Nick Cannon Claims Planned Parenthood Is 'Better,' Has 'Evolved' Since Margaret Sanger
Despite being a vocal critic of Planned Parenthood, popular rapper and entertainer Nick Cannon has let it be known that he is "neither pro-life nor pro-choice and doesn't believe a man nor government should have any say over what a woman does with her body.
The 36-year-old "America's Got Talent" host made headlines in November when he suggested during an interview with "The Breakfast Club" that Planned Parenthood was perpetrating a "real genocide" against the black and minority communities.
Cannon again made headlines when he doubled down on his comments in early December. He was interviewed by SplashNewsOnline while walking at Los Angeles International Airport and said that Planned Parenthood is engaging in "modern-day eugenics" and "population control."
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Cannon was interviewed by Vlad TV last week and was put on the defensive when he was asked about his opinion on abortion and reproached for seeming to be "anti-abortion."
"That's funny. I am not pro-choice and I am not pro-life. You know what I mean?" Cannon responded. "I have such an issue with these two-party systems."
Although Cannon stressed that Planned Parenthood founder "Margaret Sanger said that she wanted to exterminate the negro race," he asserted that his comments on Planned Parenthood "were never about abortion."
"Actually, to me, it wasn't about abortions. I never speak on abortion. It was more about the sterilization and what they started with when it comes to actual ethnic cleansing, where they wanted to say, 'We want to get rid of a class of people, a group of people.' And, they like to label feeble-minded, lower class, using terms. That is what they used in public. In private, they were talking about the black communities. It starts with everyone from the sterilization. They were utilizing these clinics to say, 'We are helping you' but they were injecting them with diseases."
"All this stuff is real but people don't want to talk about that," he added. "They just want to have a simple conversation, 'Are you pro-choice or pro-life?' I am not in that fight. I can't speak on that because I am not a woman."
Even though Cannon is opposed to the abortion industry's targeting of minority communities and admits that his own mother almost aborted him, that is not enough to make him want to speak out actively on the issue because he feels as though abortion is a "women's issue."
"I am not pro-choice, I am not pro-life, I am pro-Nick, because my mother did go to an abortion clinic to abort me," He explained. "[But] that never made me say, 'I feel one way or another.' Because, as a man, I don't have the right to speak on what a woman should do with their body. I feel like the government should have the right. I don't feel that any organization that makes money should have the right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body. A woman should make that decision. That is why I don't speak on that."
Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, told The Christian Post on Tuesday that the belief that abortion is solely a "women's issue" is not true.
"I think a lot of men and women on abortion come to a conclusion that is not really deep in their hearts because of the kind of the highly charged rhetoric of the pro-abortion side. And because of this idea that it is empowering to women and that men, especially, should not be able to speak out against abortion," Rose explained.
"I have talked to men over the years who say that this is not something they have an opinion on because 'it's a women's issue.'
First of all, half of those children are male that are aborted. Second of all, there is a father in every situation and women should not be told by society that this is only your issue," she continued. "This is not something that is empowering to women. It breeds more of the despair and helpless cycles that lead to abortion. It is not something that acknowledges reality that this is a preborn human life that deserves our protection from both mothers and fathers. Women don't get pregnant by themselves."
Although Cannon has said he doesn't like the history behind Planned Parenthood, he told Vlad TV that he is "100 percent sure" that Planned Parenthood has "evolved more than when Margaret Sanger was there."
"I am talking about the system that was not designed for us," Cannon said. "It is the mindset that black people, lower-class people, Latino people are less than all of the elites. That's my issue."
Rose warned that racial targeting in the abortion industry still persist today.
According to a 2015 report from the Center for Disease Control, 55.4 percent of of babies aborted in the United States are black or Hispanic even though blacks and Hispanics combined only make up 30.6 percent of the U.S. population.
"When you look at the black abortion rate in this country, it's heartbreaking. Depending on what statistics you look at, it could be several times higher than in the white community. In New York City in recent years, a black child is more likely to be aborted than to be born," Rose said. "That is just the raw reality of a community that has been targeted since day one by the abortion industry and the sterilization movement because they were seen as unfit and that is something that Planned Parenthood helped spearhead."
