i'll donate 10% of my paycheck to planned parenthood if they use it to sterilize fundies

I always thought I was pretty well-informed on the wildy fallacious and increasingly bizarre arguments employed by the anti-choice lobby. But somehow the one that claims it's all a plot by neo-Nazis to eliminate black people from the gene pool seems to have slipped by me until recently. I'd heard some rantings in the past about Margaret Sanger, birth control, and eugenics; but never had anyone try to tell me with a straight face that OBGYNs who perform abortions were all part of a secret cabal of skinheads. Or maybe it's supposed to be a Jewish plot, I don't know. Logic is not a strong suit with these people.

So anyway, I scoffed and then pretty much dismissed it, until I saw this article:

The call to Idaho came in July to Autumn Kersey, vice president of development and marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho.

On the recording provided by The Advocate, an actor portraying a donor said he wanted his money used to eliminate black unborn children because "the less black kids out there the better."

Kersey laughed nervously and said: "Understandable, understandable. ... Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited and want to make sure I don't leave anything out."

(The Advocate is a "right-to-life" student magazine at UCLA which claims that abortion is racially motivated. I wonder if they're aware that they share a name with one of the most well-known magazines of the LGBT community?)

I sort of groaned and mentally facepalmed when I read this, like "Thanks for handing these nutballs more ammo, Planned Parenthood!" Also, it's Planned Parenthood! In the words of Principal Vernon:

Principal vernon

I expected more from a varsity letterman.

But I held off on writing about it, because one of my favorite bloggers works in fundraising (and in the women's health field), and I wanted to see what she had to say about it. I suspected there might be some kind of ironclad rule where you're never, ever allowed to just scream "Fuck you!" and hang up, no matter how obviously insane a donor is being.

Turns out: yep.

I do understand the pressure of trying to please everyone when you're in fundraising.  I've taken some absolutely repulsive calls about people who hate the gay folk.  You can't just say, "You're a fucking loon" and hang up.  We were coached to say things like "I understand your position. I'll pass along your comments to the President." and shit like that.

And, as she pointed out in her own blog post about this, it's possible Kersey thought the caller was mentally unstable, and was just trying to "poke the bear" as little as possible.

Personally, I have to think this might not have happened if Planned Parenthood didn't have to fight and claw for every nickel, and weren't constantly under threat of losing funding. I very much doubt that, had the caller been in earnest, he would have been able to legally enforce his "Use it to kill them tarbabies!" caveat. Perhaps Kersey was just thinking she'd take the nutball's money and get him the hell off the phone, then go about her day.

If Planned Parenthood does have some kind of "Don't get the freaks riled up" policy, then I really hope they stand by it and don't can Kersey just to save face. If anyone truly believes their agenda is to slay unborn black children in the womb, then firing one employee isn't going to make them see how insane that is. They shouldn't pander to these wingnuts, who will always demonize them anyway--never mind that Planned Parenthood actually prevents more abortions than it performs, by providing birth control to young and/or underpivileged women.

(+ posted to Hey, Be Us!)