As the old saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, take video of 'em, doctor the video to make 'em look like monstrous criminals, deceive the public to whip up outcry against 'em and sick your political allies on 'em.
Apparently, the formula is working, at least for the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress, which has been releasing doctored videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the "sale" (donation, really) of aborted fetus tissue to research facilities.
But pro-choice advocates at every level are starting to fight back.
Republicans at the state and national level want to investigate and/or pull public funding from Planned Parenthood, even though the federal dollars the nonprofit gets legally cannot fund abortions, but instead funds the myriad other services the nonprofit provides, like cancer screenings.
Details are hard when you're busy trying to get reelected, so leaders in Congress want to pull the $500 million the federal government appropriates for the agency because abortion, which constitutes three percent of Planned Parenthood's budget.
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner tweeted that public money "should not be used in the destruction of innocent life."
To which Blue DuPage, one of our favorite progressive Twitter feeds, responded:
Taxpayer $$$ should not be used to aid destruction of innocent human life. http://t.co/vBrmS26tCX @SpeakerBoehner pic.twitter.com/WsSdguIfc0
— Blue DuPage (@BlueDuPage) July 31, 2015
Oh, and to make things a little closer to home:
Taxpayer dollars should not be used to aid the destruction of innocent human life. #tcot #p2 pic.twitter.com/pnrhtKMKgP
— Blue DuPage (@BlueDuPage) July 31, 2015
On the state level, even though Florida's 16 Planned Parenthood clinics don't even have tissue donation programs, Governor Rick Scott found the doctored videos "deeply troubling" and launched an investigation into the nonprofit.
Congresswoman Kathy Castor, a Tampa Democrat, said it's obvious politics are afoot.
“Gov. Rick Scott has a terrible record of politically-motivated, frivolous lawsuits and investigations," Castor said in an emailed statement. "Here is another example of his wasteful use of tax dollars. Gov. Scott is simply harassing family health clinics based upon nothing more than a right–wing organization’s video on the internet. The last thing women and families want or need is Gov. Rick Scott interfering with their doctors, nurses and health centers."
Yeah, that guy does put a lot of money into lawsuits and such that do nothing but suit his political ends, doesn't he?
One of our favorite responses to the "Planned Parenthood sells baby parts!" hysteria comes from blogger Rebecca Watson, who rattled off a list of reasons this whole controversy is dumb and why we should all know better.
3% of all Planned Parenthood’s activities are abortions, and more than 90% of those are in the first trimester when it’s about size of a kidney bean, so they do see some pieces of fetal tissue. Which are just going to be thrown away in the garbage, but which the patient can instead choose to donate to important medical research.
…
This all reminds me of a course I took in college on heresy. I remember learning about how multiple times throughout human history, various groups of people have been accused of the very specific act of gathering together and hosting orgies, and then taking the resulting babies from any past orgies and burning them into ashes, which are then formed into cakes, which are then eaten. Usually it’s supposed to be the Jews doing this but plenty of other marginalized groups have been accused as well. And it always baffled me to think that people could really, truly believe that their fellow humans were doing something so obviously stupid and made up.
Check out the rest of that video here.
Our prediction is that any bill in Congress regarding federal funding will get shot down (thanks, Senate/President Obama's veto pen) and, even if we end up with a filibuster-proof GOP majority in the Senate and a Republican president, Our Nation's fanatics will have moved onto another issue by then.
As for the state level, that "investigation" will obviously come up fruitless, but it'll make Scott look great in the next primary battle he faces.
Well, those who don't like the reality of fetal tissue being used in the search for cures for terrible diseases, if they come down with a disease that has a cure thanks to fetal tissue research, they can refuse treatment on moral grounds. You vote with your dollar, man.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2015.