Planned Parenthood deletes tweet calling for Disney princess ‘who’s had an abortion’

Planned Parenthood Keystone, a branch of the health service provider based in Trexlertown, Pa., tweeted that, "We need a disney princess who's had an abortion / We need a disney princess who's pro-choice / We need a disney princess who's an undocumented immigrant / We need a disney princess who's actually a union worker / We need a disney princess who's trans."

The tweet's construction riffed on a recently popular Twitter meme that imagines new animated princesses with traits serious and not. The nonprofit Internet Archive's Wayback Machine — which archives snapshots of sites across the web — shows it stored six captures of the tweet on Tuesday. Planned Parenthood's national office confirmed the tweet and its deletion in an email to USA Today.

"Today, we joined an ongoing Twitter conversation about the kinds of princesses people want to see in an attempt to make a point about the importance of telling stories that challenge stigma and championing stories that too often don't get told," said Melissa Reed, Planned Parenthood's president and CEO. "Upon reflection, we decided that the seriousness of the point we were trying to make was not appropriate for the subject matter or context, and we removed the tweet."

The tweet triggered a slew of feedback online from users replying to a now-vanished post. Some took screenshots of the tweet before its deletion.

"Disney princesses are for CHILDREN and these are adult issues," tweeted user @704heather, adding, "This far-out crap is why we got stuck with Donald Trump."

"Exactly," user @KinseyHolley replied. "They have no idea how extreme this sounds (and yes, I'm pro-choice)."

The Planned Parenthood Keystone account, which has 950 or so followers, had previously posted popular meme formats refitted to the nonprofit's mission. One tweet shows a woman blowing a horn into the face of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The woman is labeled as "centering all our patients' lived experiences and uplifting their stories," while Emanuel represents "stigmatizing abortion and shaming patients."

(Emanuel, a Democrat, has publicly voiced support for Planned Parenthood Illinois and celebrated the Roe v. Wade decision that safeguards abortion rights.)