Cecile Richards: ‘For 100 Years, Planned Parenthood Has Allowed People to Live Out Their Dreams’

Planned Parenthood president and CEO Cecile Richards says that both the fight that won women the right to vote and the legalization of abortion on demand “shaped the opportunities for millions of women and families.”

In her introductory remarks to an address by Democrat presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton at an event of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Richards made no mention of the rights of men, but tailored all her remarks around “women and families.”

Richards said:

The right of women to control their reproductive destiny and the courageous fight for the right to vote shaped the opportunities for millions of women and families…

When my great-grandmother was a girl, women couldn’t vote under Texas law, and yet two generations later, her granddaughter, Ann Richards, was elected governor of the state of Texas…

For 100 years, Planned Parenthood has allowed people to live out their dreams, and largely because women can now access birth control and legal abortion.

Richards observed the United States has female members of the Supreme Court and the U.S. Senate.

“And when the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and all of us do our work right, over the next five months, we will proudly be part of electing the first woman president of the United States of America,” she continued. “But, this isn’t about electing any woman to the White House, this is about electing this woman – Hillary Clinton.”

Richards added that many women put their trust in Planned Parenthood for both “their healthcare” and “their future.”

As examples of the “healthcare” Planned Parenthood provides, Richards cited the cases of a woman in Houston who went to Planned Parenthood to get care when she found a lump in her breast, and a “transgender teen in Asheville, North Carolina who trusts us to provide non-judgmental, high quality healthcare.”

Richards also said Planned Parenthood provided birth control to a “young woman very far away from home” with “no shame, no judgment.”

The abortion business president continued that “trust is earned by actions, not by words, which is why the Planned Parenthood Action Fund has trusted Hillary Clinton.”

Richards credited Clinton with asserting women’s rights in Beijing and getting emergency contraception available over-the-counter available to women when she was a U.S. senator from New York.

“And in the White House, who do we trust to repeal the Hyde Amendment, to fix the Helms amendment, and defend the right of all people to reproductive healthcare, including at Planned Parenthood? – Hillary Clinton,” she said.

The Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision that bars federal taxpayer funding of most abortions.

The 1973 Helms amendment states, “No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.”

Clinton has said she would fight to repeal the Hyde Amendment and that “an unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.”

In January, Clinton said, “I will always defend Planned Parenthood. And I will say – consistently and proudly – Planned Parenthood should be funded, supported, and appreciated; not undermined, misrepresented, and demonized.”

Richards summed up the left’s vision of what Clinton will do if elected president.

“We need a president who will not only fight for reproductive rights, but for immigration rights, for civil rights, for voting rights, to keep communities safe from gun violence and toxic water,” Richards said. “We need a president who has fought for women and families every single day of her life.”

Clinton gave her first address since clinching the Democrat Party presidential nomination, and it was to Planned Parenthood supporters.