Vice-President-elect Mike Pence’s mailbox will soon be filled with well wishes from reproductive health group Planned Parenthood, thanks to tens of thousands of protesters who object to Pence’s attempts to defund the organization.
Planned Parenthood confirmed this week that it has received donations from over 128,000 people following President-elect Donald Trump’s win. At least 20,000 of those donations have been made in Mike Pence’s name.
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During his time as a congressman, Pence became an advocate of abortion restrictions. In 2007, he introduced a bill to the U.S. Congress to end funding for Planned Parenthood; although the bill did not pass, he vowed to continue his fight against the organization.
In 2011, in an interview with Politico, Pence said as long as Planned Parenthood provided counselling services and HIV tests, “they ought not be in the business of providing abortions.”
“As long as they aspire to do that, I’ll be after them,” he said.
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Earlier this year, Pence also signed a bill that would require women to hold funerals for their aborted or miscarried fetuses. A federal judge later blocked the legislation.
Last week, several celebrities – including comedian Amy Schumer and actress Amber Rose Tamblyn – posted statements to their social media accounts showing they had donated to Planned Parenthood in Pence’s name, urging their followers to do the same.
This is all in an attempt to troll the Vice-President-elect, who will receive a thank you letter for each donation made in his name.
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“We will never back down, and we will never stop providing the care our patients need,” said Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards.
Pence does not recieve the tax deductions for donations made in his name.
Planned Parenthood pointed out there has also been a surge in people donating in Hillary Clinton’s name.
Reproductive health has become a major concern for some American women, who fear Trump’s administration will overturn Obamacare, which provides free birth control, and overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing women the legal right to abortion.
In an interview with 60 Minutes last weekend, Trump said he would stick to his campaign pledge to appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court in an attempt to weaken or reverse the landmark ruling, suggesting that the decision would be handed to individual states.
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But Planned Parenthood isn’t the only organization benefiting from outrage over Trump’s win.
There’s been a dramatic surge in donations to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Sierra Club and other progressive organizations which have pledged to resist any moves by the new administration that would undercut their causes.
Hours after Trump was declared the winner of the election, the ACLU unleashed several fundraising appeals, including one warning that if Trump implemented certain campaign promises, “We’ll see him in court.” The result, according to the ACLU, has been the largest surge of support in its 94-year history, including roughly 120,000 donations totaling more than US$7.2 million.
The ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, said the infusion of new funds would help in addressing several urgent priorities, including resisting possible mass deportation efforts, protecting the civil rights of transgender Americans, and preventing “stop-and-frisk” police policies from being adopted nationwide.
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The Sierra Club, a leading environmental organization, moved swiftly to feature Trump in its fundraising appeals, which depicted him as a climate change denier who would dismantle environmental protection regulations.
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The Sierra Club said it had registered 9,000 new monthly donors since the election — more than it had added from Jan. 1 until Election Day.
Other organizations reporting major increases in support included the NAACP, the National Immigration Law Center, and major LGBT-rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal. Lambda Legal said it received support from more than 1,000 first-time donors in the four days following the election.
— With files from The Associated Press
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