Tag Archives: Planned Parenthood

Being Against Abortion Is Not The Same As Being Pro-Life.

Posted on by

In an attempt to gain more public support, in the 1970s, Christian evangelicals re-branded their anti-abortion efforts as “pro-life.” In other words, if you supported a woman’s right to choose to end a pregnancy or even to use contraceptives, you were against life – the equivalent of a murderer.

Unfortunately, it worked.

It seems that, each year, “Pro-Lifers” have succeeded in finding new ways to undermine Roe v. Wade. They have portrayed Planned Parenthood as an abortion mill, even though abortions represent a tiny portion of its activities and even though, in some areas, Planned Parenthood is the only source of health care for underprivileged women.

But to truly understand the effects of the “Pro-Life” movement, one must look at the consequences. First, doctors, nurses and other clinic workers have been threatened and murdered by “Pro-Life” extremists. Almost all of them have had their homes and vehicles vandalized and their privacy invaded.

In addition, one must understand that, for some women, being forced to carry a baby to full term is life-threatening. One must realize that being forced to have an unwanted baby can literally destroy a woman’s opportunity to finish her education, to improve her life economically, and to improve the lives of the children she may already have. One must also understand that to follow some of the new “Pro-Life” laws are impractical and even scientifically impossible.

If we return to the days before Roe v Wade and before contraception was readily available, many more women will become pregnant. The poor will, once again, resort to more dangerous ways to end their pregnancies, including coat hangers, acids, falls and suicides. But, of course, the rich will merely travel to countries where abortions are legal. Or they’ll convince their family doctors to describe the procedure as a D&C.

Many of the women who carry unwanted children to term will place their children up for adoption – a system already at its limits. At any given time, roughly 120,000 kids in the US are up for adoption and, as sex education, contraception and abortion become less accessible, that number is certain to grow. So, too, will the number of children with major disabilities who will be placed up for adoption. The children who are not immediately adopted are placed in the foster system. That may seem like a reasonable outcome. But according to census data from 2011, there were 47,885 children in foster care. Many stay in the system until they “age out.”

It’s worth noting that 50 per cent of the nation’s homeless and 80 percent of our prison population have come through the foster care system. So, obviously, our entire society is impacted by unwanted and unloved children. And, if the “Pro-Life” extremists get their way, many more children will end up in the system!

The Video Fantasies of James O’Keefe.

Posted on by

Given motivation, a hidden camera, editing software and enough time, anyone could create videos showing targets saying almost anything. An edit here and an edit there and you could make it seem that a NASA official said the moon landing was a fraud. Or you could make it seem that the Pope said there is no God.

Such is the work of James O’Keefe and his Breitbart-sponsored pals.

In 2009, O’Keefe released videos purporting to show employees of the community organizing group ACORN giving advice regarding prostitution. Not surprisingly, the group’s political enemies went wild resulting in Congress denying any further funds to the group. Even though the videos were later proven to have been fraudulent and misleading, the news came too late – long after most of the organization’s offices were closed.

Then, in 2015, O’Keefe turned his sights and his hidden cameras on Planned Parenthood, creating another set of highly-edited and misleading videos that seemed to show Planned Parenthood officials offering to purchase and sell baby parts from aborted fetuses. The videos are still reverberating in the blogosphere and among right-wing political pundits causing the GOP-controlled Congress to sponsor legislation aimed at cutting funding for the organization even though O’Keefe’s work was again shown to be fraudulent.

One would think that two such efforts would have relegated O’Keefe to the trash heap of history alongside the likes of Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and other disreputable right-wing operatives where he could no longer cause harm to well-meaning people and organizations. But he’s back with yet another unscrupulous hit job. This time he’s attempting to show that Democratic officials have engaged in unethical campaign tactics, the promotion of violence and vote rigging leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

In other words, O’Keefe is trying to prove the Democratic Party is guilty of doing the very same things the Republican Party and the Trump campaign are doing!

Yet the comparison is unconvincing. On the one hand, we have some highly-edited videos produced by a known fraudster. On the other hand, we have a long history of GOP efforts to gerrymander legislative and congressional district; of federal court cases surrounding voter suppression efforts by the GOP; of the beatings of protesters caught on video at campaign rallies; of GOP elected officials arbitrarily removing the names of minorities from voter registration lists.

The Hoax That Won’t Go Away.

Posted on by

Following the release of videos showing Planned Parenthood employees discussing fetal tissue donations, rightwing politicians continue to call for defunding Planned Parenthood. Even though the videos have been discredited as fraudulently-edited and obtained under false pretenses, and even though defunding the organization would deny healthcare to thousands of women, the ginned-up controversy won’t go away.

Why? The controversy is being fueled by rightwing media, including Fox News Channel. They apparently see abortion as a wedge issue for the 2016 elections – particularly since they are likely to face the nation’s first serious female presidential candidate.

We’ve seen this drama play out before. A surreptitious and unscrupulous right wing group lies to gain access to an organization. Then it edits the videos to portray that organization in a false manner. The Republicans in Congress become outraged – outraged I say – and demand that the organization be stripped of all federal funds. Then, sometime later, it is proven that the videos were fraudulent, but it doesn’t matter, because the damage has been done.

It happened to ACORN. It happened to Shirley Sherrod of the Department of Agriculture. And it happened to the NAACP.

Now it’s Planned Parenthood that’s in the Republican crosshairs despite the fact that, according to a 2013 Gallup Poll, 53 percent of Americans support legal abortions, while only 29 percent oppose the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. But the will of the people seldom matters to the Republican ideologues. Neither do the rights of women and minorities.

In reality, Planned Parenthood operates more than 700 healthcare clinics nationwide. Abortion represents only 3 percent of the organization’s activities. It does not sell fetal tissue. But, in some states, it does permit women to donate fetal tissue in order to help them make the best of a bad situation. The majority of Planned Parenthood’s work consists of family planning, STD prevention and treatment, and primary medical care. Its clinics are an important part of the nation’s healthcare system. Without them, many families would have to travel long distances for care or be denied care altogether.

Nevertheless, in their continuing attempts to divide the nation in order to gain votes while depressing votes for their opponents, Republicans are willing to put all of that at risk. That’s why they continue to incite the uninformed and the misinformed with continuing attacks. It’s a hateful and cynical strategy.

Let’s make sure it’s also a failed strategy.