Televangelist Pat Robertson Blames Planned Parenthood for Stock Market Crash
Far-right televangelist Pat Robertson on this day blamed Planned Parenthood for the massive stock market plunge that had just occurred.
According to Robertson, the market crash was “divine retribution” for legal abortions and government funding for Planned Parenthood. “It’s coming ladies and gentleman,” he added, “We just have a little taste of it in terms of the financial system, but it’s going to get shaken to its core in the next few months, years or however long it takes, and it will hurt every one of us.”
Robertson’s remarks came in the midst of a national controversy over a set of false and deliberately distorted videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood officials were selling for profit fetal tissue from abortions. In fact, the actual discussions at the secretly recorded conversations involved the standard fees charged for the transfer of fetal tissue for research purposes. Also, the group that made the videos had worked for three years to set up the recorded conversations, and the group had no legitimate activities and existed solely for the purpose of attacking Planned Parenthood.
In the wake of the videos, Republican Presidential candidates and a number of governors announced that they would “de-fund” Planned Parenthood.
Robertson’s attack on Planned Parenthood was one of a series of loony attacks by right-wing religious fundamentalists. On April 9, 2014, Robertson asked God to “deliver” the U.S. from President Obama. And on September 13, 2001 Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. on the ACLU and secularism.
Learn more about Planned Parenthood here.
Learn more: Michael Winters, God’s Right-Hand Man: How Jerry Falwell Made God a Republican and Baptized the American Right (2012)
Read: William C. Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (1996)