This article was co-written by Ben Johnson.
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 8, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – After running a $15 million negative campaign targeting any candidate who considered cutting off its federal funding, Planned Parenthood is extending a hand across the aisle to those candidates who ran on a pro-life platform.
Demonstrating its renowned political savvy, Planned Parenthood quickly zeroed in on the insecurities of defeated Republicans after the election. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Richards propositioned those who she had been attacking only days earlier.
“We will focus on working with lawmakers at all levels, from all political parties, to ensure that millions more Americans can get the health care they need,” Richards said.
“Back in the olden days,” she said, “the Republican Party was the party that supported people’s individual rights and keeping government out of personal health care decisions, so I think there’s a history they can go back to.”
(Click “like” if you want to end abortion!
“A lot of Republicans used to support family planning,” she said, “and Richard Nixon signed that first federal planning program into law. There’s a clear pathway to [win back women’s support], and it’s to listen to the middle of their party instead of the extreme fringe.”
Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan has described Mitt Romney, who ran on a pledge to defund Planned Parenthood, as “the most liberal Republican nominee in history.”
Richards cited only one other example, former President George H. W. Bush, who supported funding for contraception as a congressman in the 1960s. Planned Parenthood campaigned against him in the 1980s and 1990s.
Planned Parenthood is inviting pro-choice Republicans into its fold in the hopes that the party’s “pro-life” base will be abandoned, and Planned Parenthood can maintain its half-a-billion dollar annual federal funding without significant opposition in Congress.
After Tuesday’s election, Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America warned liberal Republicans would try to blame the loss on pro-lifers. “We all need to stand guard now. They will try to kick pro-life values out of the Republican Party and blame the abortion/rape question for the loss,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “Please stand ready to respond.”