April 11, 2012 07:43 PM UTC

Lighten up, Planned Parenthood, talk-radio host says. Abstinence "still a form of birth control"

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• by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Planned Parenthood activists shouldn’t have a problem with GOP donor Foster Friess’ joke about how the cost of birth control could be dramatically reduced if only women would put aspirin between their legs.

That’s what KFKA talk-show host Devon Lentz, who’s an executive board member of the Larimer County Republican Party, told listeners Monday.

Can you guess why?

Because putting aspirin between your legs, if you’re a woman, is a form of “abstinence, which is still a form of birth control,” Lentz told her Colorado AM listeners.

So why were the Planned Parenthood activists, protesting the appearance of Friess as the keynote speaker at a Larimer County Republican fundraiser Friday, so upset, Lentz wondered?

“Their shirts said something about how everybody should be allowed to have birth control, be allowed access to birth control,” Lentz said on the radio. “Foster’s joke about how in his time women held an aspirin between their knees I’m pretty sure still goes to abstinence, which is still a form of birth control. And he was being funny. It was funny. These guys can’t laugh. These women were outraged he could make such a statement. They didn’t even know what they were standing out there doing.”

Lentz told listeners she “sent somebody out there to go talk to [the protesters],” and they didn’t really know “what [Friess’] statement was, let alone what it meant.”

Given that the protesters had symbolic aspirin between their legs, you have to wonder what basis the undercover GOP scout had for thinking the protesters were clueless about their own protest.

Now I’m a man, but I have to think it’s really hard for an adult woman to be clutching fake aspirin between her legs and not understand the point.

Especially after Foster Friess got all that attention for saying contraception need not be so expensive because, in his day, “The gals put [Bayer Aspirin] between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” Friess, who’s now supporting Mitt Romney, later apologized.

So I called up Lentz, who organized the Friess event, and co-host Tom Lucero, who was the Master of Ceremonies, to find out why they didn’t dispense with the stealth reconnaissance of the Planned Parenthood folks, and simply have them on their show to find out what they know about birth control, and GOP proposals to ban some forms of it, and what they don’t.

Lucero, who’s a former chair of the Larimer Country GOP, told me he was “not the guy who went out and interview [the protesters].”

“I took Devon’s comments to mean they didn’t know who Foster Friess was,” Lucero told me. “We would probably need to get further clarification.”

Asked if he’d have the activists on his show to discuss the issue, Lucero said: “Absolutely, if they’re interested in coming on the show and talking about it, we’re willing to take anyone as guests.” He offered to schedule a specific time in advance.

I’d love to hear Lentz tell the women from Planned Parenthood to lighten up, because, as she said on the air, if the activists take Friess’ aspirin joke seriously, he’s just promoting abstinence as a “form birth control.”

Lentz is right, of course.

And in Freiss’ day, that’s all the “gals” had access to, a fact that would lead to a useful discussion on the radio about why the Planned Parenthood protest was important and why Lentz is the one who doesn’t get it, given that Republican leaders, like the one Friess gave big money to, would ban common forms of birth control, even if abstinence isn’t on the chopping block.