You will probably remember the Disney character Cruella De Vil as the main evil character in the 1961 animated Disney classic 101 Dalmatians . Her name , a play on the words cruel and devil, stops us in our tracks.
The wispy figure of Cruella bedecked in her fur coat, her ghoulish demeanor and nasty countenance, and her desire to kill the innocent for her own personal gain always sends chills up my spine. When I think about Cecile Richards , president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the terrible Cruella comes to mind. The only problem is that Richards is a real person. She is a woman who will say anything to defend the cruelty and the killing that is Planned Parenthood's stock in trade.
In case you doubt the veracity of my claim, let's look at an example of the rhetoric Richards used during her testimony before a congressional hearing this week. The Washington Pos t reports that Richards "delivered an aggressive defense of her embattled organization Tuesday on Capitol Hill, rejecting allegations that it illegally sells fetal tissue for profit as 'offensive and categorically untrue.'"
Oh really? It is clear to me that that statement is patently false. There are personal testimonies on those Center for Medical Progress video tapes from Planned Parenthood and others that make it clear that baby body parts are readily available for sale. The prices are even mentioned. Maybe Cruella missed that part!
But then again truth has never stopped Planned Parenthood.
Richards claimed that Planned Parenthood is the " only organization " some women will visit this year for their healthcare!
Cecile errs again.
According to the Lozier Institute, there are 20 community health centers for every Planned Parenthood center! Not only that, but it states, "If Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, were to be defunded from receiving over $500 million in taxpayer funds per year, there already exist over 13,000 non-abortion providing Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) service sites and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) that could receive this sum instead and continue to provide comprehensive primary and preventive healthcare."
And then there was the problem with the Republicans, who were alleged to be " grilling " Cecile Richards, but who never asked the right questions. As one observer who attended the hearings said, the GOP steered clear of questions about rape and abortion when there exists a wealth of material that could have been used to nail Richards and her outfit to the wall.
For example, the Radiance Foundation's Ryan Bomberger writes :
Planned Parenthood has been repeatedly found guilty of failing to report rape. Despite the fact that rape-related pregnancies comprise less than 1% of nationwide abortions ( I was conceived in rape ) Planned Parenthood and its allies continually exploit rape to justify 100% of abortions. Most recently, the Alabama Department of Public Health released a report that Planned Parenthood never reported the sexual abuse of a 14 year old who sought medication abortions twice at its facility, 4 months apart. In Arizona, Planned Parenthood never reported rapist Tyler Kost after "treating" his 14 year old victim. No thanks to Planned Parenthood, the serial rapist faced 27 counts of sexual assault in court because others who actually care about the well-being of young women reported him.
But somehow the grand inquisitors in the hearing room never got to those types of questions.
So did Richards skate, or is she scared to death of losing taxpayer funding to the tune of more than half a billion a year?
What makes matters worse is that the American public thinks Planned Parenthood deserves every penny. On the day of the congressional hearing, a USA Today/ Suffolk University poll of 1,000 likely voters found that two out of every three people polled believe that Planned Parenthood should continue to receive funding! One of those polled quipped, "Basically, we're defunding women's health care."
In other words she, like many others - perhaps most Americans - believes that Planned Parenthood does deliver healthcare to women. Yet those same people have no idea at all what the videos show, why Planned Parenthood's preoccupation with killing is disturbing on multiple levels, or the truth about where any woman could receive healthcare even if Planned Parenthood shut down for good tomorrow.
Why?
Because Cruella De Vil has a huge supporting cast, including nearly all the major media outlets in the United States. And since millions of Americans do not watch cable news, do not read the various pro-life news websites, and have not watched hours of the Center for Medical Progress tapes, they simply have no clue.
So what now?
We continue to teach truth, shed light on the facts, and trust that in the not too distant future Cruella and her minions will finally be derailed by the truth.