MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and guests on Monday worried that working at Planned Parenthood is becoming “dangerous” due to pro-life “terrorism.” Talking to fellow liberal Joy Reid, the Last Word anchor announced, “...We've come to the point where working at a Planned Parenthood in America is a dangerous occupation.”
(One might point out that Planned Parenthood has always been dangerous for the unborn baby.) Highlighting protests outside of abortion clinics, Reid said of employees: “The fact that they go to work every day under that kind of fear and duress, that is the essence of what terrorism is.”
O’Donnell also talked to Drexel University President David Cohen. He praised abortion as an undeniably “basic health care.”
DAVID COHEN: It's important to understand also that abortion is basic health care. Almost one in three women in America will have an abortion. It is basic health care. And whether it’s a Planned Parenthood that only provides a small percentage of abortions or an independent abortion clinic where everything they do is abortion, all of those women should be able to walk in and get the health care they need and everyone who works there should be able to work there without the fear that there's going to be some problem or, worse, some violence.
A transcript is below:
Last Word
11/30/15
10:09
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: We're joined now by Joy Reid, MSNBC national correspondent, and David Cohen, a professor at Drexel University's Kline School of Law and co-author of Living in the Crosshairs: the Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism. Joy Reid, we've come to the point where working at a Planned Parenthood in America is a dangerous occupation.
JOY REID: Yeah, absolutely. And as somebody who grew up in Denver, Colorado, knows Colorado Springs very well. It is a highly evangelical community. It’s sort of interesting. Denver is a liberal community and then you have Colorado Springs, this big evangelical base. And I grew up in the era of Operation Rescue, where you had these really scary confrontations between anti-abortion activists, in a lot of cases who were threatening violence against clinic workers and somebody who got my basic health care from Planned Parenthood. When I graduated college, I had no money.
And so, even in New York, you know, Planned Parenthood was where I got all health care, whether it's birth control or not. It's eerie to sort of think about the danger to which these clinicians who I just became used to, as just normal care providers, the fact that they go to work every day under that kind of fear and duress, that is the essence of what terrorism is, being afraid to go to work. And as somebody who has used Planned Parenthood, I can tell you women are going there to get basic health care. To do that and they are in fear because there are fellow Americans threatening violence against you and your health care providers, it's sort of surreal.
...
DAVID COHEN: It's important to understand also that abortion is basic health care. Almost one in three women in America will have an abortion. It is basic health care. And whether it’s a Planned Parenthood that only provides a small percentage of abortions or an independent abortion clinic where everything they do is abortion, all of those women should be able to walk in and get the health care they need and everyone who works there should be able to work there without the fear that there's going to be some problem or, worse, some violence.
