The April 25th edition of The 700 Club started with a segment on abortion and Planned Parenthood. Beginning at the 1:46 mark of the episode, the segment noted President Obama's refusal to cut Title X funding for Planned Parenthood. Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony list painted Planned Parenthood as a profit-driven abortion provider, while the narrator suggested that the organization's dominant activity is abortion (failing to note that abortions make up only a small percentage of their services). In short, The 700 Club lobbed the usual attacks at Planned Parenthood.
Starting at the 5:37 mark, however, Pat Robertson made comments that left me scratching my head. When co-host Terry Meeuwsen asked why the Obama administration protected Title X funding for Planned Parenthood, Robertson made odd statements about abortion, lesbians, and pro-choice demonstrators. (Click here to access the episode.)
ROBERTSON: Well it’s the left; it’s this culture of death. The far-left is livid, you know, about killing babies. They want to do this, they want to destroy. And you go back, and I don’t want to play all this psychological stuff, but nevertheless, if a woman is a lesbian, what advantage does she have over a married woman? What deficiency does she have?Wait. What? o_O
MEEUWSEN: Well, she can't have children.
ROBERTSON: That's exactly right. And so if these married women don’t have children, if they abort their babies, then that kind of puts them on a level playing field. And you say, nobody’s there to express that? Isn’t that shocking, well think about it a little bit ladies and gentlemen. What else leads to this vitriol? The incredible--we've seen demonstrations where women came out, they were bare-breasted, they had crosses on their ni**les ... They were screaming obscenities just because it was a Catholic crisis pregnancy center that was trying to counsel young women not to have abortions. And these people were going wild.
Let me get this straight. Allegedly, left-wingers are obsessed with destruction, which is why married women are having abortions, but mainly so they can be like lesbians. And then do racy burlesque shows in front of Catholic CPCs.
Oooookaaaay . . .
First of all, lesbians can and do have children. Plenty of lesbians have biological children from prior opposite-sex relationships or from sperm donation. Second, the push for reproductive rights is not rooted in some infernal impulse to destroy, but in deeply held convictions about reproductive autonomy. Third, women have abortions for countless reasons, but I suspect that mimicking allegedly childless lesbians is not one of them.
Robertson's strange comments paint a picture of leftists as diabolical destroyers, pro-choice advocates as blasphemous harpies, and women seeking abortions as emulating some stereotypical lesbian image. His comments say little about the actual pro-choice movement, but says volumes about the surreal image of liberals that he espouses.
For additional commentary, visit the following links.
Right Wing Watch: Robertson: Left Backs Abortion Rights to Make Straight Women More Like Lesbians
Truth Wins Out: Actually, Pat Robertson, MOST of the Liberal Agenda Is About Making Lesbians Feel Better
Alan Colmes' Liberaland: Pat Robertson: Liberals Back Abortion To Make Straight Women Like Lesbians
The Raw Story: Pat Robertson: Leftists use abortion to make straight women equal with lesbian
And really, it's all about killing babies, right? When we say we want Planned Parenthood up and running, it's because we want to have abortions. We're all out there getting pregnant on purpose over and over again because women just love getting abortions.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, do they really really think that women like getting abortions? That abortion is ever anything but a last resort? No sir. And Planned Parenthood happens to be one of the few groups of people who are actually doing something useful to prevent abortions by providing health care and information and contraceptives for women in order to prevent unintended pregnancies, which, you know, is the only reason women get abortions. They got pregnant when they didn't want to.
Macha -- Spot-on. It seems so easy to grasp. Unfortunately, many fundamentalists can't understand women who seek abortions because they're blinded by stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that anyone gives Pat Robertson airtime is alarming and discouraging evidence of just how stupid we are as a nation. Oh hey ... maybe the key to getting attention is to say the most stupid, outrageous, and demonstrably false crap I can dream up so that my idiocy is evident to anyone with half a brain, and "the word of God" to anyone not so endowed? Eureka.
ReplyDeleteP.S. This post contains graphic language? My dear Ahab, you walk a much higher road than I do. ; )
Cognitive Dissenter -- I must admit, the most ridiculous comments are the ones that seem to get the most media attention, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the graphic language warning, well, I thought I'd warn people in advance about Robertson's more vivid comments about the pro-choice demonstrators. I still wonder why he felt the need to add that bit. o_O
When I think of Pat Robertson, I contain pretty graphic language myself.
ReplyDeleteThis is the perfect distillation of the fundamentalist mind-set -- random, incoherent demonization of people he doesn't like, without the slightest effort to check his assertions against any kind of facts. After a life-time of glorifying "faith" at the expense of evaluation by evidence, it's inevitable.
Infidel753 -- What can I add? You nailed it.
ReplyDelete