Cecile Richards on the Daily Show: If more members of Congress could get pregnant, we wouldn’t be arguing about birth control

When Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards sat down with Trevor Noah of The Daily Show last night, she deftly refuted Paul Ryan’s plan to cut millions of women off from their trusted health care provider.

To see how, watch the full segment and check out our favorite moments.

Cecile on what Americans think of Planned Parenthood:

Planned Parenthood is more popular than the entire United States Congress. And I will say, I think if there were more members of Congress who could get pregnant, we wouldn’t be arguing about birth control.

I mean, the truth, Trevor, is that one in five women in this country have been to Planned Parenthood for health care. We see about 2.5 million patients a year. And what we’ve been hearing ever since Speaker Ryan said that, is that women and men coming out in droves, wanting to support the organization, talk about the care that they got at Planned Parenthood, we’re going to have I think thousands of folks come to Washington.

In fact, there were so many people that want to come and wear a pink Planned Parenthood hat, literally the factory ran out of pink yarn that makes the pink Planned Parenthood hats.

On how Planned Parenthood actually helps prevent unintended pregnancies:

We're at a 30-year low for unintended pregnancy in America. We're at a historic low for teenage pregnancy in America and that's largely because women have better access to family planning. I would say the American people think that Planned Parenthood is actually the solution, not the problem.

How women’s need for health care is not a partisan issue:

And that’s what I think women are so perplexed about is why are people playing politics with women’s health care in America?” ​​​​​​​

On blocking access to Planned Parenthood:

First, it’s really important to understand that Planned Parenthood is not a line item in the federal budget. We just get reimbursed like every other health care provider family planning services, cancer screenings, well-woman visits, STI testing and treatment. And in fact, federal funding, as you probably know, does not pay for abortion services. I think that’s wrong, that’s a law that’s been in effect for a long, long time.

So when Paul Ryan says we’re going to defund Planned Parenthood, what it means is actually that millions of folks who come to us for preventive care, can no longer come to us, including thousands of women in his home state of Wisconsin.

On what could happen if they succeed:

It's not only that they want to end access to Planned Parenthood — they want to end access to care for a lot of folks in this country, and I believe it's going to cause a health care crisis. We saw that it did in Texas, we’ve seen this happen in other states.

So I hope that every person who is watching this — if you’ve been a Planned Parenthood patient or if you care about access to health care, you need to call your member of Congress, call your senator, and call the Trump administration.