Former CNN and NBC News anchor Campbell Brown may not have had a cable news show in two years, but she continues to make her presence known, this time in a new op-ed in the New York Times. It is the second op-ed Brown has written for the Times this year, she also wrote one in May taking President Obama to task.
The focus of the new op-ed? Planned Parenthood, who Brown argues needs to change its political strategy:
Once again, Planned Parenthood is potentially making an enemy of someone who has failed to pass its purity test. It’s gotten to the point where, in this election cycle, the group’s political arm (while proudly claiming to be nonpartisan) has not endorsed or directly given money to a single Republican. As a person who believes abortions should be safe, legal and rare, I support many of Planned Parenthood’s goals. But the militancy must go. Demanding a perfect record from candidates it supports has already left Planned Parenthood marginalized. So does an attitude that doesn’t ever seem to take into account that abortion is a morally complicated matter or that those on the anti-abortion side are often decent and well-intentioned people.
Advertisement
President Ronald Reagan, while hardly a favorite of the abortion rights movement, did offer a brilliant lesson when he said, “the person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.” Planned Parenthood needs allies, or it will continue to become rigid, calcified and increasingly ineffective.