I’m sure a lot of my readers share this sentiment. I’m pro-life, for a reason, but sometimes it crystallizes that we have clinics across our country and continent where we sanction/endorse/help out with the killing of innocents. We call it different things, but that’s what it is. We make it all clean and tidy but those clinics don’t have any other purpose.
Watching this clip from Live Action was one of those moments. It’s about Planned Parenthood helping with sex selection abortion, but the sex selection side doesn’t bother me as much as the woman advising termination when she knows very well everything about the baby is fully formed.
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Surreal. Chilling, really. Human beings have an immense capacity to rationalize evil. That’s what is so scary, really. That PP staffer is undoubtedly convinced she is doing a good thing and “helping” women. She seems really nice and kind. You know what it reminds me of? Those pictures of normal-looking, smiley people hanging out at Auschwitz on some SS staff retreat. They don’t look so evil, do they? You’d think they would, but they don’t. Shudder.
Oh, I guess the link gets deleted. If you google “Auschwitz album SS” it’s the first link.
You know that like all Lila Rose’s ‘stings’ the tape was heavily edited, right?
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201205310024
@fern hill
Nothing in the media matters link you sent changes the fact that “we have clinics across our country and continent where we sanction/endorse/help out with the killing of innocents.” And that, not any emphasis on sex selection abortion, is what shocks me about the Live Action clip, as I said in my blog post.
@fern hill
Yep, I know the tape was heavily edited. I went to the mediamatters link, which linked to the full Live Action tape. The full tape is also edited (some parts are muted) but that appears to be for privacy of others in the clinic – at least, no one at MediaMatters seemed upset by that.
I wanted to judge the editing for myself, since LiveAction was so kind as to have the full tape available on the same day as the edited tape. It was over an hour, over half of which consisted of waiting for the appointment and going into the bathroom twice, to adjust her equipment, I think.
In one aspect, the LiveAction tape didn’t quite make it’s point. Since the client presented herself as wanting a sex selection abortion to have a “balanced” family, there’s no evidence the client is biased against girl children per se. If her first child had been a boy, it seems clear she would be asking for a sex selection abortion if it were a boy. However, the edited tape makes that as clear as it is in the full tape. So the edited tape succeeds in making the case that PP facilitates sex selective abortion but not that they facilitate female gendercide.
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MediaMatters quotes PP as saying the unedited video “demonstrates nonjudgmental, informative services that are in accordance with social work standards for patient interaction.” As far as I can tell from watching the full video, that is correct. Which means that the counselor was not able to condemn the sex-selective abortion, and actually gave her client information the client didn’t already have to make sure the client wouldn’t abort a boy by mistake.
Planned Parenthood says that it “condemns sex selection based on gender bias,” but according to your MediaMatters link it also says “no Planned Parenthood clinic will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selective abortions.” That combined with the PP policy not to be judgmental would seem to make it impossible to “condemn sex selection based on gender bias” in its actual abortion counseling and operations. The full video supports this interpretation even better than the short video.
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What I find really interesting is that two places in the full tape, that were not included in the short edited tape, that would have shown that the counselor, at least, was not completely comfortable with a sex-selective abortion, were NOT mentioned in the MediaMatters page or on the PP page it refers to.
At one point, toward the end, the counselor asks the client why she wants a boy, even though she already knew it was because the client had a girl and now wanted a boy. I thought this was touching. To me, that and her pause at 0:51:35 / 15:48:04 discussed below, showed that the social worker was uncomfortable with the client’s decision.
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The assertions from the shorter edited tape are prefixed with a dash.
-Planned Parenthood suggests genetic testing to confirm gender.
True. Confirmed in the full tape. The counselor suggests CVS or amniocentesis, seeming uncomfortable with the client basing her decision solely on an over-the-counter test the counselor’s never heard of.
-Planned Parenthood refers to OB/Gyn’s who can do genetic testing to confirm gender for a sex-selective abortion.
Depends on how you interpret this statement. I read it to mean that PP refers to OB/Gyn’s who can do genetic testing (true, and confirmed in the full tape) which will be used for a sex-selective abortion.
If you interpret it to say that PP refers to OB/Gyn’s who will do genetic testing to confirm gender, even if they know that the info will be used for a sex-selective abortion, and also without judging her, that’s not correct. However, the counselor tells her how to get around any problems she may have. Edited out of the shorter tape is where the client worries about whether the ob/gyn’s will judge her for getting the test so she can abort a girl. The counselor says Planned Parenthood doesn’t have that kind of relation to the doctors, but she would hope that they would respect the client’s choice, whether for adoption, pre-natal care or termination. She goes on to say that the client doesn’t have to tell the doctor anything about what she plans to do, and that the HIPAA laws mean Planned Parenthood won’t release any information about the abortion unless the client approves it.
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-Planned Parenthood assures the woman that a late term abortion of the baby girl would pose no greater risk to her health.
True. Except that the counselor never refers to the fetus as a baby girl, a girl, or even a fetus. She talks about the gender of the “pregnancy.” She does specifically point out that the client should not worry about getting an abortion after 16 weeks. She says that the main difference between an abortion at 16 weeks and one up to 24 weeks is that after 16 weeks it is a two-day procedure. “it’s not that it’s unsafe or that there’s a lot more risk involved, it’s just there’s more steps involved – and it’s just a little more complicated.” Not much difference in the full tape. I don’t think I believe her assessment of the relative risks, but I have no reason to believe she’s saying something she believes is false.
-Planned Parenthood condones the sex-selective abortion of a baby girl.
Definition of condone: 1. Accept and allow (behavior that is considered morally wrong or offensive) to continue. 2. Approve or sanction (something), esp. with reluctance
This is the saddest part of the full tape to me, and it was cut out. To my surprise, it’s not even mentioned in the MediaMatters or in PP’s own defense, so I guess they didn’t think it was significant. The client worries about how the staff at Planned Parenthood will react if she’s unlucky and keeps conceiving and then aborting girls.
client: 0:51:35 / 15:48:04
“If we end up keeping unlucky and we keep having girls like would, would the people, would the staff here wonder what’s going on, like the people like, why are you aborting all the girls?”
The counselor pauses and then answers in a very low voice: “That I really can’t answer for you.” To me, at least, she seems uncomfortable with this.
The client makes some disjointed answer, as if she’s disturbed by the counselor’s reaction: “Yeah. I don’t know about, a couple, I’d be a little bit …”
Then the counselor answers with the Planned Parenthood philosophy as shown in the shorter tape:
“I can tell you that, you know, here at Planned Parenthood we believe it’s not, it’s not up to us to decide what is a good or bad reason for somebody to decide to terminate a pregnancy. It is up to each individual person to decide what you feel like is best for you and your family.”
-Planned Parenthood schedules the sex-selective abortion appointment for two weeks later to allow enough time for the genetic testing to confirm the baby is a girl.
True. What’s cut from the longer tape are just more details about how much time to allow and which day it should be. It has to be Friday rather than Saturday in case the client turns out to be past the 16 week point and need a two-day procedure.
The tape doesn’t say or imply that PP is doing anything illegal. It just shows that PP condones, facilitates, and performs sex selective abortion.The PP counselor may very well not have condoned the sex selective abortion personally, but as PP said, she demonstrated “nonjudgmental, informative services that are in accordance with social work standards for patient interaction.” So she certainly did “accept and allow the behavior to continue.”