“I am pro-choice; I do support federal funding for Planned Parenthood,” Campbell Brown told Mika Brzezinski this morning. Brown joined the show to discuss Planned Parenthood.
A former television anchor and reporter, Brown wrote in a recent NYT op-ed that she feels Planned Parenthood’s future success depends on its willingness to be bipartisan.
She writes:
Almost half of the organization’s funding (46 percent) comes from the federal and state governments, making it imperative that it have friends in both parties. But that’s tough to do when Planned Parenthood sees ideological purity as so paramount that it permeates every aspect of its strategic planning. There is almost no room for even slight deviations. Those who are not in lock step with the organization are viewed as enemies to the cause.
“To not have friends on the other side of the aisle is a mistake over the long haul when you’re relying on almost half of your funding to come from the government,” Brown told the panel this morning.
In her op-ed and on the show, Brown drew a parallel with the fight for marriage equality in New York.
“Gay marriage passed in New York because four Republican legislators crossed party lines. They did it in part because they had true bipartisan financial support,” Brown wrote in the June 23 column. What say Republicans and Planned Parenthood on the issue? Following Brown’s column, Politico published this statement from Randy Moody, national co-chair of Republicans for Planned Parenthood: “Planned Parenthood has millions of Republican donors and volunteers because our mission is consistent with Republican values such as individual responsibility and personal freedom. Planned Parenthood works in a bipartisan way with public policy makers at every level to insure women the best health care possible. We have a long history of Republican support and will continue to reach out to Republicans who support us and our programs. That doesn’t mean we can’t do better in recognizing the extraordinary effort it takes in the current political climate for Republican office holders to protect us from harm and advocate for our programs.” And Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood’s president, shared her thoughts on the matter recently in the National Journal.
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