John Legend: Planned Parenthood ‘Protects People’s Rights’

December 7th, 2016 11:45 AM

The nation’s largest abortion provider safeguards Americans’ rights, according to one celebrity. Assuming, that is, that the unborn have no rights.

On Tuesday, musician and actor John Legend was on The Daily Show to plug a film and an album, and, of course, talk lefty politics.

At one point during the show, host Trevor Noah prompted Legend to talk about his organization, Free America, which aims to “make America a less incarcerated place.” In a follow-up question, Noah asked how Americans can improve the country.

“If someone is out there going ‘I want to get involved, I want to do something that’ll help, I want to move the country forward in this – in this way,’" he asked, “where can they start?”

Legend took the opportunity to voice support for organizations he found threatened by a Trump presidency – beginning with abortion giant Planned Parenthood.

“I think there’s a lot of places, depends on what you're – you’re – you’re worried about and what's important to you,” Legend began, “but I – I think, in a Trump administration, we should worry about places like Planned Parenthood, we should worry about places like the ACLU, we should worry about organizations that are out there to protect people, the Legal Defense Fund for the NAACP.” 

To him, Planned Parenthood, along with the others he listed, represented the Americans public.

“All these places that are out there trying to protect the people from an oppressive government and from people that would want to take their rights away,” he added. “And so we all need to be involved and be vigilant and pay attention to what the government is doing under our name and with our money and hold them accountable and support organizations that are fighting the power.”

(Speaking of money, both Legend and wife Chrissy Teigen have donated to Planned Parenthood – as recently as last year.)

Playing devil’s advocate, Noah questioned Legend about citizens who want celebrities, such as himself, to stay out of politics.

Legend slammed his critics:

I always wonder if those people are actually politicians, because I don't think they are. So what they're telling me, that them as plumbers are more qualified to talk about politics than I as a singer am, but we're all citizens. We're all part of this country, we all vote, we all pay taxes, and what decisions our politicians make impact all of us. And so, just because I have more followers than you, doesn't mean it's suddenly out of bounds for me to talk about politics, but you can talk about it to me. So I think really what they want me to do agree with them. If I agreed with them, they’d be perfectly happy with me talking about politics.

He wasn’t going to back down, he stressed.

“We all have to be involved, we all have to pay attention to what's happening, and when we have something to say, we should – we should say it,” Legend concluded, “and I have a special platform and I'm not going to waste it.” 

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