Planned Parenthood president is exploiting Ivanka meeting to sell books

FILE -- Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards speaks at an event to publicly endorse U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Hooksett, New Hampshire, January 10, 2016. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

In a breathless passage – or as People Magazine prefers to call it, “riveting” – from Cecile Richards’ new book about her life as Planned Parenthood’s president for the past 12 years, she describes meeting with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in January 2017 to discuss taxpayer funding of her organization, the nation’s largest abortion provider. It is so hyped up and drawn out that I have to wonder about it.

I met with Ivanka Trump last year as well. She was gracious and kind and listened to what I had to say about the issues about which my organization, Concerned Women for America, cares deeply — one of which is shifting funding from Planned Parenthood to community health centers and other organizations that truly provide health care for poor women and children — the opposite of Planned Parenthood’s mission, which is clearly abortion.

Jared and Ivanka were kind enough to reach out to Cecile Richards, who sensed that her days of feasting at the public trough were quickly coming to a close. Ms. Richards was lucky to score the meeting. This was reported a year ago. She should have been grateful.

It’s kind of sad to watch her try to gin up drama surrounding that meeting to sell books. She writes that she took the meeting for her millions of patients and for the chance to change the Trump administration’s mind about her organization. Many of the patients (the unborn ones) who enter the doors of Planned Parenthood never come back out. Since she took the helm of Planned Parenthood in 2006, the number of patients the organization has seen has declined  by 23 percent, but the number of abortions has increased.

It’s interesting to read that the nation’s top feminist “begged” her husband to go with her to the meeting. Funny, I’m not a feminist, but I don’t need to ask my husband to hold my hand to do my job. In fact, I did not feel the need to bring my husband when I met with Ivanka. Why Ms. Richards begged her husband to go with her is a mystery.

Despite Planned Parenthood’s attempt to shroud their abortion mission in language like “women’s health care” and hyperbolic suggestions that without them “women will die,” the truth is they don’t really care about providing birth control or anything else other than abortion.

The most revealing part about this piece of the book, though, is that Ms. Richards said Jared and Ivanka “bribed” her with more money if Planned Parenthood would stop doing abortions.  Despite Planned Parenthood’s attempt to shroud their abortion mission in language like “women’s health care” and hyperbolic suggestions that without them “women will die,” the truth is they don’t really care about providing birth control or anything else other than abortion. That’s why when Ivanka Trump offered Cecile an increase in tax funding to provide real care for women, she turned them down flat.  In truth, that wasn’t a bribe – that was an attempt to help a dying organization.

Jared and Ivanka were speaking for the American people. In January 2017, the same month they met with Ms. Richards, a Marist poll found that 61 percent of Americans opposed tax dollars funding abortion.

The bottom line is that women don’t need Planned Parenthood. The non-profit’s actual health care services are miniscule compared to their overall business model and continues to drop every year. At the same time, federally funded community health centers outnumber Planned Parenthood 20:1. They provide all the same services – plus some, and minus abortion – that Planned Parenthood does, and to thousands more women and their families.

The private sector has stepped up to help low-income women as well. The LifeSaver Foundation, an organization in Dallas, cares for poor women and their children through mobile doctors’ offices. They’ve not only provided medical care but have donated over $750,000 worth of goods to needy single parents and served over 26,000 meals. Planned Parenthood in Texas, meanwhile, was fined $4.3 million in 2013 for billing Medicaid for unnecessary medical care and another $1.4 million the same year for the same offense.

When I met with Ivanka, there were no bribes or deals to be made. There was no drama — perceived or real. It was a conversation about things that matter. I was happy to meet with her, and I hope we get the chance to meet again.

It’s odd that a self-proclaimed feminist such as Cecile Richards is such an expert at tearing other women down and silencing their voices. Just look at her book, which encourages women to find their voice, be activists, and make trouble — but not pro-life women; no, they need to sit down and shut up. And not Ivanka Trump. Not any woman who disagrees with the pro-abortion agenda.

Women are smarter than this, and I hope they see through the facade of Ms. Richards’ faux-feminism and drama-queen persona.