A few years ago I heard with amusement the NZ media report that Jerry Falwell had condemned Tinky Winky from the teletubbies as Gay. A little while latter I came across an article in First Things pointing out that the sources of these reports were mistaken. I was not a fan of Falwell but whatever his religious and political views surely the media have a duty to report accurately. Predictably, when Falwell died the NZ media repeated the story again despite the fact that it was false.

I was reminded of this whole incident recently and the following thought struck me. If Falwell’s making comments about Teletubbies was newsworthy. Surely stupid comments by Liberal organisations must be newsworthy as well. Suppose the staff of Planned Parenthood, one of the biggest providers of Abortion in the US, a multimillion dollar industry endorsed and promoted by numerous Hollywood actors, and a major donator to the Democratic party, were to make outrageously racist comments. Would that be newsworthy? Suppose they accepted donations for the specific purpose of furthering genocide? Suppose they also stated that racist views were understandable and they were excited to get such donations? Surely that would be newsworthy? Especially given that the New Zealand Family Planning Association proudly claims to be a member of The Planned Parenthood Federation

Well apparently No.

Here is what has come to light: For years critics of Planned Parenthood have been arguing that it was founded for racist and eugenic reasons. According to these critics its founder Margaret Sanger was a racist eugenicist and the organisation was founded by her to further these ends.

Enter Student Journalists. The Advocate a UCLA student newspaper decided to test whether Planned Parenthood had turned from what the percieved to be Sanger's ideas. They hired the services of an actor. The actor rang several Planned Parenthood companies around the country and offered to donate money to planned parenthood provided the money was used only to abort black babies. The actor made comments to the effect that he wanted to reduce the number of blacks in the state in question, that he wanted to protect his own son from affirmative action and the less blacks there are the better etc. He was overtly racist in his comments. Apparently despite ringing several Planned Parenthoods around the US none rejected the donatation, none called into question or criticised the person’s view and in some instances they even laughed and appeared supportive of the views calling them “exciting” and “understandable”. An expose of just a couple of the conversations he taped can be found here.

For those who find youtube tiresome I reproduce a transcript of one conversation are below.

Autumn Kersey of Planned Parenthood in Boise: Good afternoon, this is Autumn.
Donor: Hello, Autumn, I'm interested in making a donation today.
Kersey: Fantastic!
Donor: What about abortions for the underprivileged minority groups?
Kersey: Oh, absolutely. We have, um, in fact, uh wonderful, fantastic news. We just received a very generous donation to our women in need fund.
Donor: Wonderful. I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group - would that be possible?
Kersey: Absolutely.
Donor: Like the black community for example?
Kersey: Certainly.
Donor: OK, so the abortion I can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the
purpose.
Kersey: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that you wanted your
gift to be used to help (an) African-American woman in need, then we would
certainly make sure that that gift was earmarked specifically for that purpose.
Donor: Great. Because I really face trouble with affirmative action, and I
don't want my kids being disadvantaged, you know, against black kids. I just had
a baby; I want to put it in his name, you know.
Kersey: Mmhmm, absolutely.
Donor: So that's definitely possible.
Kersey: Oh, always, always.
Donor: So I just wanna - can I put this in the name of my son?
Kersey: Absolutely.
Donor: Yeah, he's trying to get into colleges, and he's going to be applying, you know, he's justwe're just really bighe's really faced troubles with affirmative action.
Kersey: Mmhmm.
Donor: And we don't, you know,
we just think, you know, the less black kids out there the better.
Kersey: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable. ... Um David, let me, if I may, just get some sort of specific general information so we can set this up the right way. You said you wanted to put it in your son's name, and you would like this designated specifically to assist (an) African-American woman who's looking to terminate a pregnancy.
Donor: Exactly, and yeah, I wanna protect my son, so he can get into college.
Kersey: All right. Excuse my hesitation, um, um, this is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited, and I wanna make sure I don't leave anything out.

After accepting the money and suggesting the donor’s desire to have "the less black kids out their the better" was “understandable” and receiving a donation ear marked solely for this purpose made her fell "excited". The you tube video records a second conversation Autumn has with a women claiming to be a donor concerned that planned parenthood would accept donations ear marked precisely for this purpose . Autumn outright tells lies. She states they would not accept donations for this purpose and also that views like that make her so uncomfortable she shakes. The Advocate claims they have plenty more examples of this sort of thing from Planned Parenthood staff on tape.

But I am still left wondering, why this has not been reported in NZ media? Perhaps it will be soon. I wait with abated breath.

I guess it is considered more in the public's interest to hear lies about fundamentalists than to hear documented claims about major liberal abortion providers taking money to further genocide. Or the fact that some of their fundraisers claim to find the concept of genocide "understandable" or even "exciting".