Young women, do you want to attain your dreams and seize your opportunities? Then snuffing out an innocent life may be just the thing for you!
In an April 28 piece [1] for TIME, Cecile Richards, president of taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood, argued, “We Need to Talk – Really Talk – About Abortion.” In it, her “talk” focused on how abortion is “key to women’s opportunity” and an outlet to “pursue their dreams.” Richards praised the media – her megaphone – for their efforts to blast abortion-positive messaging.
To begin her piece, Richards commended Girls’ star Jemima Kirke for publicly sharing her abortion story [2].
Kirke, who couldn’t afford anesthesia, Richards argued, showed that “women’s access to abortion and other reproductive health care is seriously limited due to their economic circumstances” and location.
“Jemima’s story was also a reminder that the ability to decide when or whether to have children is key to women’s opportunity to be financially secure and pursue their dreams,” she added.
But with politics on top of “so much shaming in popular culture,” women “get the message early and often that … there’s still something wrong with that choice,” Richards lamented.
(Or maybe some choices are inherently wrong, and will always be so, Ms. Richards – like ending the life of an unborn baby.)
In response, she called for “seriously overdue” “public dialogue about abortion” – jumpstarted with some help from celebrities and politicians “talk[ing] about their abortion experiences.”
She included herself in that trend. Recalling her Elle story [3], Richards wrote, “I had an abortion and it was the right decision for me.”
Richards also applauded “a new generation of television and film producers” for “writing and casting roles where abortion is a fact of life,” including the media-hyped Obvious Child [4], Girls [5] and The Fosters [6].
Those films, she said, “depict women making the decision to have an abortion and finding support from their family and friends,” as well as “reflect the reality” of Planned Parenthood: “that abortion is a reality of women’s lives, and it is most important that all women can get high-quality medical care, no matter what.”
Echoing [7] DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) language, Richards said at her organization, “we believe that a woman’s decision about her pregnancy should be hers.”
To talk about abortion, Richards recommended three tips: address “the caring and compassionate” abortion doctors, instruct “how safe the procedure is,” and highlight “the consequences for women in need” due to “burdensome and unnecessary” restrictions.
As with the media [8], women who regret their abortions didn’t exist in her rhetoric. Nor did pro-life women. [9]
— Katie Yoder is Staff Writer, Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow in Culture and Media at the Media Research Center. Follow Katie Yoder on Twitter. [10]