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About 250 Hollywood stars joined with Planned Parenthood last week in a full-page New York Times ad that called for continued taxpayer funding of the abortion industry giant.
“I’m for Planned Parenthood,” proclaims the ad. The celebrities, among them singers Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, and Cyndi Lauper, and actor George Lopez, cite three reasons for their support, including because they’re for “freedom” and for “health care.”
Their third reason echoes Planned Parenthood’s common deceitful claim that they support getting “the government” out of decisions about abortion. In reality, Planned Parenthood and its allies are, in this very ad, pushing for all Americans to be forced, by the government, into paying for abortions.
Former Planned Parenthood facility director-turned national pro-life activist Abby Johnson told CatholicVote the abortion lobby’s ploy of using leftwing Hollywood celebrities to influence Americans – who overwhelmingly voted for President Donald Trump in the last election – is futile.
“This publicity stunt shows that the abortion industry has not learned its lesson from the past election,” said Johnson, the foundress of And Then There Were None and Pro-Love Ministries. “No one cares about celebrity endorsements of a multi-billion-dollar industry whose sole purpose is to destroy innocent life. It would be laughable if it didn’t deal with life and death. This isn’t what true empowerment of women looks like.”
In an op-ed Monday at Fox News, Emily Davis, vice president of communications at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, agreed.
“The era of celebrity politics is over,” Davis asserted. “Enter the latest tone-deaf Leftist experiment.”
The ad appeared in the wake of the House passing Trump’s “One Big Beautiful” bill and sending it along to the Senate. The bill cuts hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid and grants. The abortion business’ latest annual report shows it took in $792.2 million in the form of these government health services reimbursements that Americans are forced to support through their taxes.
“What are we really looking at here?” Davis asked. “A flailing political machine desperate to rake in taxpayer dollars with glitter and hashtags, hoping we will be too dazzled to notice the rot underneath.”
Ironically, the ad appeared in the same New York Times that, in February, published a shocking report exposing numerous examples of Planned Parenthood’s alleged malpractice in performing abortions and other procedures.
The report revealed allegations, uncovered by the Times through a review of clinic documents and legal filings, that include complaints claiming Planned Parenthood abortion facilities are operating with “aging equipment” and “poorly trained staff.” The malpractice complaints allege practices that endanger the lives of women.
The Times report also revealed that, since the US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood “has enjoyed a fund-raising boom, with $498 million in donations” in that year alone.
“But little of it goes to the state affiliates to provide health care at clinics,” the Times reported. “Instead, under the national bylaws, the majority of the money is spent on the legal and political fight to maintain abortion rights.”
Additionally, Planned Parenthood has used taxpayer-funded grants to promote gender ideology in its “education” programs in government schools.
A report published Friday at the Daily Caller News Foundation revealed that, in the Philadelphia School District, nearly $40,000 in taxpayer funding was granted to Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide up to 79 training sessions that present biological sex as a “myth.”
According to uncovered documents, the sessions, held during the 2023-2024 academic year, taught from the perspective that children should be able to receive medical intervention to live as the opposite sex, and that men who believe they are women should be allowed to compete with real women in sports.
Planned Parenthood’s investment in gender ideology-based “education” is interesting, at best, in light of the fact that it’s now also one of the nation’s largest providers of cross-sex hormones.
Lila Rose, foundress of Live Action, recently exposed Planned Parenthood’s alleged prescriptions of cross-sex hormones for minors via virtual appointments:
Johnson argued that, by supporting the abortion industry in the New York Times ad, the Hollywood stars are once again missing a real opportunity to help women and their families.
“When these celebrities wake up and start giving money and time to help women in desperate situations to get their lives back on track without taking the lives of their children, then let’s have a conversation,” the pro-life leader said. “Until then, I imagine Americans are using the NYT to start their summer campfires with families so at least the paper is being put to good use.”