Planned Parenthood pledges $45M to flip Senate in 2020
Planned Parenthood announces they will be giving $45 million to candidates in 2020 races. Former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life advocate Abby Johnson reacts.
Former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson is calling on the organization to redirect its funding efforts away from the 2020 elections and toward women's health.
In what it's calling the "largest-ever electoral effort," Planned Parenthood recently announced that it will be giving $45 million to back certain 2020 candidates in the hope of flipping the Senate and defeating President Trump. The effort will target voters in nine key swing states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
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Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood Votes Super PAC, Kelley Robinson, emphasized in a statement that “next November, our very rights and freedoms will be on the ballot. Already, we’ve seen Trump and his buddies in Congress and state legislatures do everything they can to strip us of our rights and access to health care. Who we elect will determine our access to birth control, cancer screenings, sex education, abortion access and more.”
Appearing on "Fox & Friends" with host Ainsley Earhardt on Thursday, Johnson explained that: "This is who Planned Parenthood has become. They're really not a health care provider. They have become a political force -- trying to elect candidates who also ascribe to their extreme views on abortion.
"If you look at Planned Parenthood's annual report over the past ten years, you see a trend. You see that their actual health care services that they provide...those are continually on the decline. The only service that continues to increase year after year is abortion," she told Earhardt.
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"So, we see where their priorities lie and it's not with women's health care. And, if it was really about women's health care, they'd be taking this $45 million dollars and putting it back into their clinics, instead of using it for political action," she said.
In August, the group announced it was pulling out of the Title X federal family planning program rather than abide by a new Trump administration rule prohibiting participants from referring patients for abortions.
Pro-life groups heralded the abrupt decision as a major victory -- and one that signaled that Planned Parenthood, contrary to its claims, is primarily an abortion provider, not a health care organization.
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"President Trump took away their Title X funding, which is about $60 million dollars. They're pouring almost $60 million into elections," Johnson added.
"So, which is it? Are you a healthcare provider that truly cares about women or are you just a political arm that's trying to push abortion?" she asked. "It really can't be both."
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