Planned Parenthood: Cruz, Fiorina 'Embrace Rhetoric That Leads to Violence, Threats Against Abortion Providers'
Following Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz's announcement Wednesday that former GOP candidate Carly Fiorina is to be his vice-presidential running mate, the nation's largest abortion provider chastised the two staunch pro-lifers as "the most loathsome pair."
Fiorina has long called for Planned Parenthood to be stripped of its tax funding and has frequently cited last year's Center for Medical Progress sting videos that purport to show abortion clinics violating the law. The abortion giant's lobbying arm issued a statement that claims that a Fiorina-Cruz ticket would give American women "nightmares."
"This is the same Carly Fiorina who is best known for lying; firing 30,000 people at Hewlett Packard; falling drastically in the race for the GOP nomination because of her lies about Planned Parenthood; and ambushing a preschool field trip to use toddlers as a tiny prop audience in an anti-abortion talk," the Planned Parenthood Action Fund wrote on its website.
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"Fittingly, Senator Ted Cruz (who is also known for lying) believes her actions qualify her to help run a country," the statement added. "That's no surprise, either: This is the same Ted Cruz who wants to ban abortion, has pushed shady campaign tactics, and embraced support from the most extreme and violent elements of the anti-abortion movement."
The webpage continued by listing a number of expectations for a Cruz-Fiorina ticket. Cruz and Fiorina's pro-life rhetoric that would lead to increases in "violence" and "attacks" against abortion providers, Planned Parenthood claims.
"[They will] continue to embrace incendiary rhetoric and lies about Planned Parenthood that have led to an increase in violence, threats and political attacks against abortion providers," the webpage states.
"Their agenda is so unpopular that both of them have resorted to blatant, inflammatory lies in order to legitimize their extreme beliefs," it adds. "These lies truly threaten women's access to health care in this country."
Planned Parenthood and other abortion supporters lambasted Fiorina after she cited one of the CMP videos during a presidential debate last September. The video in question, Fiorina claimed, showed a fully formed, heart-beating fetus on a table while someone says "we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain."
The scene that Fiorina talks about used an image of an aborted fetus that wasn't the actual fetus being described in the audio. Critics have used that fact to call her a liar.
Fiorina's comment, however, was based off of actual testimony provided in the video by a former fetal tissue procurement technician.
That didn't stop Planned Parenthood from arguing that Fiorina's lies about Planned Parenthood and the video "that doesn't exist" "ruined her candidacy."
"Fiorina spent her entire campaign lying about Planned Parenthood and it ruined her candidacy," Planned Parenthood states. "She made demonizing Planned Parenthood and women seeking reproductive health care a central focus of her campaign. And she's payed the price."
Jean Card argued in a piece for U.S. News & World Report, it is "unfair" to claim that Fiorina lied about the video.
"Fiorina spoke about the terribly real video as if the image (of an aborted fetus, still alive) and the audio (of someone who worked with Planned Parenthood, describing the harvesting of a live aborted fetus' brain) were depicting the same event," Card writes. "While the video image used to illustrate the worker's testimony was not of the same event, both image and testimony were real."
Fiorina has stood by her debate comments about the video and has asserted that Planned Parenthood's attacks against her are an attempt to silencer her.
During a debate in January, Fiorina said that even though Planned Parenthood was cleared by a Texas grand jury and the producers of the Center for Medical Progress videos have been indicted, that doesn't change the facts about Planned Parenthood.
"Look, the facts of Planned Parenthood have not changed, folks. And, I will not be rendered silent on this issue or any other issue and it doesn't matter what stage I am on," she stated. "Here are the facts — Planned Parenthood engages in partial birth abortion, late-term abortion. They alter their abortion techniques to harvest and sell body parts. They have admitted that they are not going to accept compensation for this anymore."
"The reality is most Americans find this practice horrific," she added.
CP reached out to Fiorina for a response, but didn't hear back by press time.
