So, you’ve probably seen, or at least heard of the Planned Parenthood videos by now, right? Sure you have. I’m also sure you’ve seen the storms of controversy flying around them, too.
It’s a Hoax: By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the absolute avalanche of stories with “hoax” in the title, the lede, or tucked conspicuously into a significant paragraph. Right? Watch. Click this.
Now, your first thought is going to be “Man, EVERYONE is calling it a hoax!” Why not? A bunch of the big names you read seem to be on that list! Well, first off, that is an argumentum ad populum – an informal fallacy which appeals to the popularity of something as the determiner of the truth of it. That isn’t a kosher appeal.
Okay, you say, but you don’t accept that – fine, watch this. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there are a lot more people outraged in your personal circle about this issue than there are defending Planned Parenthood. Unless you live in a really little bubble, of course. It has trended on Twitter and Facebook for over week now. It really isn’t especially surprising. Again, however, as I say, that’s hardly the reason something is true or false. It isn’t a hoax video.
Why?
1) Cecile Richards apologized for the “tone” of Dr. Deborah Nucatola in the first video. If it was a hoax – why apologize for the tone of a hoax? A fraud? That was really her saying those very things everyone is outraged about. If I can offer one more word of advice, too – the outrage is only secondarily, at best, about “selling body parts.” More on that in a bit, though.
2) If it were really a hoax, would there really be so much dancing around the issue, euphemisms, and skirting the edges of what they were talking about? I mean, how hard would it be, in this day and age, to make a video that made “her” say whatever they wanted her to say? The very slippery nature of the conversation militates against it being a hoax of the sort it is being portrayed to be.
3) Keep in mind that “hoax” as you are most likely defining it – a complete fraud, something that was made up out of whole cloth – is not the way it is being used in the majority of the articles which use the term. They are using the technical definition – established or accepted by fraudulent means. Yes, we are all aware that they lied to get the footage they did. We’re also aware that Planned Parenthood lies about what they do all the time. A tit for a tat, as they say. But before you get too up in arms – we’ll address that later, too. I’ll leave you with something to think about:
The reason abortion extremists are losing public opinion is they treat all inconvenient news as lies, hoaxes etc. People see thru it.
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) July 22, 2015
Here is a related point:
The Video Was Edited: I hate to break it to you, but all your documentaries are edited. Just about every interview you see on tv is edited. That’s what you do with video when you want to show something in particular. If I can be even more clear – the author, and his fellow contributors here are not most interested in whether or not Planned Parenthood violated the laws that CMP say they did. What they are interested in is the utter, callous, brutal disregard for the life and humanity of the babies she murders, and arranges the murder of.
I know why you’re saying this. The media can’t turn around without attaching the word “edited” to the short excerpts that have been most-watched. I get it. I also get that you can’t turn around without #PPSellsBabyParts on Twitter. I completely understand. I see a good bit of #StandWithPP tags, too – because we follow a lot of “progressive” sorts, being a Christian apologetics group and all. So yeah, we see that hashtag war going like a house on fire.
The problem is, folks, the full, unedited video of the entire exchanges were put on the CMP website within 30 seconds, at most, of the edited ones. You ever see blooper reels? The unedited, without special effects video of movies, tv shows, documentaries, or the like? The “cut” footage that gets discovered years later, that everyone makes a bit deal about finding, after it being lost? In this case, they are posting the *raw footage* right alongside the short exchanges they consider most important.
1) The “edits” are not what have us outraged, upset, or calling for Planned Parenthood’s defunding, closure, or what have you. What has us outraged is the sheer unmitigated depravity of the Planned Parenthood representatives. It is truly sick to be talking about dismembering children over wine and salad. It is filthy and demented to joke about wanting a Lamborghini right after you say you will check to see if someone else is getting more than the quoted reimbursement – for the eviscerated leavings (acquired by “less crunchy” means) of what was formerly a living child – just like our children.
2) The ones MOST outraged, folks, are the ones who have watched the UNedited video. Almost entirely without exception. I know, because we follow a rather large percentage of the folks who have been most outraged by this issue. Contrary to the utter lack of mention by the New York Times in their fluff piece of this morning, lots and lots of us have watched the full version. As Jonathan Merritt puts it in his article concerning the NYT story –
The Times also claimed the video was unreliable because it was “edited.” They are correct that the full video was nearly three hours long while the edited version was only nine minutes. So what? These comments in the longer version do not invalidate those in the shorter version. While editorial board hopes to convince readers that The Center for Medical Progress was deliberately only telling part of the story, but they fail to mention that the full video was also posted online and available. So who is withholding information here? And, by the way, the full video is just as repulsive as the shorter version. In fact, it’s about two hours and 50 minutes more repulsive.
Most interesting to you may be what he says just a bit later.
The thrust of the article’s argument is that it is perfectly legal for Planned Parenthood to offer “fetal tissue” from aborted babies for research. That may be true, and as more facts become available, we will likely discover whether these transactions are illegal “sales” or legal “donations.” But this is not the primary issue for the pro-life advocates I have spoken to. These conservatives are calling for defunding, not incarceration.
The central matter for many pro-life Americans is not whether Planned Parenthood’s practices are legal, but whether they are just.
So, they not only failed to deal with what the opposition is actually concerned about, what else did the NYT do?
The most embarrassing part of the Times article, though, is not what they say but what they do not say. The editorial board totally ignores the most disturbing content in the videos. Actually, they ignore the content of the videos almost completely. None of the quotes at the center of the outrage are discussed.
You’ll find no mention of how a Planned Parenthood doctor determines which parts of the baby to “crush” In the Times article. You won’t encounter information about how a Planned Parenthood physician discussed using a “less crunchy” technique to retrieve “whole specimens.” And you definitely won’t read about how the a Planned Parenthood doctor attempted to negotiate a higher price for tissue because she claims she wanted “a Lamborghini.” These are the most damning components in the videos, but the editorial board’s article never even mention them. The Times did not merely get the Planned Parenthood story wrong; they missed it completely.
Those parts that we are upset with are *exactly the same* in the full-length videos. In fact, seeing the banality of the context and conversation surrounding such utterly horrendous description of – and you need to hear this, because this is what we’re thinking – dismembering, crushing, suctioning brains out of children just like ours – for more money than they already receive for such a filthy and disgusting murder of the most defenseless members of our society – which we are fully aware that you refuse to accept as members of society, persons, or a host of other things other persons who HAVE rights are given [deep breath] – makes us about as angry as listening to Jeffery Dahmer speak in a monotone about his own murders. Yes, we put these people in the _exact_ same category as serial killers. We put Planned Parenthood in the same category as the Nazi death camps, too – except Planned Parenthood’s body count is far, far higher.
Look, we get that everyone you read or listen to – except for the person that sent you this link – is pretty much saying that this is nothing. Even SNOPES is being a tad dishonest on this one. Yes, yes, it says UNDETERMINED – but that isn’t the issue. Check this out.
On 14 July 2015, The Center for Medical Progress posted a video purportedly showing a leading Planned Parenthood doctor, Dr. Deborah Nucatola
No, it actually shows her. Even Planned Parenthood says so.
In addition to the above-displayed video, the Center for Medical Progress also released what they claimed was an unedited version of the conversation (which other sources maintain was in fact edited)
Follow the link. Where does Media Matters say the UNEDITED (notice, they say this repeatedly, throughout the article) video was EDITED? Nowhere. So, like I said, Snopes is being a trifle dishonest here, isn’t it?
It’s not edited to change content. The raw footage is even worse. We aren’t upset because the women aren’t consulted, or aren’t giving consent. We are upset because these people are clinically discussing systematic genocide – for money. Donation money, wholesale, retail – we don’t care. The sale is just an insult added to injury. We have children in the womb the exact same age as the ones they are talking about crushing and dismembering – then parceling off. These are babies who were *alive* – now they are dead. The fact that their mother hired PP as their hitman is only relevant in that it’s “legal”, by fiat, in a “right” created via legislation from the bench, not the legislature, to murder children if you don’t want them. As long as they are in a particular location, and a certain age. It sickens us immeasurably.
You might want to also understand that we, as Christians, were the ones who used to save babies left exposed to die in ancient Rome – because their mothers didn’t want them. After they were born. We’ll do the same today. Heck, let’s do a quid pro quo. If you help us get the insanity of the domestic adoption process straightened out, we’ll help you find and fund an alternative for the tiny minority of things Planned Parenthood does that isn’t abortion – like all the medical services they tell you we don’t care about. Which is, roughly, about 3% of their operation. We don’t always seem to care because, let’s face it – they kill 300,000 people a year, that we’re more worried about saving. It’s a triage thing. Think about that. Think about my quid pro quo, too. Fast track adoptions, and we’ll fast track alternative medical clinics. Which, frankly, probably isn’t as hard as you think it is. We sort of have a history of doing that sort of thing, in the sort of places you say you need it, too, don’t we? If we don’t have to burn money opposing the murder mills, I would sure as sunrise put that toward medical clinics instead.
See the problem yet? It isn’t a hoax, and it isn’t edited. Does putting things in so slanted a fashion – so… deceptive… a fashion, constitute accuracy?
They Acquired Their Footage Fraudulently: Yup. Look, we can go round and round, like most pundits will, about who did who to who, when – but here’s the central issue. We already mentioned that PP murders the equivalent population of a midsized city every year? If this was 20-20 doing an undercover investigation, would you be as upset? If it was the guy posing as store clerks, floor associates, salesmen, or food service employees to do magic tricks for television – would you be as upset about him “lying”? Of course not. This is a group who spent a very long time and a huge amount of effort setting up an elaborate undercover investigation, complete with hidden cameras, actors, over the course of years – not to make money, or to get famous – but to save the lives of people who have no rights.
Yeah, it was underhanded. You seriously want to compare a shell corporation and false pretenses to mass murder, though? Yeah, they’re activists. I thought you guys liked activism? Call him extreme if you want. For all I know, he is. What I do know, however, is that this isn’t about “hating women’s health” to us. It is about saving children from butchers – and those who feed them to those butchers. over 300,000 a year! Think about that!
How much reality television do you folks watch? A lot? What is it about this reality television that you don’t like? Have you even watched the videos? This is real reality television, folks. I keep hearing that we’re just opposing the yuck factor. Yes, abortion is yucky. That is irrelevant, in the main. What is relevant, and what we chiefly oppose, are those who say that some human lives are not equal in value to those of others. Who then murder those humans – and callously talk about trafficking their corpses. For science? For who cares, folks? It’s dark, when you see what human life is worth to these people. When you see an older lady talking about kids and grandchildren *right after she talks about murdering those of others*. It’s so shockingly, brutally heinous that is like a bucket of cold water to the face.
Call those babies, fetuses, tissue, whatever you want – but the mask slips in these videos. The euphemisms falter. That’s the horrifying power of it. There is this seamless, polished talk of “tissue”, “extraction”, and the like – then there is a sudden shift to “arms”, “legs”, “livers, hearts and lungs” – what kind of livers? Human livers. Human legs. How many legs does a body have? 2, right? So if you donate two, how many do you have left? Zero. Yet, the patient walks out with two legs. So, whose legs were donated? Those of another body. Whose liver? Someone else’s. Heart. Lungs. Brain. Someone else’s. Someone else’s parts. Not “my body, my choice” anymore, is it? Human body parts are valuable to science. Thus, human body parts are harvested. Not those of the body of the patient giving consent, however. Remember all those neat arguments about “consenting adults”? What happens to those when a woman *signs her (very) minor child over to be murdered and vivisected*? You can’t give consent to murder someone, because you have… parental rights. And it is clear that you aren’t giving consent for your own body – those aren’t your parts. So which rights are they that you just used? Parental ones. Which means that you not only didn’t get your thirty pieces of silver – but you paid for a hitman.
God forgives sin. Even murder, “legalized” or no. God won’t forgive us as a nation if we keep slaughtering the most helpless of us. We, as Christians, are likewise unable to refrain from trying to save them, either. We must plead, we must protest, and we must dissent from the most vicious genocide in human history – and look at the numbers, folks. Estimated 55 million babies murdered in the US alone since Roe vs. Wade. That is an insanity – a monstrous evil greater than that of any society in human history. Euphemism won’t make it go away. Nor will recourse to sophism or semantics. We kill babies and traffic in their corpses. It needs to stop.