Sorry, Teen Vogue… Cecile Richards is no feminist role model

Planned Parenthood President and CEO Cecile Richards was just featured in Teen Vogue magazine as “the most badass feminist EVER.” The magazine, which is clearly marketed to teenagers, has been having a field day promoting abortion lately, with stories that demonize pro-lifers while presenting abortion clinic escorts as heroes. According to the magazine, Planned Parenthood has been doing great work, but it is Richards’ leadership that has truly allowed the abortion organization to thrive. So for the 100th anniversary of Planned Parenthood, they featured a video from Richards, where she talks about what kind of advice she would give her 18-year-old self.

Cecile Richards Shares What Advice She Would Give Her 18-Year-Old Self | Teen Vogue

The advice has some fairly predictable tidbits, like seizing every opportunity, do the unexpected, and staying close to your girlfriends. But then there’s a piece of advice titled “Your Body Is Yours.”

Your body is yours. You’re the only person who should be able to tell it what to do. And, you know, when you are in relationships, you want somebody who respects your body. And you’re going to fight, your entire life, for the right of you and every other woman to control her body. And that’s super empowering.

It’s interesting that she says this, considering that she has absolutely no respect for actual bodily autonomy. No abortion advocates do, because while they may spout off empty platitudes about controlling your own body, they are perfectly content with allowing the bodies of preborn babies to be ripped apart, limb by limb. Scientifically, we know that the preborn baby is not part of the mother’s body; he may reside there, but he is a living, breathing, unique human being. This isn’t some loony pro-life propaganda; it’s scientific fact. The baby has his own unique DNA strand at the moment of conception and a beating heart just a few weeks later (possibly even earlier, according to new research). By 10 weeks, brain waves can be measured, the baby has his own unique fingerprints, and by the end of the first trimester, all the major organs have been formed.

Yet Cecile Richards is more than happy to violate the preborn child’s right to control what happens to his body. But she was just getting started.

Her next tip was that “Being A Woman Is The Best.”

You’re really lucky you’re a woman. It’s the best. Now, you’re going to get paid less for working harder, you’re going to get treated differently because you’re a woman. But the good news is, you can take it, and you’re tough, and you’re resilient. And it makes us stronger.

Ironic words from a woman whose organization tells women that, on one hand, they’re tough and resilient, but on the other, if they ever experience an unplanned pregnancy, their best and only option is to have an abortion and kill their preborn child. Because hey, women are tough and resilient, but not tough and resilient enough to achieve anything with an unexpected pregnancy. And if she was so gung-ho about women, then why is Planned Parenthood willing to participate in gendercide? And why do they treat women so poorly?

But perhaps most disturbing was her advice to “Stand Up For Justice”:

In your life, you’re going to fight for a lot of things that you believe in: equal rights, civil rights, LGBT rights. These are things that are — that you’re passionate about, and you know they’re the right thing. You know what real justice is. And yet people are going to doubt you, they’re going to criticize you, you’re going to have to stand up for opinions that are unpopular, you’re going to work hard, and it’s going to be worth it. Your job is never just going to be your job; it’s going to be what you do for your life. And I think if you find the right thing, and I’m cofnident you will, it’s never going to seem like work. It’s going to seem like the thing that you were put on this earth to do. And the incredible thing is, the work that you do, even though it seems hard sometimes, there are going to be people that come up to you and say, thank you for fighting for me, or for standing up for me, or for making my life just a little bit better, and that’s going to be worth it all.

She certainly has a warped view of justice, if that’s what she claims to be fighting for. Maybe it’s Planned Parenthood’s penchant for helping rapists escape justice. Or perhaps it’s how they cover up child sex abuse and sex trafficking. These are not things that have only been uncovered in Live Action’s undercover investigations; there are tragic real-life circumstances of this happening all over the country. Rapists and abusers bring their victims to Planned Parenthood to force them into abortion as a way of covering up their crimes, and time and time again, Planned Parenthood hands them right back to their abusers.

But yeah, Cecile Richards is a real warrior for justice.

Finally, Richards repeats Planned Parenthood’s latest talking point: to vote like your life depends on it. Considering how many preborn babies are killed at Planned Parenthood clinics — 320,000 a year, or one baby every 97 seconds — that’s a line of thinking that Richards might want to stay away from. An organization whose business is abortion before all else probably shouldn’t talk about doing anything “as if your life depends on it.”

Debunking Planned Parenthood's "3%" Abortion Myth

Cecile Richards is no feminist role model for young girls to look up to. She heads up an organization that takes vulnerable women who feel scared, helpless, and alone, and manipulates them, lies to them, and pressures them into having an abortion.

Richards’ answer for women in crisis is violence and death, even if these women are already victims of sexual violence. And there is nothing feminist about that.