Planned Parenthood president urges Dems to be firm on abortion

The president of Planned Parenthood is urging Democrats to take a strong stand on abortion rights and pushing back against comments made by the chairman of the party’s campaign arm.

Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, said last month that the Democrats will not withhold financial support for candidates who oppose abortion rights.

Luján said there will be no litmus tests for candidates as the Democrats look to find a winning roster to regain the House majority in 2018.

{mosads}“It’s a shocking sort of misunderstanding of actually where the country is … which is overwhelmingly supportive of abortion rights and also, who are the ground troops that kind of fuel the election of candidates,” Cecile Richards told Politico.

Richards said she believes people can distinguish between “their own personal feelings and what they believe government or politicians should do.”

“And people even in some of the most conservative areas of the country who may themselves personally say, ‘I would never choose to have an abortion,’ or, ‘That’s not something that’s right for me,’ also, absolutely do not believe politicians should be making decisions about pregnancy for women,” Richards said.

“I think he’s totally wrong and I’ll use every opportunity to convince him of that,” she added, referring to Luján.

Richards also went after the Trump administration for its actions on women.

“It’s actually what are the actions we’re seeing and what we’ve seen out of this administration from day one have had both barrels aimed at women,” Richards said.

She added she thinks there should be more women in Congress and a woman running on the 2020 Democratic presidential ticket.

“I don’t know who, but I think there’s a number of qualified women, and it would help,” Richards said.

“I know the difference it makes.”