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Then-mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio attends annual Columbus Day Parade on 5th Avenue on October 14, 2013 in New York City.lev radin / Shutterstock.com

NEW YORK CITY, June 16, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has hired the woman who orchestrated Planned Parenthood's scorched earth media attack on the Susan G. Komen Foundation as a communications director for his administration.

The Democrat named Andrea Hagelgans as his director of agency communications, a post that allows her to set the media strategy of all city agencies and cabinet members.

“Andrea was a senior press officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America,” where she “developed and led PPFA’s media campaign in response to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure’s decision to withdraw funding from the organization,” her online biography states.

The Komen Foundation told the nation's leading abortion provider that it was ending its financial sponsorship of Planned Parenthood because the organization was under federal investigation and because it does not perform mammograms. Komen donated $629,159 in 2009-10 of the group's one billion dollar budget. But in January 2013, Planned Parenthood launched a social media blitz demonizing the anti-breast cancer charity and questioning its motives.

“What Planned Parenthood did to that venerable and honorable institution is nothing short of a mafia-style shakedown,” Steven Aden, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, said. However, its tactics proved effective. A Media Research Center analysis found that 76 percent of network television quotations favored Planned Parenthood. Komen's vice president for public policy, Karen Handel, resigned and wrote a book about the ordeal entitled Planned Bullyhood. Its CEO, Nancy Brinker, would step down within months.

Hagelgans is currently vice president of strategic communications and media at Camino Public Relations, a left-wing PR firm whose clients include the Population Council, Planned Parenthood, Pro-Choice Resources, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ), the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Planned Parenthood Latino Initiative, the Ford Foundation, and Auburn Theological Seminary.

Her biography also noted her work with George Soros' Open Society Institute.

“I’m thrilled to announce Andrea is joining us in City Hall, where she will help our cabinet and agencies clearly communicate this administration’s vision and policies to the people of New York City,” de Blasio, who calls himself a “democratic socialist,” announced today. Rebecca Katz, the mayor's senior communications strategist, also tweeted her support of the Planned Parenthood alumna:

During his campaign – in which he crushed pro-abortion Republican Joe Lhota with 73 percent of the vote – de Blasio promised to “craft new regulations to prevent [crisis pregnancy] centers from masquerading as legitimate health care providers.” The state's pro-life leadership greeted the appointment with unsurprised discontent.

“It's just about what we would expect from him, unfortunately, but it's a disappointment,” Barbara Meara, chairman of New York State Right to Life, told LifeSiteNews.com. “With the abortion rate so high in New York we really should not be looking for people to promote abortion.”

The Big Apple is often called the “abortion capital of the United States.” Despite the precipitous drop in New York City's abortion rate, 38 percent of all pregnancies in the city end in abortion.

Chris Slattery, national director of Expectant Mother Care (EMC) FrontLine Pregnancy Centers, told LifeSiteNews that Hagelgans' appointment was “a sign of the absolute, complete allegiance” of the New York City mayor's office with Planned Parenthood.

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He is currently locked in litigation with the city over operation of his pregnancy centers, which offer women support to carry their pregnancies to term. He cited a recent Live Action undercover investigation that caught a Planned Parenthood employee on camera suggesting a minor view pornography and engage in sadomasochism.

“It's so ironic that on heels of the perversion promoted by this organization, they're not in the least embarrassed by it but are jumping to align themselves with it,” Slattery said.

“It's a bad omen for more social engineering in the future – more abortion and sex promotion in our schools, and more tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood and their sexual promiscuous advocacy amongst our young people,” Slattery told LifeSiteNews. “This again signals that children are not safe under a de Blasio administration.”

Mayor de Blasio will receive media attention this evening, as he is scheduled to sing “I Love L.A.” on the Jimmy Kimmel Show tonight after losing a bet when the New York Rangers failed to clinch the Stanley Cup. He attended the Brooklyn Pride Parade with wife Chirlane McCray, a former lesbian, on Saturday.