Steven Ertelt at LifeNews.com reported on Wednesday that former CBS News anchor Dan Rather will be the keynote speaker for a Planned Parenthood fundraising dinner in Minneapolis on October 13. The pro-abortion group, in its announcement for the event, made no secret that it thought highly of the liberal journalist: “Dan Rather, the voice, heart and soul of American journalism, is one of the most recognized and renowned reporters of our time.”

Rather is set to speak at Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota’s annual “Celebrate! Planned Parenthood” dinner at the Minneapolis Hilton. According to Ertelt, the former CBS anchor “ironically...is going to speak on the ‘new media.’” The LifeNews editor quoted from Scott Fischbach, the director of the pro-life group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, who took Rather to task: “For years viewers watched Dan Rather deliver the news of the day believing he was objective and fair, while the whole time he harbored anti-life views....Clearly Dan Rather has never been objective, in fact his support of Planned Parenthood proves how radical his views truly are.”

Fischbach’s characterization of Rather’s record is accurate. The CBS anchor did not make much of an effort to hide his left-wing views on the issue of abortion. Almost twenty years ago, on July 23, 1990, Rather asked then-Senator Paul Simon, “Is there any doubt in your mind that [David Souter’s, who was nominated to the Supreme Court that year] views pretty well parallel those of John Sununu’s, which means he’s anti-abortion or anti-women’s rights, whichever way you want to put it?”

Eight years later, the anchor issued a glowing tribute to Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger: “One thing America didn’t talk about early in the century was sex. Margaret Sanger changed that. She was a true revolutionary who went to jail for the crime of promoting birth control, a phrase she coined....For half a century, Margaret Sanger spoke passionately in favor of women’s rights, taking on all the enemies of birth control, including the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.”

Rather also displayed his liberal bias when consecutive presidential administration issued executive orders on the abortion issue. On January 22, 1993, he trumpeted, “On the anniversary of Roe versus Wade President Clinton fulfills a promise, supporting abortion rights....It was 20 years ago today, the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark abortion rights ruling, and the controversy hasn’t stopped since. Today, with the stroke of a pen, President Clinton delivered on his campaign promise to cancel several anti-abortion regulations of the Reagan-Bush years.”

When former President George W. Bush reversed the Clinton order in early 2001, Rather spun it as the Republican appeasing conservatives: “This was President Bush’s first day at the office and he did something to quickly please the right flank in his party: He re-instituted an anti-abortion policy that had been in place during his father’s term and the Reagan presidency but was lifted during the Clinton years.”

After all of this, one might concluded that Rather would be a perfect fit at a Planned Parenthood gathering.

—Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.