Monday, August 03, 2015

 

Belief--Me, Your Eyes?

Here is a recent, wholly fallacious argument about the Planned Parenthood videos from a guy I've never heard of before, Bob Cesca, writing at Salon, where the left goes to remain misinformed. I note that Mr. Cesca is a talented director of music videos and a radio talk host. (Apparently there are still left wing radio shows, who knew?) He graduated from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in political science. That history explains a lot.
He probably should have taken a class or two in rhetoric.

I also note the headline of his article (which perhaps he did not write) contains the charming referral to conservatives as "wing nuts" (for the record, I really like wing nuts because you don't need a tool to put them on or take them off) and to the series of video recordings of Planned Parenthood employees as a "hoax".


Here is the crux of his argument. The videos are a hoax because Planned Parenthood is not breaking any laws. But only he has said the videos show criminal behavior. Then he says that Planned Parenthood is doing only legal things. He thus refutes his take on the video, but refuting himself in no way refutes the actual content of the videos.


Indeed, the videos don't claim that the actions and attitudes shown are criminal, just really gross. They are real; the argument against them in this article is a hoax.


Still, Mr. Cesca is not above straying into outright falsehood here and there. Observe.


Because Planned Parenthood is absolutely not selling fetus parts via some sort of grisly underground market.
But they are selling fetus parts via a somewhat grisly completely aboveboard market. Ya' happy now?
They are clearly selling fetus parts, the rest of the sentence is obfuscation and not very good obfuscation at that.


...Planned Parenthood clearly isn't doing what these videos claim...



Really? So they're not selling fetal tissue to medical researchers? The people accurately recorded in the videos sure seem to think they are exchanging the fetal parts for money. Perhaps they are mistaken about what they do and Mr. Cesca is alone in actually knowing what the employees of Planned Parenthood do. Well, in a word, No. Cesca is wrong; the Planned Parenthood employees actually know that they are exchanging the baby parts for money. Even the head of Planned Parenthood admitted that, or most of that. Cecile Richards, the head person at Planned Parenthood said the organization has "programs that help women donate fetal tissue for medical research." And those programs involves moving the fetal parts from the Planned Parenthood facility where the abortion took place to the medical research facility in exchange for money. That's selling. If someone donates a car to a cause and the cause sells the car to another person for money for the cause, has not the organization sold the donated car? This is clear, and it's extreme word parsing to try to say differently because the fetal tissue is donated to Planned Parenthood for its use. If my donated car goes to a crash testing facility in exchange for money, has the cause to which I donated the car not sold my car to the crash testing outfit, even if the price is merely cost of transport recouped? The answer is obvious. Cecile Richards also says that Planned Parenthood doesn't profit from the sale "in any way." That's wrong too. Money is fungible; if you take in money for one thing, you can spend it on anything you like, not just for that thing. The income of money always profits the organization. Planned Parenthood may well not make a profit on the sale, but money in is always helpful, even to a non-profit organization. Back to the article.
 ...too many conservatives completely accept the veracity of an explicitly falsified video.


Where, explicitly, was the video falsified? He fails to mention that. Just repeats that no criminal charges are appropriate. I don't remember the part of the video about criminal charges being appropriate. Does anyone?


Objective reality includes the following facts:
  • Planned Parenthood is not selling fetus parts for profit or otherwise


Wait, the organization is taking money in exchange for fetus parts. Is that not selling? Even if the mother-no-longer-to-be says it's OK to use the fetal tissue for research, isn't the exchange of parts for money selling as almost all people, perhaps except Mr. Cesca, understand the word 'selling'? Cecile Richards has admitted that the exchange takes place. See above. Either he's actually really stupid, or he thinks his readers are.


...the clear and incontrovertible reality that Planned Parenthood and similar organizations save lives and prevent abortions.


No, I think Planned Parenthood actually performs abortions, lots of them. It's the pro-life organizations that try to prevent abortions.


And in his big finish he says this:


The sting video, as well as its several sequels, are provably mendacious...


Except he never even attempts to prove it. Who's being mendacious now?


I believe there is no greater proof of the truth of the videos than that liberals are reduced to transparently lying about them and what they show. The videos are a hit, a palpable hit on Big Abortion.


About 20% of couples in America can't have children for various medical reasons. Many of them adopt foreign children, particularly Asian girls. They do that because there aren't enough babies given up for adoption because the babies-to-be are being aborted at a horrendous rate and not because of the health of the mother-to-be. Anything that slows the rate of abortion and makes more babies available for adoption is a good thing. These videos, if they help shut down our nations largest facility for abortion, are good things.

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