Posted on 08/05/2015 5:57:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
The GOP-controlled Congress is taking up the cause, once again, of defunding Planned Parenthood. This latest effort comes in response to macabre hidden-camera videos shot by the Center for Medical Progress of staff at Planned Parenthood talking about the grisly practice of chopping up fetuses for parts. There's a debate over whether the videos prove the center's claim that Planned Parenthood is ghoulishly trying to make a profit selling baby lungs, livers and hearts.
There's less of a debate that the videos speak directly to the ugly nature of second-trimester abortions. Granted, a few extremists see nothing wrong in the talk of cleverly "crushing" babies to preserve the quality of the organs for sale -- or "compensation" -- to medical researchers. A writer for Slate says: "The graphic images of aborted fetuses are meant to disgust me, to convince me that abortion is a barbaric act of killing. But I don't see death in these videos. I see hope."
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus had a much more human -- and, I think, common -- response. Marcus, who is pro-abortion rights, says of the abattoir shoptalk recorded by the Center for Medical Progress, "If you hear this and fail to squirm, there is something wrong with you."
Acknowledging that the reality of what happens at Planned Parenthood makes us squirm is a useful place to start.
That's because the abortion lobby, abetted by many in the media, employs the rhetorical camouflage of medical euphemisms so that people are insulated from the deeply disturbing realities of late-term abortion. When a pregnant woman wants to keep her baby, it's a baby; when she doesn't, it becomes mere "uterine contents." Media reports on the video controversy routinely refer to "tissue" instead of "organs," even though medically these are different things. Why? Because when we hear about organs -- hearts, lungs, brains -- we know these are features of human bodies, not abstract "uterine contents."
Applying different words does not change a womb's contents. To suggest otherwise confuses science with magic.
There's a second point to be made about the squirming. Perhaps it offers a different way to think about abortion.
So much political discourse these days is driven by a desire -- even a right -- to be protected from ideas and images that offend. The examples -- from campus "trigger warnings" to the purging of the Confederate flag from public life -- are too lengthy to list here. We live in an era in which feelings come first.
And though I think this often goes too far, it's worth remembering that feelings really do matter in a democracy. It was Thomas Jefferson who wrote, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
It was at least partly on these Jeffersonian grounds that proponents of removing the Confederate flag from South Carolina's statehouse grounds won their argument. The statehouse belongs to everyone, and forcing those who abhor that flag to pay for it, even symbolically and even if many of its supporters meant no offense, is still sinful.
Well, if you don't believe that a fetus with arms, legs, a face and a brain is an actual human life worthy of protecting, or at least deserving of a level of respect greater than a hangnail, it's doubtful anyone will ever persuade you otherwise.
But maybe you can still accept that other people disagree with you. Abortion is not simply a symbolic act, but perhaps it would help to see it as one. And, if you can muster that much imagination, maybe you can also understand why those truly offended by the practice don't want their tax dollars subsidizing it.
Yes, yes, we've all heard that no federal dollars go to Planned Parenthood for abortions. But this is an accounting fiction drafted to do the work of a moral distinction. If the federal government were funding churches or businesses that opposed gay marriage -- or sold Confederate flags -- it's doubtful liberal critics would credit such defenses.
Defunding Planned Parenthood is not the same as repealing the right to abortion. Indeed, the point here isn't to say that all abortions are indefensible. Rather, it's that people who think they are indefensible shouldn't be compelled to pay for them.
It’s been awhile since I read the constitution, but I don’t recall seeing a “right to abortion”. I do, however, remember something about the right to life.
Defunding is a good start.
OK, no, objecting to babies bodies being chopped up and sold is EXACTLT the same as being against women’s health.
The best argument I have read asks about protecting the woman’s life who lies, dismembered, in a lab tray. If it were about women’s health it would be about women’s health, not early pregnancy termination.
We are slaughtering humans by the tens of millions to avoid the hysteria of unwanted pregnancy. How asinine.
I never understood the women’s health narrative. Aren’t about half of the little babies being slaughtered women?
I say offer a compromise - extend funding to all PP facilities which do NOT offer abortion, or referrals.
LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We pay for propaganda organs they call education institutions. We pay for vast federal bureaucracies to control our private property, to shut down our power plants, to federalize our suburbs, to nationalize our police forces, to declare veterans potential terrorists, to subsidize tuition for illegal aliens, to subsidize public service unions so they can finance Democrats' election campaigns and the list goes on and on and on limited only by the imagination of the left to create a crisis, identify a victim group or conjure up a new "right."
If our national government cannot restrain itself from subsidizing the carving up of babies for profit, it is unlikely that it can restrain itself from anything that adds to an $18 trillion national debt.
Bump
What if the baby being murdered is female? What a out her health?
I agree, defunding is being used as a diversion. Planned parenthood employees should be arrested now. Defunding should be part of the cleanup process.
Good one - thanks for finding and posting.
IF abortions are only a small part of PP’s daily business, then why don’t they quit doing abortions and only allow HOSPITALS to do abortions for cases of INCEST or RAPE ?
Very true. The long ago decision didn’t determine a “right” to an abortion, but left that up to the states which was the correct decision. That is why individual states continually pass anti-abortion laws.
The problem is that the democrat federal judges incorrectly rule against the state laws when they have no real standing. That it is left to the states is the reason why the left continually runs scared that the states will push the test button on these federal decisions. They would not be still fighting the fight for abortion if the states had no real say.
IF we could just figure out how these UNWANTED PREGNANCIES happen, maybe we could eliminate the need for abortion.
The Planned parenthood videos are the latest factor that has turned the millennials pro-life.
The liberal Supreme Court probably suspected that such a day would come, so they toik away the possibility of protecting life by declaring an absolute right to abortion.
It will not stand.
Probably closer to 2/3 killed babies are female. Abortion is the primary misogynistic, anti woman and racist, anti black movement in our culture. Leftists have outdone themselves. They are demonstrably destructive.
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