Update: Trump reportedly failed to call in to the Priests for Life conference, even further confusing his already confused place in the “pro-life” movement.
Update II: In a statement on Thursday, Pavone said that reports of Trump’s snub were “incorrect” and that neither “Mr. Trump nor anyone associated with him or his campaign cancelled a meeting or phone call with pro-life leaders, nor did they break any commitment, promise, appointment, or expectation.”
Add this to the growing list of Donald Trump’s contradictory positions on reproductive rights: Trump, who has repeatedly said that Planned Parenthood does “very good work for millions of women,” is scheduled to speak today to an anti-choice organization that has been threatening to help infiltrate the women’s health provider in order to take it down.
Trump, facing an outcry from anti-abortion activists after taking several contradictory positions on abortion rights over the course of one week, will reportedly address a forum organized by Priests for Life tonight.
The director of Priests for Life, Fr. Frank Pavone, has been on the frontline of the anti-abortion movement for decades and is currently leading an “ongoing campaign of prayer and fasting with the specific intention of ending abortion in the United States and ending the evils perpetrated by Planned Parenthood.”
In January, Pavone helped organized a protest in front of a new Planned Parenthood clinic that is under construction in Washington. The most anticipated speaker at the event was David Daleiden, the activist behind the series of videos falsely smearing Planned Parenthood for supposedly “selling baby parts.” At the protest, Pavone boasted of the work of fellow anti-choice activist Mark Crutcher, who is hoping to train an “army” of activists like Daleiden to infiltrate Planned Parenthood clinics in an effort to dig up dirt about the organization … and to intimidate providers in the process.
“The troubles for Planned Parenthood have only just begun,” Pavone promised at the rally.
He added a “message to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry”:
“Be on your toes because we are in your midst, we are behind your doors, we are in your secret meetings, we are working for you and with you though you know it not, but in His good time the God who reveals all secrets will reveal that too.”
Pavone, like Daleiden, has close ties to the “rescue” movement, the leaders of confrontational protests outside of abortion clinics. The protest that Pavone helped lead in front of the Washington Planned Parenthood clinic in January forced a nearby school to close for two days.
That Trump is attending Pavone’s event in an attempt to make peace with pro-lifers somewhat undermines his praise for Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion-related services.
