Planned Parenthood

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August 20, 2015

Fetal Tissue and Parts: There is More to the Story

Posted by Kimmie Farrell under Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Blog, Abortion Candidates, Abortion Centers, Abortion Clinic, Abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Documentary, Abortion Information, Abortion Rights, Christian Terrorism, Church, Congressman, CPC Deception, CPC Misinformation, CPCs Criminal Activity, Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCS), GOP, John Boehner, Late Term Abortion, Life Dynamics' Lies, Planned Parenthood, Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
[45] Comments 

Fetal parts are for sale. Yep, the terrible Planned Parenthood abortionists found and tapped into a profitable market for fetal parts, especially intact forms.

This is the basic narrative inserted into the talking points of anti-abortion politicians these days after edited videos between Planned Parenthood representatives and imposter biomedical tissue brokers surfaced. Ignored was the benefit fetal tissue provides to medical research. Disregarded was the selectivity used to decide what was fit for public consumption. Much has been made of interactions that might be suspicious to outsiders of medical and scientific research environments or appeal to the emotions of the uninformed.AR headline

Planned Parenthood can sufficiently respond to the “undercover sting videos” of its medical staff discussing fetal tissue donation. The rest of us need to respond to this attempt by anti-abortion dogmatists to impose their view of the world into public policy.  The states that have initiated investigations based on the videos found Planned Parenthood in compliance with regulations. Even if one state, or several states, unsuccessfully takes action for political value or reject continued contracts with Planned Parenthood for health services, it would be a measurement of success for this false narrative. Planned Parenthood will remain open to provide important health services, but there are other issues of which we should all have concern.

Deception and Ethics

The videos were created by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), which claims to be “…citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances.”  Their website appears to be focused only on promoting anti-abortion viewpoints, no other medical ethics issues. End-of-life treatment, organ donation processes, and equality in accessing medical care are among the top ethical issues one would expect to see mentioned.ethics

Why the deception when it would have been perfectly acceptable for CMP to identify itself as abortion opponents with specific, legitimate ethical questions pertaining to abortion and fetal tissue?

Honesty and integrity are critical to discussions about ethical issues.  Would abortion clinic representatives talk openly with abortion opponents? I and many others certainly have on many occasions in our roles as reproductive healthcare professionals. Did the CMP even attempt to arrange a discussion? If the intent of the “undercover” effort was to learn about the involvement of some Planned Parenthood affiliates with fetal tissue procurement, it was not necessary for CMP to engage people by misrepresenting themselves as biomedical professionals. Why just Planned Parenthood and no other providers of elective, therapeutic, and emergency abortions? Hospitals and other medical facilities play a significant role in tissue procurement, which can seem quite unsavory to outsiders.

abortion safeApparently deception and fabrication are a preferred method of operation within anti-abortion activism. Deception and fabrication are the hallmarks of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, also known as fake abortion clinics because of the their strategy to appear as if they are abortion clinics and use misinformation to dissuade women from abortion once they arrive for their “abortion appointment.”  Anti-abortion literature distributed to Congress, the media, and the public also contains incorrect, distorted, and often manufactured information. This is how the public at times believes that most abortions are late term. Or have murky ideas about parental consent for abortion in which it is compared to unrelated issues that are often guided by business policies, not laws.

It is no surprise that deceptive tactics were used to generate the storyline about fetal tissue procurement. It is nonetheless striking that there is not outrage about the deception, especially when ethics is the alleged target. Clearly, acquiring and providing information about fetal tissue procurement would not generate outrage if done without the theatrics of imposter biomedical professionals and video editing skills. Do we really want topics of importance to be introduced to public discourse in this manner? Of course not. The media would serve the public well to fully investigate the “investigators” and bring political balance to that part of the story. The notion that an organization like CMP, with a Postal Annex rented address no record of prior work as a nonprofit in the medical ethics arena, and leadership comprised of people connected to anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue, can have traction in promoting political ideology as if it was credible news or journalism is frightening. The media failed by not scrutinizing the source before doing the reporting, especially since another group, Life Dynamics, attempted to do the same in the late nineties.

For the record, pro-choice people resorted to deception to “out” the Crisis Pregnancy Center’s fake abortion clinic charades. Why? Because CPCs claimed that they informed women that they did not perform abortions, provided factual information, and other practices did not square with what women had shared with actual medical professionals.  A hidden camera sent in by the media with a young woman proved that the experiences of other women were accurately presented.

Using the Mistruths as Truths to Further the Mistruths

Talk radio stars Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh all regularly speak of the CMP as if it is a credible nonprofit out there doing good work.  Politicians, including U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner and those running for president, refer to the videos time and again as if they were part of a documentary. Absolutely nothing revealed in the videos is evidence of anything sinister. At worst, the videos illustrate the seeming insensitivities that can develop when people work in medical settings. wd

Right wing websites are having a great time exaggerating the video content and piling on more false or misleading information. Red State claims that Planned Parenthood was “…caught…appearing to haggle over the sale of aborted baby parts.” Haggling? Not hardly. The videos revealed explanations, in clinical and business tones, about how tissues and parts are procured. Bear in mind that CMP presented themselves as biomedical professionals interested in obtaining fetal tissue. Would it have somehow been acceptable for responses to exclude information about quality of parts and associated costs?

Comments made by elected officials can be perceived as the truth. Thus, when Senate newcomer Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) states, “Planned Parenthood is harvesting the body parts of unborn babies,” to explain her sponsorship of a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, perceptions are broadly formed and shared throughout every possible medium. The tone of Ernst’s statement can conjure so many images that only perpetuate incorrect information. When Breitbart News quotes a Ted Cruz comment that the videos show Planned Parenthood representatives “confessing to multiple felonies,” it misleads, misinforms, and further polarizes people on the basis of ideology as opposed to facts. Shame on all who have made, and are continuing to make, comments implying that the videos exposed evidence of crime. Shame on all who are giving the CMP credibility, so much credibility that there are threats to shut down the government if Planned Parenthood is not defunded.

Fetal Tissue Research is Ethical and Beneficial

There has always been a market for anatomical and biological goods, including human fetal tissue and parts.  Specific companies respond to the demand for human and animal parts. College psychology departments buy brains to teach students. Medical and scientific researchers need specimens in order to learn more about genetics or real and prospective treatment options for a range of diseases, for example. Fetal tissue/parts obtained from miscarriages and abortions have been used for decades and have led to a number of medical breakthroughs, including rubella and polio vaccines. Kimberly Leonard wrote an excellent article in the August 4, 2015 online issue of US News about the contributions of fetal tissue research. Many of us are grateful for those contributions. In the August 12, 2015 New England Journal of Medicine, lawyer R. Alta Charo stated, “A closer look at the ethics of fetal tissue research…reveals a duty to use this precious resource in the hope of finding new preventive and therapeutic interventions for devastating diseases. Virtually every person in the [United States} has benefited from research using fetal tissue.”  Quite simply, it would be unethical for medical researchers to suddenly discontinue use of fetal tissue due to politically extreme ideology.

research petri dishFetal parts are not allowed to be sold – they can only be donated with consent from pregnant women after they are removed.  If profit for fetal parts is the actual concern of CMP, their time would be better spent honestly working with regulatory agencies to determine with certainty if any inappropriate financial transactions between abortion providers and biomedical tissue businesses exist. It is certain that people of all political views on the issue would abhor such a practice.

As the dribble of videos continues, no evidence of illegal activities will be presented. Instead, ideology will be promoted with the intent to cause some to rethink their views about abortion and try to stop an organization that serves the healthcare needs of so many low-income women. The effort will fail, but in the meantime, we will all have to witness the nonsense and speak up about reality when we can.

 

July 11, 2012

A Big Disconnect

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion & Religion, Abortion Information, Abortion lies, Abortion MisInformation, Bush, Obama, Planned Parenthood, Vote
[66] Comments 

People in the prolife movement are fond of saying they respect all life from womb to tomb. But I’m wondering if their talk is nothing but Christian confections like the sweet, gritty nothingness of cotton candy . I’m wondering about this because between saying and doing, there is an ocean of difference. Saying you’re prolife in polls, on blogs, on bumper stickers and in a house of worship is easy. Talk, as the saying goes, is cheap. But let’s face the possibility that being prolife is just code for being anti abortion. It is surely not about respecting all of life from womb to tomb. Recall the early presidential debates when prolife Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) made quite a show of being a conservative Christian. Yet under his watch he executed 234 prisoners, thus, raising questions about the big disconnect within conservative Christians and small government Tea Party libertarians in the Republican Party.  Let’s consider other examples of this questionable disconnect in the prolife movement.

First, let’s look at those mostly Republican legislators who promote cuts to WIC (education and nutrition supplements for women, infants and children). Their efforts give new meaning to putting women and children first as they place the nation’s fiscal concerns on the shoulders of babies. Economic analysis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget has shown that every $1 spent on WIC results in a savings of $1.77 to $3.13 in health care costs, primarily attributed to reduced rates of low birth weight and improved rates of immunizations. Rather than saving money, cutting WIC services may ultimately result in increased health care costs due to low birth weight, iron deficiency and undernutrition. Again, it seems that the prolife moniker only means anti abortion.

As with WIC, there are cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP is a lifeline for those in need, which includes children and senior citizens. Rather than respect all life from womb to tomb, and contrary to the very values we hold as Americans to treat those most in need, our prolife legislators have elected to slash SNAP funding. This funding cut will increase hunger for our most vulnerable and eliminate thousands of jobs, particularly in the food-related industries. According to current statistics 16.2 million children live in households that struggle to put food on the table while prolifers worry about fetuses being aborted. The Food Research and Action Center claim that the “most prolific and compelling research shows that the effects of food insecurity on children impact their health, development, learning and mental health.”  I would argue that feeding children and those adults in need, ensuring that they have adequate nutrition, aligns more thoughtfully and authentically to the meaning about prolife than fretting about abortion.

Second, let’s ponder how those in the prolife movement claim that abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, target minorities by locating their clinics in their minority neighborhoods as a means for eliminating undesirables from society. But the fly in the ointment is the Guttmacher factoid that 63% of abortion providers are in predominantly non-Hispanic white neighborhoods. That hardly looks like targeting. Further, prolifers also argue that African Americans account for higher rates of abortion, a fact provided by the CDC. Disingenuously, prolifers fail to mention that numerous factors such as poverty, lack of health care, cultural practices, family size and lack of reliable birth control can contribute to higher abortion rates. More to the point is the fact that while the prolifers are wringing their hands about targeting minorities, they conveniently ignore the minorities who are being targeted by police and the judicial system and executed in our prison systems. In fact, despite a clear majority of voters (61%) who would choose a punishment other than execution, our nation retains the death penalty, a fact shared by difficult countries such as Libya, Chad, and Sierra Leone. So the hypocrisy of Governors Rick Perry (R-TX) and Phil Bryant (R-MS), both conservative Christians who claim the prolife label, but take the lead on the number of executions, is quite remarkable. On a related note, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the homicide victimization rate for blacks (19.6 homicides per 100,000) was 6 times higher than the rate for whites (3.3 homicides per 100,000). Making outrageous claims about Planned Parenthood targeting black women is an absurd waste of time particularly with respect to the genuine, far larger, more life-threatening issues that impact blacks in our nation.

A final example of the big disconnect among prolifers is drawn from the synergistic impact of the government, the military and corporatism. Corporatism— whether through direct handouts, corporate bailouts, eminent domain, licensing laws, antitrust regulations, or environmental edicts — inflicts a measurable degree of harm on Americans. For example, measurable levels of hundreds of corporate manufactured chemicals are routinely found in the bodies of all Americans, including newborns. Many of the toxins found in baby bottles and toys have been linked to developmental and reproductive disorders. Even Presidents Bush and Obama aggressively supported harmful genetically modified food policies from corporations like Monsanto while they plant organic gardens in the White House and have organic kitchen policies. And while our nation’s poorest are subjected to harmful environmental contaminants, nearby industries are afforded lenient policies to protect their bottom line. But these contaminants create the perfect health storm for mostly African American children living nearby. For black children, one out of every six (CDC) has asthma due to pollution, poverty, and being people of color. So, worrying about abortion seems rather petty in comparison to the misery that children and adults endure.

During wartime, the politically connected corporations derive high profits and cushy contracts. But war has its share of collateral damage. Where was the moral outcry for approximately 90,000 civilians who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by our “freedom loving” military forced into service by George W. Bush? Where was the moral outrage when prolife, Christian conservative Republican President George W. Bush along with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia and found guilty of war crimes for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment? While many patriotic types believe in American capitalism and our mighty military as a good for humanity, most are blind to the inherent savage, destructive nihilism of our country’s actions. Wringing hands and waving cardboard “End Abortion” signs seem frivolous compared to the tens of thousands who die, who are maimed or who are chronically ill because of policies and actions of the government, the military and corporatism.

While prolifers are forever worrying about the vast sums of money doctors earn from providing abortions, they’re not concerned at all about the vast sums of money that orthopedic surgeons or orthodontists earn. It can’t be about the money because many of them file frivolous lawsuits for handsome sums of compensation. And it surely isn’t their claim to respect all life at all ages because they’re apparently not concerned at all about their votes for candidates who support military actions that kill civilians. And while funding cuts to nutrition programs are touted as necessary to reduce the deficit and as important to ensure that we don’t create a welfare state, prolifers seem little concerned with the politicians’ decisions. In truth, they’re not prolife in any meaningful way. They’re just against abortion. And that, dear readers, is what I see as a Big Disconnect.

 

February 5, 2012

Thanks, Susan!

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Information, Abortion Law, Abortion Pill, Komen, Planned Parenthood | Tags: , , , , , , |
[79] Comments 
Komen Abortion

Komen Abortion

Well, the folks at the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation really put their foot in it, didn’t they?

I’ve always thought they were a good group, those pink ribbon folks.  Great cause, raise lots of money, good PR machine.  But then they installed this Karen Handel as VP of Public Affairs and, as we’ve now discovered, she’s had a thing for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) for years.  When she ran for Governor in Georgia in 2010, she actually said that she is “pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”  What I can’t understand is why the board at the Foundation would hire someone with a clear right wing agenda in the first place.  What were they thinking?

Abortion

Abortion

So, somewhere along the line, the Foundation’s Board of Directors adopted a policy saying they would not fund any group that was “under investigation.”  Geez, I wonder who put that on the agenda?  Then, when the resolution was being discussed, at one point it was made clear that, if the Board adopted the new rule, the approximately $700,000 in annual funds to PPFA would be on the chopping block.  And this was all because some yahoo congressman from Florida named Cliff Stearns, a 100% right to lifer, held a hearing on PPFA’s financial practices in the hopes of trying to determine if they were using federal dollars to provide abortions.  I worked on Capitol Hill for years – I can tell you that Stearns’ prime motivation was not necessarily to uncover something, although that would have been a nice by-product for him, but rather to make a name for himself in the right to life community.  Then, you watch, very soon he will be going to them to ask for a few more extra campaign dollars.

Abortion

Abortion

Still, someone at the Foundation (guess who?) learned about this sham hearing and came up with the idea of using it to pursue an anti-PPFA agenda.  OMG!  They are being investigated (which if I recall is not a conviction).  Off with their heads!

Then the poop hit the fan.

The first thing I have to do is give the anti-abortion movement credit – they are tenacious.  They wake up I the morning trying to figure out another way to hurt women, uh, excuse me, save the babies and they do not let go.  And in this case, while I cannot prove it, their fingerprints are all over this decision by the Foundation.

But I don’t necessarily feel sorry for PPFA.  That’s because within hours, their own PR machine went into overdrive and the money started pouring in.  If you saw the implorations for money, you would have thought that thousands of women were standing in line to get mammograms (even though most PPFA clinics just refer for mammograms) and, unless folks sent money yesterday, those women would be left out in the cold.  And, as I write this, with the pre-pre-pre Super Bowl program in the background, PPFA has raised more money than the Komen folks were giving them in the first place and now we know that Komen has reversed their decision.

So, now that PPFA can get their money from Komen again, my only question is will they be returning all of the money that they raised?

Hmmmmmmm….

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