Lifting the Curtain on the Abortion Industry – A Practitioner's Perspective

Human baby. (AP Photo)Another video bombshell has been lobbed at the Planned Parenthood juggernaut by the Center for Medical Progress.  It’s a story of David vs. Goliath, plainly, but this latest attack has certainly caused significant damage that will be hard for the wealthy foundation to shrug off.

Melissa Farrell, director of medical research of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast has done permanent injury to something that the entire abortion industry relies on: the idea that what is being removed in an abortion is a “clump of cells.”

For years now, the magical science of ultrasound has been working hard at putting that concept on the ash heap of history.  We physicians have always known that a fetus is a fascinatingly intriguing little human, and it took ultrasound to open up that knowledge to the general public.  There is no need for a months-long intense course on fetal development.  A glimpse of the black and white moving images of little hands waving and toes wiggling instill a conviction of personhood immediately.

The doctors and technicians who are featured in the videos, working in their macabre “research” labs know this too, of course.  The exclamation of Dr. Ginde, a Colorado abortionist, as she stands over a petri dish of fetal parts: “Another boy!” is going to stick in my mind for a long time.  It’s particularly awful coming from a fellow physician.  We like to think that our vocation is especially safe from ethical indecencies, but obviously that’s not true.  The deadness of the women’s consciences can almost be felt, as they talk about pricing their grisly work by body part harvested, and how convenient it is when a woman delivers an intact baby during the abortion process.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, talks a good game.  To hear her tell it, abortion is the last thing anyone at her clinics wants to offer a scared and desperate young woman.  Her providers are sensitive, caring, even lovingly concerned.  They do what they do because they are engaged in a heroic battle to serve womankind with Pap smears, birth control, and STD tests, that even after Obamacare and all its mandates, women are still having trouble “accessing.”   Oh, and almost as an afterthought, “safe and legal abortion.”

I guess we know now that the sensitivity and humanity quotient in those clinics is a lot lower than Ms. Richards claims.  We also know that no one who works at Planned Parenthood, from Cecile Richards on down to the lowliest receptionist, believes that abortion has to do with the removal of “tissue” or “cells.”  They can’t believe it, because they are looking at the ultrasounds, carrying the petri dishes, calling for pickup of intact body parts, and otherwise going about their morbid business.

Polls show that before these videos surfaced, about two-thirds of Americans would ban abortion after the first trimester. It will be interesting to see how those polls change.  Lifting the curtain on the big business of abortion and watching the artless coarseness of its practitioners will have its effect on the public.  I’m sure the public will show that their moral sensitivity is significantly healthier than Richards’ and her supporters’.

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is a Senior Policy Advisor for The Catholic Association.  She writes and speaks widely, in both Spanish and English, about Catholicism, religious freedom, and the intersection of faith and science.  As a Hispanic, she brings a special focus on social issues that impact the growing Latino population, such as the state of the family and the real needs of the poor and marginalized.  As a physician, she is able to address complex subjects relating to government health policy and its true impact on the people it purports to help.

Via: CNS News

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Planned Parenthood’s pathetic ‘3 percent’ lie

The nation’s premier provider of abortions doesn’t want to be known for providing abortions.

Planned Parenthood, embroiled in a scandal over secret videos capturing its cavalier dismemberment of unborn babies and sale of their body parts, insists that abortion is only 3 percent of what it does.

Practically every defender of the organization, fighting to preserve its federal funding, reverts to the 3 percent figure.

How could you possibly, they ask, defund a group that devotes itself overwhelmingly to uncontroversial procedures and services for women?

The 3 percent figure is an artifice and a dodge, but even taking it on its own terms, it’s not much of a defense. Only Planned Parenthood would think saying that they only kill babies 3 percent of the time is something to brag about.

How much credit would we give someone for saying he only drives drunk 3 percent of the time, or only cheats on business trips 3 percent of the time, or only hits his wife during 3 percent of domestic disputes?

The 3 percent factoid is crafted to obscure the reality of Planned Parenthood’s business.

The group performs about 330,000 abortions a year, or roughly 30 percent of all the abortions in the country. By its own accounting in its 2013-2014 annual report, it provides about as many abortions as Pap tests (380,000). The group does more breast exams and provides more breast-care services (490,000), but not by that much.

The 3 percent figure is derived by counting abortion as just another service like much less consequential services.

So abortion is considered a service no different than a pregnancy test (1.1 million), even though a box with two pregnancy tests can be procured from the local drugstore for less than $10.

By Planned Parenthood’s math, a woman who gets an abortion but also a pregnancy test, an STD test and some contraceptives has received four services, and only 25 percent of them are abortion. This is a little like performing an abortion and giving a woman an aspirin, and saying only half of what you do is abortion.

Such cracked reasoning could be used to obscure the purpose of any organization.

The sponsors of the New York City Marathon could count each small cup of water they hand out (some 2 million cups, compared with 45,000 runners) and say they are mainly in the hydration business.

Or Major League Baseball teams could say that they sell about 20 million hot dogs and play 2,430 games in a season, so baseball is only .012 percent of what they do.

Supporters of Planned Parenthood want to use its health services as leverage to preserve its abortions, as if you can’t get one without the other.

Of course, this is nonsense.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides free or low-cost breast and cervical cancer screenings — without aborting babies. State health departments provide free cancer screenings — without aborting babies. Community health centers provide a range of medical services — without aborting babies.

These organizations are genuinely committed to women’s health, with no ideological commitment to abortion.

Planned Parenthood’s twisted conception of “reproductive health” doesn’t extend to the baby that has been reproduced. All you need to know about its priorities is that it only provides 19,000 “prenatal services,” which means that it performs roughly 17 times more abortions.

Via: New York Post

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