Thursday, February 28, 2008

Less Black Babies

I spend a lot of free time blasting the FRC, often for concocting phony-scandals, so credit where it's due: this is genuinely appalling. I was at first hesitant to give a link, because I frankly don't trust the FRC further than I can throw them, but mainstream press (in the form of the Idaho Statesman) has picked it up, so tragically, this looks real. Basically, a pro-life activist masqueraded as a donor who wanted to give a gift to Planned Parenthood of Idaho, earmarked for the specific purpose of aborting Black babies.
The call to Idaho came in July to Autumn Kersey, vice president of development and marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho.

On the recording provided by The Advocate, an actor portraying a donor said he wanted his money used to eliminate black unborn children because "the less black kids out there the better."

Kersey laughed nervously and said: "Understandable, understandable. ... Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited and want to make sure I don't leave anything out."

This is, in a word, appalling. It's flagrantly racist, and Planned Parenthood should be ashamed. As Feministing notes, it plays right into the right-wing talking points about race and abortion. PP refuses to say whether it's taken any further action against the offending employee. Is there seriously any question over whether he should still have a job?

1 comment:

PG said...

Interesting script they gave the actor making the call -- instead of having him say that he's a member of a white supremacist group or hates black people, he explains his desire to donate for aborting black fetuses through affirmative action. I wonder what that says about both the person who wrote the script and the person who took the call -- that they both believe the kind of person who opposes affirmative action would be interested in race-based abortion in order to reduce the black competition.