The Greenfield Recorder (Mass.), Aug. 14:
The recent attempt in the United States Senate to defund Planned Parenthood, failing though it did, is likely to be just a pause in the action. The fight over abortion, it seems, will never end.
While the battle lines in the ongoing fight over a legal medical procedure remain largely unchanged, citizens and their political leaders must distinguish objective facts from political manipulation in messages coming from those opposing, or supporting, abortion rights.
The latest explosion over Planned Parenthood was fueled by videos taken surreptitiously by a group calling itself the Center for Medical Progress, in which officials with the women’s health organization are shown talking about what happens to fetal tissue following abortions. Taken at face value, these videos seem to show a callous and profit-driven attitude toward terminated pregnancies. They sparked a firestorm of condemnation, inside the U.S. Senate and across the nation.
Without a doubt, the videos show a lack of sensitivity and professionalism, qualities that are vital when discussing the disposition or medical use of fetal tissue. It was appropriate that Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, saw fit to apologize for the tone of the comments recorded.
But that doesn’t justify the dishonesty and distortions involved in making, editing and publicizing the recordings. And, amid the uproar, it’s crucial to remember that Planned Parenthood does far more to prevent unwanted pregnancies than to end them.
Despite its name, the Center for Medical Progress isn’t an organization devoted to advancing health care through the honest use of science and data. Instead, according to its website, it is “a group of citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances.” The website goes on to say, “We are concerned about contemporary bioethical issues that impact human dignity, and we oppose any interventions, procedures, and experiments that exploit the unequal legal status of any class of human beings.” A major focus of the group’s work: opposing abortion.
Secretly recording conversations and editing them with political intent doesn’t meet our definition of journalistic integrity. Nor does suggesting that Planned Parenthood is profiting from fetal tissue donation, when the fact is that it simply covers costs in the fashion allowed by law.
None of the $528 million in government money that goes to Planned Parenthood each year pays for abortion, a procedure the organization says makes up just 3 percent of its services. The vast majority of Planned Parenthood’s work aims at preventing unintended pregnancies through contraception, testing and treating sexually transmitted diseases and screening for cervical and other cancers. All told, the organization serves 2.7 million women and men nationwide.
As for donating fetal tissue, that happens only when a woman planning an abortion consents to it. And even that practice is limited; the organization provides tissue for research from abortions performed in fewer than five states. (Planned Parenthood hasn’t said which, although the videos indicate that Texas and California are two of them, the Wall Street Journal reports.)
Where donations do take place, health care providers follow federal rules established in 1993 when a bipartisan Congress made fetal tissue collection legal. In the two decades since, the tissue has proven invaluable in studying and developing treatments for H.I.V., hepatitis, congenital heart defects, among other health problems.
If American citizens and advocacy groups think this type of research should end, they should lobby government leaders to change the federal rule. If they want to reduce the number of abortions, however, shutting down Planned Parenthood would have the opposite effect given the constructive role it has played in preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Some congressional Republicans are threatening to shut down the government this fall to block money for Planned Parenthood. Voters should let their congressional representatives know that they aren’t falling for such a dangerous political stunt. Too many lives hang in the balance.
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