A recent Politico interview with Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson promised far more than it delivered. The title of the interview, “Planned Parenthood vs. White Supremacy” implied that the interviewer would be asking hard-hitting questions about the abortion giant’s complicity in advancing the goals of the eugenics movement and their current focus on targeting minority communities for abortion. In a display of the media’s refusal to hold the abortion industry accountable, the interview was little more than a PR stunt for Planned Parenthood.

Instead of pressing in on the abortion industry’s ongoing racism, the interviewer was quick to emphasize McGill Johnson’s past role in crafting an implicit bias and diversity training for Starbucks a few years ago and offered no pushback when she downplayed the company’s racist legacy, insisting that she was committed to “shifting [the] infrastructure” of racism by continuing to expand abortion.

In their report, Politico writes,

The 104-year-old Planned Parenthood is still reckoning with its relationship to white supremacy. There are still major disparities in access to reproductive health care among women of color. Equitable policies, such as expanding access to affordable abortion care for low-income and women of color, are still essential.

Planned Parenthood’s deeply racist founder, Margaret Sanger, intentionally targeted low-income and minority communities that she saw as “less desirable.” She believed  that eliminating populations on the basis of race, ability, and class would “improve” society. Making no effort to conceal her racism, she addressed a women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan and invited a white supremacist to be a member of Planned Parenthood’s board.

Last summer the abortion giant made an effort to distance themselves from Sanger by removing her name from their New York facility, but the so-called “reckoning” with Sanger’s legacy has been nothing more than a façade as Planned Parenthood continues Sanger’s work by targeting minority and low-income communities for abortion. Although Black Americans make up only 12% of the population, 38% of reported abortions are performed on Black women. As the largest abortion provider in the nation, Planned Parenthood bears significant responsibility for this trend, especially considering that they have chosen to place 86% of their facilities in or near neighborhoods that are majority African American or Latino. Planned Parenthood has consistently opposed prenatal non-discrimination legislation, which would ban abortion abortions on the basis of race, sex, or disability.

When asked what was on her “wish list” McGill Johnson brought up her hope of seeing Congress end the Hyde Amendment, which saves roughly 60,000 lives per year by blocking federal funds from paying for abortions. When abortions are subsidized by taxpayers, abortion rates increase. In other words, Planned Parenthood stands to gain financially from this move.

McGill Johnson also claimed that Planned Parenthood had been “forced” to leave the Title X program. This is not the case. When the Trump administration implemented the Protect Life Rule, Planned Parenthood voluntarily withdrew from the program. Given the choice between committing abortions and serving low-income communities through Title X, Planned Parenthood chose abortion, demonstrating their dedication to Margaret Sanger’s murderous legacy. Politico did not challenge McGill Johnson’s false claim or ask any further questions about why Planned Parenthood is more committed to abortion than to health care access for low-income communities.

No matter how much fawning media coverage they receive, Planned Parenthood cannot reckon with their history of racism until they stop killing brown babies, and end their murderous practices for good. Killing babies on the basis of their skin color is racism in its most insidious form, and no amount of rhetoric from Planned Parenthood will change that fact or clear them of the evil they are committing.

(Image: Flickr, American Life League, CC BY-NC 2.0)