Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Don’t be fooled by the media’s fawning coverage of this Saturday’s Women’s March. The national co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington made it quite clear in an interview this weekend that this event is not based on some altruistic desire to advance the rights of all women. Instead, this March is all about preserving government funding for their idea of “reproductive healthcare.”
Newsbusters is reporting on the interview which took place this week on MSNBC with Linda Sarsour, the national co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington. When asked by MSNBC’s Richard Liu what exactly the women are marching about, Sarsour gave him an earful.
“First of all, hands off the Affordable Care Act. We need our health insurance,” she began. “Hands off Planned Parenthood and our reproductive rights. Hands off Muslims. Hands off the undocumented. Those are really our top messaging lines. Hands off our Native American sisters and brothers.”
She continued: “You will see a plethora of speakers reflecting all the progressive and social justice issues in this country. It’s, again, one of the most intersectional movements and marches that you have ever seen in U.S. history.”
It’s also one of the most divisive. As Newsbusters’ Katie Yoder reports, to apply as a march partner, organizations were required to declare “reproductive justice” (read, abortion rights) as their primary area of focus. This explains why abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL are aiding the march.
But the website also claimed to be embracing “diversity” because by “defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.”
This is a prime example of the disingenuous language used to promote the event as if it’s embracing noble causes. But nothing could be further from the truth. Last Thursday, march organizers released a “unity principles” statement “clarifying that ‘diversity’ doesn’t include diversity of thought and that ‘defending the most marginalized’ doesn’t include the unborn,” Yoder points out.
If the media would do their job and report on this organization and its real intentions the coverage would be far less glowing than it is.
For example, in addition to supporting abortion, it also opposes efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, something that a majority of Americans are in favor of.
“We believe in Reproductive Freedom,” the unity principles state. “We do not accept any federal, state or local rollbacks, cuts or restrictions on our ability to access quality reproductive healthcare services, birth control, HIV/AIDS care and prevention, or medically accurate sexuality education. This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education. We understand that we can only have reproductive justice when reproductive health care is accessible to all people regardless of income, location or education.”
During this weekend’s interview, Sarsour claimed that the recent passage of a budget resolution in Congress that will set the stage for stripping all funding to Planned Parenthood is what has fueled the surge in attendance at the march, which is now estimated to be close to 250,000.
As of this writing, the march has admitted just one pro-life group – Stanton Healthcare – a women’s health provider that believes human rights begin in the womb. However, march organizers very publicly ousted the pro-life New Wave Feminists from their list of sponsors and issued an apology to members for the “error.”
Make no mistake about it, this Saturday’s march is almost exclusively a pro-abortion rally aimed at letting President Trump know what they think about his plans to promote life in public policy and end funding to abortion providers.
“We respect the presidency, but we will not respect this president of the United States of America,” Sarsour said, “a man who won his election on the vilification of immigrants, of Muslim people, black people, people with disabilities, of women.”
What she doesn’t acknowledge – nor does the MSNBC journalist who should know better – is that is nothing more than her opinion. It is not fact, nor should it be reported as such.
But you can bet we’ll be seeing a lot more of this deceptive coverage in the days ahead. When it comes to this Saturday’s march, you might as well stay tuned for more fake news.
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UPDATE 1/18 4:38 p.m.: According to Brandi Swindell, founder of Stanton Healthcare, the Women’s March has revoked her sponsorship of the event. “Let’s be clear on this point, the WMW has turned into a purely partisan political rally and march with no regard for hearing from or listening to all women’s voices,” Swindell said. “Shame on them for using the term ‘women’ to advance their political agenda.”
