It's not surprising that one of the anti-choice movement's top fabulists, Abby Johnson, periodically pops up on Fox News in order to pimp anti-choice, anti-Planned Parenthood lies. Friday night, Tucker Carlson joined the ranks of Fox hosts who are more than willing to aid and abet Johnson's tall tales.
Carlson began with almost a full-minute of video from Friday's March for Life. Carlson reported that those who marched "enjoyed unprecedented support from the new administration." He informed us that Vice President Pence was the first veep to address the march in person and also referenced Trump-adviser Kellyanne Conway's presence.
Carlson introduced Abby Johnson, one of the marchers, whom he described as a former Planned Parenthood director who quit her position "after a moral crisis." He reflected on how he didn't think of Trump as an ardent pro-life social conservative, yet Trump was very supportive of the march.
Johnson also expressed surprise and said that she is "hopeful for the future for the pro-life movement" which, she commented, put Trump in the White House.
Playing the Christian victim card, Carlson quipped that "the surest way to be ostracized socially" in Washington, New York and Los Angeles, "is to say you oppose legal abortion." He added, "Trump doesn't seem to care."
After chuckling about how Trump "doesn't seem to care about most things," Johnson used her "conversion" to claim that those who are converted, like Trump, "have a strong voice." She began moving into anti-choice agitprop territory as she claimed that those who are converted do so after seeing "the damage the abortion industry can do."
Carlson agreed: "Right."
Carlson eagerly began the requisite anti-choice/Fox Planned Parenthood bashing. First, he cited Trump's promise to defund Planned Parenthood "which takes hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers." Then he referenced Johnson's past employment at Planned Parenthood. He then framed the VERY IMPORTANT FOX MESSAGE, that those who work at Planned Parenthood are godless baby killers, with this question: "Do you think that people at Planned Parenthood have any kind of moral qualms about abortion at all or do they see it just as another medical procedure?"
This question provided Johnson with an unobstructed platform from which to pimp "pro-life" lies. She agreed with Carlson's point that Planned Parenthood workers see abortion as a surgical procedure which is "their highest revenue-generating product that they sell." (This claim is false) She made the bizarre and unfounded claim that there are abortion "quotas" in all Planned Parenthood clinics - a claim that she has been pushing for years - a claim denied by Planned Parenthood. She asserted that when she worked at Planned Parenthood, she was ordered to increase her quota and that was one of the reasons why she left.
Instead of challenging Johnson, Carlson encouraged more lies when he asked what proportion of Planned Parenthood services are abortions as compared to pre-natal services.
Rather than cite all the services Planned Parenthood does provide, Johnson responded that Planned Parenthood doesn't provide pre-natal care. She lied when she said that "the bulk of their services are contraceptive services and abortions." (Abortions are 3%, contraceptives are 35%)
It was Carlson who provided the propaganda icing on the cake: "So that talk about being a health care provider, providing a whole spectrum of reproductive health-related health care services, it's really about contraception and abortion."
Johnson finished off with what appeared to be more lies when she claimed that a Wisconsin and a Kansas Planned Parenthood only do abortions - all day long. Their websites say otherwise.
Carlson's reaction just added to the drama: "That's pretty hard to take."
What's hard to take is the bullcrap that emanates from Abby Johnson whose departure from Planned Parenthood was more about her job performance and less about Jesus.
Check out the lies below from the January 27, 2017 Tucker Carlson Tonight:
i don’t care if you are pro-choice. that’s fine by me. In fact i think we have 3 camps in the debate. pro-life, pro-choice, and pro-death. The choice people believe it’s still awful, but consider rights of the mother to be superior to rights of the baby. Obviously debatable, but they aren’t “rooting” for abortions.
the pro-death people are the planned parenthood defenders. people who celebrate abortion. these people are disgusting.
So clever. So glib. Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms. So it logically flows they aren’t about women’s health.
Yet, on Planned Parenthood’s website there’s this testimonial:
“I almost ignored the lump. How serious could it have been? I was 27 and had no family history of any kind of cancer. Then I remembered Planned Parenthood …. Since I had no income at all, and dwindling savings, this was a great option for me. I didn’t have to decide between breast care and rent. … There is no doubt in my mind that Planned Parenthood saved my life.” – Colleen L., Loudonville, NY – See more at: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/womens-health/breast-cancer-screenings#sthash.UQtnr6xw.dpuf
While they don’t give mammograms they do offer referral services to low income women with few options.
If Planned Parenthood just sticks to their knitting and provides reproductive services on STDs, contraception, and birth control they’re helping poor women immensely.
Check your history.
The movie playing inside republican skulls is a lot more fascinating than our liberal reality. When Bill Moyer had a show on PBS during the W Bush years, he had to work under a hard line conservative Bush appointed. This guy just really heavily mistrusted Moyer. He hired a private investigator to find out what was coming up on Moyer’s next show. He paid him $40K to do it. Moyer laughed, “For $8, he could have paid for a subscription to TV Guide and found out exactly what was on the next show.”.
The drama is always so,….dramatic!