These anti-Planned Parenthood tapes keep coming, or at least they did until a judge imposed an injunction on the organization releasing them, the Center for Medical Progress. They are heavily edited so as to give the impression of something worse than unseemly. But the videos are as disingenuous as the name of the organization responsible for them, which is no more about medical progress than it is about fairness. I remember when Barack Obama was running for president in 2008 against John McCain, there was a tactically similar campaign against him. Obama was interviewed on tape for a news program, and an organization with a dubious and shadowy constituency, not to mention nefarious intent like that of the Center for Medical Progress, truncated Obama's answer to a question about John McCain's repudiation of the rumor that Obama was a Muslim by publishing only the phrase "I am a Muslim." The whole answer was something like, "He deserves credit for disavowing the claim that I am a Muslim." A person with whom I was doing business at the time insisted on showing me the video, which I told him was false, but he refused to believe me...because he is a bigot, not because it was credible. So I emailed him the full clip, but it changed absolutely nothing about his opinions, including his insistence that Barack Obama was a Muslim. My point is that the Planned Parenthood videos show people talking about the process of harvesting and distributing to researchers fetal tissue from abortions, which is directed at real medical progress, and disjointing their content so as to suggest something else in such a fashion as to make them nothing but prevarications...that is, telling enough of the truth to intentionally lead someone to the wrong conclusion while the entire truth is available but deliberately omitted.
The problem isn't the effect on public opinion that such devious, politically inspired tactics cause. They are preaching to the choir in every case, and while some people sitting on the fence regarding the relevant issue are probably influenced, that most likely works both ways as the credence of a similar number of the adherents to the principles of the organization, people or person responsible is most likely vitiated, if not completely destroyed. The problem is politics, because these Trojan horses tend to galvanize the political establishment most closely aligned with the purposes of the organizations and people involved, and they have real power to create change. That is exactly what is happening in this instance as The Senate prepares to hold hearings on the subject and politicians who are aspirants to office, especially presidential aspirants, attempt to insulate themselves from any taint among voters who are potential supporters. It is the actions that counts, not the at-best-negligible effects of smear tactics that should concern us, and given the Republican control of both houses of congress, action is entirely possible. Though only 3% of Planned Parenthood activities are abortions, The Senate will debate de-funding the organization completely, and that represents $500 million per year that will not be available for birth control counseling, cervical cancer screenings, clinical treatment of STD's and the like. Those are services that protect women from all kinds of things, including unwanted pregnancies and thus, ironically, the abortion of those pregnancies: anathema to organizations like the Center for Medical Progress. And just to be clear, as things stand none of that money can be used for abortions pursuant to the decades old "Hyde Amendment," which renders the effort to defund Planned Parenthood inimical to conservative goals, not facillitative of them.
That is what demonstrates with absolute certainty that such organizations are politically, rather than morally, inspired. Their efforts are directed at dogma rather than practical reality. In this instance, the deceit of the Center for Medical Progress will have the effect, if successful, of precipitating perhaps thousands of abortions sought by poor and undereducated women, but it will not prevent even one dollar of the money that might have prevented the from being spent on the very thing they oppose: abortion. It is self-destructive, this effort by a conservative, self-appointed moral arbiter, and that is what it deserves, but the women who will not be served because of it accomplishes deserve better.
Your friend,
Mike
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