In this latest video, the Planned Parenthood doctor explains that they can get intact organs on those occasions when the baby is delivered before the abortion could be carried out. That one is going to be fun to explain. I assume the defense will be that the doctor was only talking about stillbirths, as otherwise you mean that you delivered the baby alive, killed it, and then dissected it. It doesn't sound like that is what she's talking about, though: I'm not sure how to understand her follow-on comments about Planned Parenthood's intentions if she's talking about a child that is already dead. It makes perfect sense if "the procedure" is an abortion, in which case the child was alive.
This video underscores my suspicion, developed in response to Elise's comments below, that the real intent here was to catch PP in lawbreaking (here the Infant Born Alive Act) and it just turned out to be viscerally horrifying. The structure of the video comes across as strange, as the thing they're trying to prove isn't the takeaway for the viewer.
I agree with jaed's comments in the same thread as Elise. There are many things going on here, and I don't think the producers of the video are getting the result they intended. They may like this better, however.
ReplyDeleteI think we should learn from that. Pro-life people have tried a variety of methods to be persuasive, and are only partly successful. There are different audiences out there, who will response to different aspects. I'm not sure trying to steer that in some strategic master plan will work any better than simply playing the videos and insisting the same simple points over and over. They are selling body parts. They change their abortion methods to preserve those parts better. They giggle over it. They seem callous. Those fetuses sure have a lot of humanness about them pretty early. Your tax dollars go to this.
Don't argue. Don't persuade. This is moving in unpredictable areas. Let them put up their excuses, and some people will accept those excuses. Fine. Play the videos and repeat the basics.
I think about issues like this in terms of a conversation with a very dear friend who is vehemently opposed to any restrictions on abortion. CMP framed this as "PP is selling baby parts". The first video is (in my opinion) ambiguous on this. Her response will be "CMP is lying in the first video and there is no point in my watching any of the other videos." That is, the ambiguity about what's going on with tissue sales in the first video provides her with a rationale for ignoring anything else CMP says. I think CMP would have been better served by not characterizing the first video unless they did so in a way that was absolutely unambiguous; e.g., "PP provides human organs to third parties".
ReplyDeleteOf course, that's just the approach that I think might have made it harder for my friend to ignore the series of videos. As AVI says, there are different audiences and perhaps CMP's initial characterization reached some of them. And perhaps even the push-back against the initial characterization is proving useful as people who would like to ignore this issue feel obligated to watch the videos (or read the transcripts) in order to discredit CMP.
Breitbart pulled a similar op on that org selling child sex slaves from outside.
ReplyDeleteO Keefe pulls similar ops on Leftists, to the point where they are banning him from certain areas.
I think CMP would have been better served by not characterizing the first video unless they did so in a way that was absolutely unambiguous; e.g., "PP provides human organs to third parties".
ReplyDeleteYou would expose your full arsenal to the enemy so that they can field their reserves and hard counter you?
The people being SWATed in Wisconsin thought that was a good idea too, before they got gagged.