Planned Parenthood Crashed the Stock Market

At least, according to Pat Robertson. On his 700 Club television program, the prominent evangelist claimed that the stock market crashed on Monday because God is unhappy with government support for Planned Parenthood. Apparently according to Robertson's understanding of economics, this one factor outweighs all of the other actual financial reasons that the market fell, which is confusing at best.

That organization is an absolute monstrosity,” Robertson said. “To take your money and my money, which the government extorts from us every year in the form of taxation, is nothing short of tyranny.” Because the government takes Robertson’s money and gives it to Planned Parenthood, an organization that is “repugnant to most Americans,” the United States is facing a financial doomsday.

“We will pay dearly as a nation for this thing going on,” Robertson said. “And possibly, if we were to stop, stop all of this slaughter, the judgment of God might be lifted from us. But it’s coming, ladies and gentlemen. We just have a little taste of it in terms of the financial system. But it’s going to be shaken to its core in the next few months, years, or however long it takes, and it will hurt every one of us. It’s coming down the road. But at least we could repent and try to change.”

One of the points that nobody on Robertson's side of the aisle ever points out is that thanks to a rider called the Hyde Amendment, Planned Parenthood is not allowed to spend any federal money on abortion services, and is required to carefully keep track of where all of those dollars are sent to make sure nothing of the sort ever happens. So none of the money Robertson is complaining about is spent on abortion, but rather on other health services for women. I guess that must be what Robertson thinks is abhorrent - which frankly is pretty sad.

If any of these religious folks really were interested in reducing the abortion rate, they would support policies that have been shown to reduce unwanted pregnancies, like comprehensive sex education and increased access to contraception. The fact that hardly any of them do shows that their real concern is punishing people - especially women - for enjoying non-procreative sexuality. In fact, even though Planned Parenthood does perform abortions, it's very likely that if its funding were completely cut off and it had to discontinue its health and contraceptive services, the unwanted pregnancy rate would go up and abortions along with it.

But nobody has ever claimed that many of Robertson's pronouncements make much sense, especially here on Augoeides. Also, from the quote in the image above, it's not clear to me that he has any concept of what Planned Parenthood really does.