Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards said the “hypocrisy” of religious groups seeking an exemption from Obamacare’s HHS contraceptive mandate is “profound.”
During an interview with Dallas/Fort Worth Healthcare Daily, the head of the nation’s largest abortion business responded to a question about “religious liberty cases” involving groups such as Little Sisters of the Poor and Priests for Life. The sisters say government rules forcing to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to their employees through health insurance are against the tenets of their faith.
Richards said:
It’s incredible to me that any employer in the 21st century would deny their employees access to birth control. This is the most commonly used prescription in the country. Upwards of 95 percent of women use birth control at some point in their lifetime. I’m very proud of the fact that under President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, 55 million women, basically every woman who is insured, gets birth control covered at no co-pay. We are making such enormous strides. We are at a 30-year low for unintended pregnancy in the U.S., I believe, in large part, because of access to family planning.
The hypocrisy of these cases is profound. I can tell you having sat in the Supreme Court recently, having three women on the court that understand the impact on women of these laws has been momentous and I do believe if we had a Supreme Court that more equally represented all of America we would be getting different kinds of decisions. But I’m hopeful that we will win this one. We will continue to provide care no matter what, including women who are uninsured, immigrant women, women who do not have the benefit of a birth control benefit. But it is exciting to see that birth control is now considered part of preventive medicine. For the first time! For the first time.
Though the Obama administration has exempted some 100 million Americans from the HHS mandate – including companies such as Pepsi, Chevron, and Exxon, the entire city of New York, and the U.S. military – the same administration insists that those who are defending their faith must be coerced into complying with the mandate or pay millions of dollars in punitive fines.
In response to a question about how she continues to get out her message when states are passing legislation restricting Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding, Richards said, “The media has been incredibly important in not only talking about what Planned Parenthood does, but actually putting a human face on what it means when you cut healthcare.”
“There’s a reckoning day coming and I believe in this election the rhetoric around Planned Parenthood, around reproductive healthcare access, around LGBT people is not going to go in the favor of folks who have been leading that charge,” she added. “The American people strongly support Planned Parenthood because they support the work that we do.”