By Kathleen Gilbert
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a piece published on the Huffington Post website on Monday, one prominent pro-abortion writer has issued a stinging criticism of Planned Parenthood and NARAL following the pro-life amendment victory in the health care bill on Saturday, complaining that the abortion leaders have been more faithful to the Democratic Party than their pro-abortion ideals.
“Let's be clear about this,” wrote Jane Hamsher, the founder and publisher of the blog FireDogLake. “The only reason that we are in [this] position … is because Planned Parenthood and NARAL have allowed it to happen.”
“On July 1,” Hamsher continued, “Stupak wrote a letter signed by 19 Democrats saying they would do just what they're doing right now—holding the bill hostage. And what did NARAL and Planned Parenthood do? Well, they released a lot of statements echoing the President's contention that the bill contained no abortion funding. But that was never Stupak's objection.”
“Helping the Democrats stay in power by giving them the Official Good Gyno Seal of Approval is what NARAL and Planned Parenthood do,” she continued. “Could they whip the pro-choice women to block the rule if they want to? Of course they could. Yank their endorsements and they could cause havoc within the Democratic Party.
“But they won't, because Nancy Keenan and Cecile Richards value their own personal position in the veal pen pecking order WAY too much to take that risk. For them, what's good for the Democratic Party is good for choice, even when the party abandons them.”
Hamsher also targeted the large profits that the “non-profit” pro-abortion giants collect each year, listing the respective $126 million and $4.1 million yearly assets of Planned Parenthood and NARAL, as well as their leaders' robust six-digit incomes. “If they really cared about going after Stupak or Kaptur as a lesson to the rest, they most certainly have the resources to do it,” wrote Hamsher.
She also singled out Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards for rebuke, saying that “the state chapters whose employees put their lives on the line so women can have the right to choose deserve support and protection within the Democratic party that she is not providing.”
Richards, meanwhile, has been placing blame for the passage of the Stupak amendment squarely upon the shoulders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In a New York Times article Sunday, Richards called the bishops' role “an unconscionable power play,” and accused the bishops of “interceding to put their own ideology in the national health care plan.”
Yet, as other sources attest, it was House Speaker Pelosi who sought last-minute negotiations with the bishops to discern which pro-life amendment would win their approval, and thus the approval of pro-life Democrats still on the fence about the bill.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
“Do we live in a theocracy?”: Pro-Abortion Reaction to Stupak Amendment is Fierce