Wendy Davis Open to Possibility of Running Planned Parenthood

AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Andy Jacobsohn
AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Andy Jacobsohn

Wendy Davis appears to be leaving the door open to becoming the next president of Planned Parenthood.

This week, the former Texas state senator and unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial candidate spoke about the nation’s top abortion business in glowing terms.

“Planned Parenthood and the mission of Planned Parenthood — the health care provided by Planned Parenthood — is always going to be part of the core of who I am,” she told Politico at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. “I’m so proud that I’ve had an opportunity to travel all over this country and help Planned Parenthood affiliates to be successful.”

While Davis did not directly speak about the possibility of heading the organization, Politico states she is “one of several Democratic women who are privately being discussed among Democratic operatives and donors as a potential successor to [Cecile] Richards.”

Davis became a left-wing media rock star in 2013 when she donned pink sneakers and a urinary catheter and then filibustered a Texas bill that would ban abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy. She came to be known as “Abortion Barbie” by conservative media.

Davis’s filibuster took the state Senate into recess, but then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry called a special legislative session to complete passage of the bill and signed it into law.

Subsequently, Davis ran for governor, but was never a true contender and ultimately lost her bid by 20 percentage points to current Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). During the campaign, the news was filled with what eventually came to be recognized as Davis’s fictional accounts of her life and her flip-flopping on key issues – even abortion.

In January 2014, Davis admitted she lied about important life events, including her divorce, and – one year later – also admitted she was faking her support for gun rights to boost her chances in her gubernatorial bid.

In February 2014 – just half a year after her famous filibuster – Davis told the Dallas Morning News she supported bans on abortion after 20 weeks. The news was not a complete shock, since several months earlier Davis had also described herself as “pro-life.”

Davis now heads up Deeds Not Words, a group that aims to advance feminist goals. On the organization’s website, Davis portrays herself as a struggling single mother who juggled going to school and having a career.

In January, current Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards announced she would be leaving her leadership role. The announcement came just one month after the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed it was launching an investigation into the abortion vendor following allegations of profiting from the sales of the body parts of aborted babies.

Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report shows a decline in many of whatever actual health care services are offered in its clinics, while its profits – driven by abortions performed – have risen dramatically.

“Under the leadership of Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood has grown to push one agenda – abortion above all else – while throwing aside any inkling of actual medical care,” Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, said in a statement sent to Breitbart News.

The organization’s “abortion above all else” narrative made headlines recently when Planned Parenthood condemned the House’s approval of a bill that would require abortionists to immediately provide emergency medical care to an infant born alive during an abortion.

Nance also observed that, during Richards’ tenure, Planned Parenthood “has been exposed for refusing to report statutory rape and abuse, for aiding sex traffickers, for taking money to abort black babies, and for illegally profiting off of the body parts they have aborted.”

The conservative women’s leader suggested that Planned Parenthood can no longer afford to prop up its old narrative that it provides women’s health care.

“If Planned Parenthood is serious about standing up for the women they claim to represent, they will hire someone who understands medicine and accepts the facts that abortion does not help women, but only inflicts harm and destruction,” she said. “This is their chance to turn the organization around for the good and actually help women, instead of constantly telling them they cannot fulfill their dreams without abortion.”

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