Planned Parenthood is in the hot seat, again, over yet
another bogus scandal manufactured by extreme anti-abortion groups with the probable collusion of Republican leadership which has been trying to find a way to reignite the abortion debate.
This paragraph from Politico says it all:
Republicans have sought to use the videos to revive the debate over abortion, which has been largely dormant since former Rep. Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comments derailed his 2012 bid for a Senate seat. House leaders last week called for investigations of the group's practices, questioning whether they were following federal law on so-called partial-birth abortions and whether they were profiting off of fetal tissue.
House leadership is planning investigations. Sen. Rand Paul will push for defunding Planned Parenthood in an amendment to the highway bill. Gee, how convenient for them that these videos surfaced just as the 2016 primaries start to heat up. But if anyone thinks this is a coincidence, they haven't been paying attention. RH Reality Check
compiles the evidence, including the undisputed fact that Republican House leaders saw the video at least a month before it was publicly released and did nothing but wait until its release, then jump on the investigation bandwagon. As RH Reality Check points out, it's not unusual for advocacy groups to work with and brief members of Congress and their staff.
What is happening here is profoundly different. GOP legislators and presidential wannabes appear to be coordinating attacks on Planned Parenthood with a group that may have violated numerous federal and state laws, including using secret videotaping (which is illegal in the State of California, where the taping took place) to surreptitiously record Dr. Deborah Nucatola, and now Dr. Mary Gatter, later dramatically altering both videos to make it seem as though they were saying things they never had. […]
The most frightening aspect of all of this, however, is the degree to which deeply radical anti-choicers have infiltrated a major political party. These are literally domestic terrorists. As our infographic shows, the Center for Medical Progress has some notable friends and supporters, including Troy Newman, head of Operation Rescue and defender of "justifiable homicide" for those seeking to kill abortion providers. Then there is Cheryl Sullenger, whose name and phone number were found on the dashboard of Scott Roeder, the man who assassinated Dr. George Tiller in the vestibule of his church on a Sunday five years ago. Or Jill Stanek, who prominently posted the names and addresses of abortion providers so that lunatics hell-bent on stalking or harming them could more easily find them. These groups work closely and hand-in-hand with members of Congress who support their cause and look the other way as domestic terrorists stalk and kill providers, as women go without health care, and as the rights of all people to bodily autonomy are eroded. They stalk, harass, and threaten doctors, nurses, clinical staff, and patients in their daily work.
Instead of investigating Planned Parenthood, Congress should be pushing for a federal investigation into how the front group here, the Center for
American Medical Progress,
filed false information with the IRS to get a tax exemption by posing as a hospital or a biotech/bioengineering nonprofit. It would also be worth checking into any federal law breaking in this video "sting" operation.
If there's good news in this, it's that the traditional media is too preoccupied by Donald Trump to be spending much time on this story. That's also the bad news, though, on two counts. One, it'll make Ted Cruz and Rand Paul go nuts in falling over each other to defund Planned Parenthood and get some coverage. But it also means that few outlets are taking the time to fully debunk the videos and to expose who is behind it. A welcome exception is the New York Times, which published this editorial correctly pointing out that this is just more Republican lawmakers attempting to "undermine women’s reproductive rights any way they can."
