Planned Parenthood Is People, My Friend
Mr. Romney was making a point about economics. After he said he didn't want to raise taxes on people, an Iowa State Fair heckler shouted: 'Corporations!' Mr. Romney explained: 'Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.' The Obama campaign used the remark 'to paint Romney as a heartless corporate predator,' as the Harvard Business Review put it. It didn't help that Mr. Romney's comment echoed Charlton Heston's famous last words in the 1973 film 'Soylent Green' about his discovery that the processed food was made of human remains.
The comment came at a time when the Democratic left was outraged about legal corporate personhood—specifically Citizens United v. FEC (2010), a Supreme Court decision that affirmed corporations' right to engage in political speech. In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens denounced 'the conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons'—legalese for individual human beings—'in the political sphere.'
Which brings us back to Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. v. Kennedy. The corporate plaintiffs fully embrace that 'conceit.' They allege that the defunding measure violates their freedom of speech by punishing their advocacy of 'access to sexual and reproductive health care, including the right to safe and legal abortion.' They also claim violations of their rights to free association under the First Amendment and equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.
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