Planned partisan parenthood: abortion provider branches out to unrelated leftist causes

Planned Parenthood gets a lot of mileage out of pretending to be a mild-mannered “women’s health” organization, despite abortion constituting a larger share of its business than apologists claim, the radical sex messages it feeds to teenagers, and the shameless partisan demagoguery of its president, Cecile Richards.

But now, the abortion provider is dropping all pretense of being anything other than a left-wing pressure group, as word comes that Planned Parenthoods of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota are joining the Minnesota fights for same-sex marriage and against voter ID:

The group has created two political funds it will use to work against the marriage amendment, which seeks to define marriage as between one man and one woman, and the voter ID amendment, which would require voters to show photo identification at the polls.

While the two issues may not appear to overlap with Planned Parenthood’s mission, government and public affairs director Timothy Stanley said the two ballot initiatives are important to the people Planned Parenthood works with.

“We work in coalitions with all these groups every day, from doing combined outreach to vulnerable communities that need health care, to working in political coalitions with groups that are fighting for LGBT rights right along side our fight for women’s health care.”

Planned Parenthood’s board of directors has passed resolutions opposing the two amendments, Stanley said.

For the record, neither amendment threatens the “rights” of Planned Parenthood’s customers or allies. The marriage amendment’s text merely says, “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota” and is rooted in a perfectly reasonable view of civil marriage’s meaning and social purpose. Further, it says nothing about denying gay Minnesotans rights such as hospital visitation, power of attorney, bereavement leave, etc., all of which can be secured without redefining marriage.

The voter ID amendment, meanwhile, calls for having voters “present valid government-issued photographic identification before receiving a ballot” – which the state must provide “at no charge to an eligible voter.” Protect My Vote, the group dedicated to enacting the amendment, notes that the law also accounts for situations in which people might have difficulty obtaining an ID due to lack of documentation, religious objections, and residence in temporary shelters. The amendment was also motivated by a real problem – Protect My Vote compiles substantial evidence of voter fraud in Minnesota, and there is reason to suspect the state’s Democrat Sen. Al Franken owes his seat to fraud.

Granted, these are very brief overviews of complex issues, and the final determination on the correctness of each amendment is for Minnesotans to decide. But what should be clear to all is that neither cause has anything to do with abortion, birth control, pregnancy, or women’s health.

The only common thread among abortion, same-sex marriage, and opposing voter ID is their importance to the Democrat Party’s liberal base – which Stanley, in discussing the “coalitions” Planned Parenthood works with, all but admits is the real point. This is as absurd as the idea of the National Right to Life Committee suddenly pushing concealed firearm carry or fighting cap & trade.

Once again, women’s well-being takes a backseat to the whims of the American left. Is this really what women want “women’s health” providers spending their time, money, and credibility on?