XDA

This is a page from the playbook of the left: When non-lefties show the left on video recordings being wholly distasteful, those who were recorded, and their apologists, attack the people making the recordings. The first step is to say, they've edited the recording to make the wholly distasteful subject of the recording seem worse than he or she really is. They've edited it to such a degree as to make the recording false, or so they allege.

The left said just that about the two recordings (so far) by Center for Medical Progress showing members of Big Abortion being wholly distasteful about the sale of aborted baby parts. They edited the tapes, they accused. That's all out of context; that's all false what they're showing. Then But the Center for Medical Progress had already produced the unedited recordings and the subjects were just as distasteful as in the short version; and what they actually said was in no way out of context in the "heavily edited" versions. If anything, the long versions are worse.

So it's back to the drawing board for the left. Strike two in this case is to claim, falsely, that the recordings are manipulated and distorted. Cue Dr. Len Gunter in the New Republic. (There is no reason in the world for any intelligent person to read anything in the New Republic now, but sometimes things are thrust upon you).

Here are the good doctor's arguments and my responses thereto:

1) The group claims the videos demonstrate that Planned Parenthood profits from fetal tissue donation (which would be illegal) and that they are “haggling” over the price of “baby parts.”

As an OB/GYN, I can tell you that neither of these claims are true. These are not "baby parts".

You see, as Dr. Gunter explains, the proper medical term for the aborted babies is "products of conception" -- "babies" are the fetuses that are born, not aborted. So in not using the proper medical terms, the whole video before your eyes and ears is false, false, false (or at least manipulated), or so they claim. Ah, but what's in a name, that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Not the grandest of defenses. I also don't believe the claim was 'profit', but merely that Planned Parenthood 'sells' the fetal tissue, which it does. Thus the first claim of falseness is mere strawman argument, a rhetorical fallacy.

2) There is no reason a conversation about products of conception requires more or less reverence than one about a kidney or a biopsy specimen.  

Spoken like someone completely desensitized by the business of aborting babies, sorry, fetuses, as another doctor, Charles Krauthammer, notes today here.

3) Hearing medical professionals negotiate with a private buyer over the price for collecting tissue may also seem distasteful, but there is indeed an expense involved for the donor (in this case, Planned Parenthood)... There’s no way there’s a profit at that price,”

Well, it's certainly OK if Planned Parenthood loses money on the sale of the fetal tissue. Nothing at all wrong about the sale of aborted fetus parts then. But this part of the article by Dr. Gunter completely supports the description of the negotiations as "haggling" over the price of the parts. But haggling over the price of the parts is supposed to be false in the good doctor's view. Hmmm?

Then the article goes full, honest-to-God, projection. Behold the big finish:

Just as there are people who believe the moon landing was faked, there are those who refuse to believe that the full scope of reproductive health care is grounded in medical evidence. As the facts are inconvenient, the only option is to circumvent them by any means possible. These videos are the kind of propaganda that only reinforces those fixed, false beliefs. 

There are indeed people who believe the moon landings were faked. We call those people idiots who have somehow convinced themselves that something that actually happened didn't actually happen. It's not a good metaphor for the pro-life half of America, but it is a good metaphor for Dr. Gunter and her ilk in this article (and the ones linked to above). They think the abortionists don't kill babies-to-be. They think abortionists are promoting health.

"...there are those who refuse to believe that the full scope of reproductive health care is grounded in medical evidence." What? Does that even begin to make sense in light of each and every word in the article which have preceded it? The point of the videos is not to show that abortion is not part of medical science, but that its practice has a societal price beyond the dead fetus. For one, it makes the practitioners seem wholly distasteful in their choice of medical focus and in how they react to that choice. This part of the article is sheer blather, designed to hide rather than reveal. It gets worse.


"If the facts are inconvenient, the only option is to circumvent them by any means possible." How could Dr. Gunter write this and not see herself doing just what she describes? I don't end nascent lives, she tells herself (and us, between the lines), I provide health care. Maybe for the mother-to-be in some cases you do, but for the baby-to-be, well, not so much. And when you're ending a pregnancy merely because it's inconvenient for the woman to give birth to her baby, it is difficult for any intelligent person to call that health care. Those, I'm sure, are inconvenient facts to the abortionists and the rabid supporters of abortion on the left.

"These videos are the kind of propaganda that only reinforces those fixed, false beliefs." Propaganda is the spreading of derogatory information by misleading means in order to influence popular opinion. It has to be misleading to be propaganda. If it's true, then it's called truth. The videos are not false. They show what they show. If they show one's profession in a very bad light, one may hope to call them false and propaganda, but it is a wan hope. It is the desire of the self-deluded. It is also the source of the serious projection Dr. Gunter is displaying in her article.

In that sense, if they weren't so wholly distasteful, you would want to feel sorry for them.

UPDATE: I bought the lefty line that the complete recordings were produced only after the expected cries of deceptive editing were made. Not true. The full recordings were produced at the same time as the slightly edited versions. Here is Mollie Hemingway being extraordinarily persuasive on the subject.

Labels: Dr. Jen Gunter; Truth versus Propaganda; Abortion; Sale of Aborted Tissue