As the media race to share the news that Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards is reportedly stepping down, only conservative outlets appear to be including the pro-life reaction.
On Wednesday, after sources revealed to Buzzfeed that Richards plans to leave Planned Parenthood after serving as president since 2006, pro-life leaders released statements to the press. They noted the “trail of misery” “this most devoted practitioner” of abortion leaves.
Planned Parenthood is the country’s largest abortion provider. According to Planned Parenthood’s most recently published annual report, the organization performed 321,384 abortions and received $543.7 million in “government health services, reimbursements & grants” for the year 2016 – 2017.
The abortion giant has committed roughly 7.6 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the U.S. The Susan B. Anthony List reports that, under Richard’s leadership, there have been “3.8 MILLION lives lost to abortion.”
Just a month after the Justice Department signaled a federal investigation into Planned Parenthood following the Center for Medical Progress videos, the news came that Richards reportedly plans to step down.
As the founder and project lead of the Center for Medical Progress, David Daleiden called Richards the “most devoted practitioner of Planned Parenthood’s ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mantra to cover up their barbaric abortion business from the public.”
“After CMP’s revealing undercover videos of Planned Parenthood’s top abortion doctors and the damning findings of multiple Congressional probes, Richards' departure shows that the old strategy is no longer working as Planned Parenthood faces federal criminal investigation for selling aborted baby hearts, lungs, livers, and brains,” he added in a press statement.
Former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life activist Abby Johnson, also commented on the news. She now serves as CEO of And Then There Were None, which helps abortion workers leave the abortion industry.
"If Cecile Richards is indeed resigning her position as president of the nation's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, she leaves a trail of misery in her wake,” Johnson said, “over 2.5 million babies aborted on her watch, a decrease of 51% in breast cancer screenings, a grand total of zero mammograms, a drop of 65% in pap smears, and an organization that has eschewed healthcare in favor of building a political movement by serving 670,540 less patients since 2006.”
Similarly, Americans United for Life CEO and president Catherine Glenn Foster commented on the decline in services provided by Planned Parenthood under Richards (other than abortion, that is).
“This includes more than 1.2 million fewer contraceptives and 69% fewer cancer screening and prevention services,” she added. “While prenatal services have dropped 42% since 2006, abortions have gone up 11% - 4 million lives lost to the violence of abortion in the last 12 years at Planned Parenthood facilities.”
She criticized its funding as well.
“Despite Planned Parenthood’s record of health and safety violations, pattern of enabling abuse, and demonstrated waste of government funding, the organization has received more than $5.6 billion in taxpayer dollars over the last twelve years, and pocketed more than $600 million in profit,” she challenged. “It seems that America’s abortion giant, under Ms. Richards’ leadership, cares less about providing vital healthcare to women in need and more about lining its own pockets.”
According to Concerned Women for America CEO and president Penny Nance, Planned Parenthood “has grown to push one agenda - abortion above all else - while throwing aside any inkling of actual medical care” under Richards.
"Under Cecile's leadership, Planned Parenthood has been exposed for refusing to report statutory rape and abuse, for aiding sex traffickers, for taking money to abort black babies, and for illegally profiting off of the body parts they have aborted,” she stressed.
She expressed hope for a better future president.
"If Planned Parenthood is serious about standing up for the women they claim to represent, they will hire someone who understands medicine and accepts the facts that abortion does not help women but only inflicts harm and destruction,” she urged. “This is their chance to turn the organization around for the good and actually help women, instead of constantly telling them they cannot fulfill their dreams without abortion."
