Planned Parenthood Boss on 2016: We’re Seeing ‘an Actual War on Women’

Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards Attacks Republicans For 'War on Women' (NewsBusters)

The June 10 edition of The Last Word featured all the predictable elements of a liberal media discussion on abortion. Host Lawrence O’Donnell invited Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, former Democratic congressman Barney Frank, and the New York Times’ Jeremy Peters to the program to bash the Republican “war on women.” The discussion concerned a proposed 20-week abortion ban that’s currently stuck in the Senate. 

Cecile Richards noted that, because more and more states have been enacting restrictions on abortion, “it’s no longer a theoretical war on women. It is an actual war on women.” Earlier in the segment, Richards noted that Republicans have “an obsession” with abortion – as if liberals don’t – and claimed that the 2012 Republican presidential primaries were a “race to the bottom on women.” All of these statements went uncontested by the other panelists on the program. In fact, both Peters and Frank hit the Republican presidential candidates on the issue. Peters questioned the strategy to highlight abortion, and Frank worried that Roe v. Wade would be overturned.