Bill O’Reilly Provides Platform For Planned Parenthood Slander
Reported by Priscilla - November 12, 2009 -
Bill O’Reilly is a man of means (and a mean man) who has never and will never know the anguish of an unplanned pregnancy. Yet, he is part of the crusade (or is it jihad) to take away a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion. He even received a reward, in the form of an award, from a “family values” group for his televised attacks on Planned Parenthood and Dr. Tiller who was killed by a man inspired by the kind of vitriolic rhetoric which O’Reilly engaged in. Whether it’s Lila Rose and her sting operation against Planned Parenthood or some woman who claimed that she was treated badly by Dr. Tiller, Bill is willing to provide a supportive response. His confrontational response to voices for choice is far less warm. (here and here ) Last night, he interviewed a woman whose “road to Damascus” conversion from a local Planned Parenthood director to an anti-choice zealot is the cause for hosannas from the anti choice movement. While Bill did seem slightly more phlegmatic and more “fair and balanced” than usual, he managed to work into the basic anti-choice theme of the interview some words and phrases that, while spoken in a modulated voice, were a loud and clear shout out to the anti-choice lobby.
Abby Johnson is the former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic who quit her job eight days after seeing an ultrasound of an abortion. She also claims that Planned Parenthood was encouraging her to increase the numbers of abortions performed at the clinic in order to increase revenues (PPFA making huge profits from abortion is a popular anti-choice myth). Planned Parenthood’s attempt to seek an injunction which would have prevented her from speaking about her former job, based on patient and client confidentiality, was unsuccessful so it’s no surprise that she’s speaking on Fox Opinion News. She appeared with a young, fresh faced, Christian male, Shawn Carney, who is director of “40 Days For Life” a group that encourages Planned Parenthood protestors to pray in front of abortion clinics. He is also the director of the local “Coalition for Life” which Ms. Johnson is now affiliated with. When Bill asked Ms. Johnson what “Planned Parenthood feared,” she obfuscated the real issue (confidentiality) when she claimed that “they are nervous” because she’s speaking out about how Planned Parenthood is trying to increase the numbers of abortions because it’s the most lucrative part of their business. Are ya ready for the “shout out” because here it comes when Bill asks: “Do you believe…that Planned Parenthood is an abortion mill trying to profit off that?” Youza – a phrase straight out of anti-choice central! To Bill’s question of how abortion is increased, Ms. Johnson said that Planned Parenthood increased access. (and this is a problem, how?) Are ya ready for the next bit of anti-choice rhetoric? Bouya– here’s Bill asking about her conversion from being “pro abortion” to “pro life.” (The pro-choice movement doesn’t promote abortion; they want women to be able to choose what they do with their bodies). As she was speaking about witnessing an ultra sound abortion, what looked like an ultrasound (“file” footage) of a moving fetus and a woman having her belly scanned appeared on the video. She claimed that Planned Parenthood “instills” in their clients that “this is not a baby.” In a variant of the “Fox Reach Around” Bill provided his interpretation of the Planned Parenthood attempt to secure the restraining order: They “went after her pretty hard.” Naturally, Carney agreed and asserted that Planned Parenthood just can’t deal with those having a “change of heart” and then spoke about the ultrasound “baby” which had “fought for its life.” Knowing what the answer would be, Bill asked if Carney’s group “demonized” women. This gave Carney the opportunity to say how peaceful his group is and how his group is there for the women who are going into the clinics. (Yeah, Shawn, a woman who has made a difficult decision needs to walk through a gauntlet of rosary praying protestors –yeah, that’s great). As if on cue, Bill responded, "But it's a soft persuasion." When Carney said, there’s nothing judgmental or radical about their group, Bill repeated, for all his anti-choice fans, “it’s a soft persuasion.”
Comment: Obviously Bill either didn’t read the material about the gag order or he chose to ignore it because part of it was about an allegation that Johnson had told another Planned Parenthood that she had passed along personal information about a provider. Neither he nor Johnson discussed how she once claimed, on a radio show, that she had received death threats from her new BFF’s whom she referred to as “40 days of harassment.” During the interview she stated that abortions constitute only 3% of services. She had also made past references to the threatening material received by her Planned Parenthood. There are a number of holes in her story especially the sonogram thing because, as Amanda Marcotte (who was the target of death threats from religious zealots) points out, she must have seen others in her career. What was so special about this one? Her conversion is even more interesting given the above cited information, not covered in the interview, which conveyed the message that Planned Parenthood is bad and anti-choicers do “soft persuasion.” One wonders if Bill will eventually interview a Planned Parenthood for a rebuttal. Nah, it won’t mesh with the kind of propaganda which earned Bill O’Reilly a “courage” award. Excuse me while I regurgitate.
