As Kyle reported yesterday, right-wing activists are jumping on what they claim is definitive proof that Planned Parenthood is teaching young women to conceal bruises that result from domestic violence.
Of course the charge is completely bogus. Planned Parenthood posted a video entitled “How to look your best the morning after” on one of its Facebook pages. The video, and title, were created by the British domestic abuse prevention group “Refuge” to draw attention to the issue and tell views to not “cover it up.”
However, an anti-choice website LifeNews reported it as if Planned Parenthood came up with the video’s title and is using it to assist women in covering up abuse. But conservatives who either never bothered to watch the video or know that the charge is ludicrous but don’t care ran with the story.
Fox Nation posted the LifeNews story verbatim and Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance even released a statement demanding Congress defund the women’s health organization over the matter:
Why are we giving $1 million dollars per day to an organization that thinks a practical way to end domestic violence is to coach victims on makeup tips to hide their abuse? Once again Planned Parenthood gets it so wrong. Between coaching pimps on how to obtain free abortions for sex trafficking victims, to support for sex selection abortions, to targeting minority babies, this organization is a toxic waste of taxpayer funds and is damaging to American culture. They deceitfully wrap their radical ideology in terms like ‘women’s health,’ but all they really care about is perpetuating their insidious goals of coarsening our culture and undermining American families.
Since Planned Parenthood seems to be in cahoots with pimps and traffickers (see Live Action’s expose), this makes perfect sense. After all, they want those pimps happy and able to keep making money so they can pay for ‘their girls’ to have abortions. Some johns won’t pay for a prostitute with bruises, so learning how to cover them up means they can go back out on the street sooner. Planned Parenthood may be a non-profit, but they sure know how to make money. Congress needs to defund this parasite immediately.
Along with Nance’s shamelessly dishonest statement, CWA blogger Christian Shelby claimed that while the video is actually meant to fight abuse Planned Parenthood “has turned it on its head, posting the video with the simple headline: ‘How to look your best the morning after.’”
Actually the British organization gave the video that title, but right-wing groups like CWA have no use for basic facts when trying to smear Planned Parenthood.
Enter Planned Parenthood, who recently posted a video on their Facebook page that instructs teenage girls on how to hide the evidence of abuse with makeup. After all, why report the scumbag? You deserved it, didn’t you? It’s not your boyfriend’s fault that he’s a pathetic excuse for a man who can only win an argument with his fists. This isn’t a problem for police. No. This is a job for Covergirl.
Actually, the video is from a legitimate organization in the U.K. that’s fighting domestic violence. But Planned Parenthood — ever the friend of pimps, statutory rapists, and sex traffickers — has turned it on its head, posting the video with the simple headline: “How to look your best the morning after.”
At least one anti-choice blogger, Ben Johnson, apparently decided that watching the video and reading the headline might be important before writing about it and concluded that the video is clearly “opposed to covering up domestic abuse.”
But is it any wonder that the same activists who either never found the time to watch or are misrepresenting the anti-violence PSA in question are the very same ones who praised Live Action’s deceptively edited videos that targeted Planned Parenthood?
UPDATE: Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has also joined the smear campaign:
UPDATE II: LifeNews has updated their article to claim that “Planned Parenthood’s presentation of the video is problematic, not the video itself,” arguing that it is “problematic” because Refuge titled the video, “How To Look Your Best The Morning After.”
Maybe LifeNews, Concerned Women for America and Tony Perkins should take their grudge up with Refuge, as Planned Parenthood does not have control over the names of other organization’s videos.
