Planned Parenthood: Herman Cain Has No Idea What He's Talking About

Earlier this month, people got a little confused about Herman Cain’s stance on abortion, possibly because he isn’t quite sure what his position is. In an interview with Piers Morgan, he indicated he might be willing to let women make choices about their own health, before realizing mid-sentence that that’s crazy talk (in the eyes of crazy anti-choicers). Since then, he’s been working furiously to memorize the anti-abortion Mad Libs his staff gave him, and now he’s made his views even clearer: He’s totally against all abortion, as well as Planned Parenthood’s continuing attempt to commit genocide against the black community. Hey, we’d be against that too — if there was an truth to that comment.

When asked if he has any way of proving a previous statement that Planned Parenthood is “really Planned Genocide,” by Face The Nation‘s Bob Schieffer, Cain said:

If people go back and look at the history and look at Margaret Sanger’s own words, that’s exactly where that came from. Look–-look up the history. So if you go back and look up the history–-secondly, look at where most of them were built. Seventy-five percent of those facilities were built in the Black community.

Unfortunately for Cain, people can go back and look at the history, and it shows he just made all that stuff up.

Earlier this year, Guttmacher found that while anti-abortion activists often claim that most clinics are located in black neighborhoods, in reality fewer than one in 10 abortion clinics are located in predominantly black areas. According to data from 2008, the most recent information available, 63% of abortion clinics are in places with mostly white residents and only 9% are in mostly black neighborhoods.

As for Cain’s sugestion that a look at Margaret Sanger’s writings will show she was trying to systematically exterminate African Americans, that has also been proven false. PolitiFact looked into this when Cain first started saying this in March, and found he’s completely wrong. Sadly, Sanger did believe in eugenics, like many of her day. However, PolitiFact says there’s no evidence that she supported “anything even resembling the ‘genocide’ of blacks.” Sanger’s first clinic was in a mainly Irish and Jewish area of Brooklyn, and half of the patients in her other clinic in Harlem where white. Neither of the clinics performed abortions. She also supported the Negro Project, but its goal was to get birth control to black communities, not to perform abortions. PolitiFact dubbed Cain’s claim, “a ridiculous, cynical play of the race card.”

Planned Parenthood has responded to Cain’s acccusations, saying it “opposes discrimination in any form” and is committed to providing all women with health care regardless of race or income level. Veronica Byrd, director of African American media for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund added, “It is simply unacceptable for those who oppose legal abortion to use inflammatory and divisive language based on race to push an ideological agenda.” That’s a bit of a tall order. Using “inflammatory and divisive language” rather than actual facts is the preferred tactic of anti-choice activists.

Cain Smears Planned Parenthood: Accuses Group of ‘Genocide,’ Says Its Goal Is To ‘Kill Black Babies’ [ThinkProgress]
Claim that Most Abortion Clinics Are Located in Black Neighborhoods Is False [Guttmacher]
Cain Claims Planned Parenthood Founded For “Planned Genocide” [PolitiFact]
Planned Parenthood Rejects Cain Claim Abortion Clinics Are Aimed At Black ‘Genocide’ [Fox News]

Earlier: Herman Cain’s Confuzzling Pro-Life Ladies’ Choice Stance
Herman Cain Is Totally Pro-Life, Pro-Whatever Else Republican Voters Want