never been a pro-life bill that he liked or a pro-abortion bill that he didn’t like,” pro-life activist Jill Stanek said.
The president’s fund-raising appearance comes as Philadelphia abortion practitioner Dr. Kermit Gosnell remains on trial for several counts of murder in the kind of clinic critics say should be far more regulated.
Meanwhile, the pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony’s List has been running an ad that claims Planned Parenthood’s promotion of women’s health is a smokescreen for its almost total focus on abortion.
But supporters of the nation’s largest abortion provider say they’re targeted by many federal and state legislators, including in Texas, where lawmakers voted to cut their funding.
“The assault on Planned Parenthood makes no sense,” State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Ft. Worth, said. “It makes no sense fiscally, it makes no sense from a human perspective, and it certainly makes no sense ideologically.”
For critics, the presidential rhetoric they expect to be displayed at the Washington event will ignore the health and care of one group that can’t speak for itself.
“He is conspicuously leaving out an entire class of children who are yet unborn, and it is discriminatory,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., charged. “These children suffer pain and agony by abortion methods, whichever one is used.
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The theme of the dinner, to be held in Washington, is a “Time for Care,” organizers announced. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said Mr. Obama has done more than any president in history for women’s health and rights so she is delighted to have him help promote the gala dinner with his presence.
Abortion opponents quickly seized on the news, arguing that Mr. Obama should rescind his agreement to speak or even attend the dinner, considering the gruesome revelations emanating from the trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.
“These accounts by former clinic staff have shell-shocked the nation, and it is incumbent upon the president to reconsider his support for the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood, which last year profited from abortion $87 million committing over 300,000 abortions,” said Lila Rose, who heads Live Action, an anti-abortion group.