The ten-day SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, features music, films, exhibits and other events. AFN spoke with Dr. Joe Pojman of the Texas Alliance for Life about one of the festival's participants.
"Planned Parenthood has gotten heavily involved [in SXSW], and as a gimmick they drove a truck around painted to look like an ice cream truck," he explains. "They're giving out all kinds of paraphernalia to promote abortion and their birth-control services. It's very abhorrent. It's very disgusting."
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, tweeted on Saturday, along with a photo of the truck (above):
"Catch us around SXSW and stop by to grab some free Bans Off swag, condoms, and education on the cold hearted policies of the Texas legislature."
The truck displays pro-abortion slogans such as "Ice Cream, You Scream: 'Abortion Rights for All'" and "Ice cream as cold as TX politicians." According Live Action, another pro-life group taking issue, the truck also features images of what appears to be ice cream products, but in fact is a display of different types of condoms.
The abortion giant has provided speakers at several of the festival sessions, one of them addressing how people can organize against pro-life laws. However, the stunt with the ice cream truck may be backfiring, according to Pojman.
"Many of the comments on the tweets from the CEO promoting this supposed 'ice cream truck' are very negative and very disgusted by Planned Parenthood's approach," he says. "They think they own the young people in Austin, they think they own the corporate environment in Austin – but they do not."
The "ice cream truck" ruse clearly was directed at children, Live Action argues; and Planned Parenthood's effort to indoctrinate that age group isn't new. For example, it has a graphic sex-ed program directed at youth to teach them how to be intimate and to promote abortion if they become pregnant.
The SXSW festival concludes on Sunday, March 20.
