By now, most of the country has heard about the 'undercover' videos taped by so-called 'pro-life' activists from the Right Wing political organization Center For Medical Progress. The released footage is aimed at smearing, defunding, and shutting down Planned Parenthood. In addition to several videos referred to as 'new lows' by Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, the anti-choice have also hacked the organization's website. The attack campaign is slanderous, insidious, and misleading. I could go on, but instead I'm going to step aside and let blogger Rebecca Watson explain the truth and insanity of the situation. Watson founded Skepchick in 2005, describing it as "an organization dedicated to promoting skepticism and critical thinking among women around the world." You can support more videos like this at patreon.com/rebecca. Here is Watson's original blog transcript followed by a video along similar lines:
Planned Parenthood is in the news a lot these days thanks to a maliciously edited video making it look like they SELL BABY PARTS. It’s weird for those of us with two brain cells to rub together, that this is even a thing. Because first of all, obviously Planned Parenthood doesn’t sell BABY PARTS. Jesus fucking christ, get a hold of yourselves. Baby parts! 3% of all Planned Parenthood’s activities are abortions, and more than 90% of those are in the first trimester when it’s about size of a kidney bean, so they do see some pieces of fetal tissue. Which are just going to be thrown away in the garbage, but which the patient can instead choose to donate to important medical research. HOW DARE THEY! How dare Planned Parenthood allow women to aid in the research and treatment of conditions like H.I.V. and Parkinson’s disease, when instead those women could just be throwing that tissue in the garbage! So yeah, there’s the fact that Planned Parenthood obviously isn’t “selling baby parts.” And then there’s the fact that the group releasing this video are some of the same people who worked for the group Live Action, which is best known for…editing together misleading videos attacking Planned Parenthood. So despite the fact that this is an obviously made up and ridiculous accusation, actual politicians are taking it seriously. If you live in the US, your tax dollars are now going toward Congressional Republicans calling for a formal investigation, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee has announced they’ll launch a probe. A probe for baby parts! Good luck, guys! This all reminds me of a course I took in college on heresy. I remember learning about how multiple times throughout human history, various groups of people have been accused of the very specific act of gathering together and hosting orgies, and then taking the resulting babies from any past orgies and burning them into ashes, which are then formed into cakes, which are then eaten. Usually it’s supposed to be the Jews doing this but plenty of other marginalized groups have been accused as well. And it always baffled me to think that people could really, truly believe that their fellow humans were doing something so obviously stupid and made up. Well, now it’s 2015 and an organization that is mostly responsible for making sure poor women have access to basic medical care including cancer screenings, checkups, and birth control, are accused of convincing women to abort their babies and then tearing them into parts and selling them on the black market. And I realize, that if it helps you achieve your goals — whether they be persecuting people of a different faith or cutting funding for poor women’s health care — it becomes surprisingly easy to believe something unbelievable.
Here is the video:
YouTube Video
Thank you, Rebecca Watson. If you've ever considered supporting Planned Parenthood, this would be a great time to get involved/contribute. To make a secured Planned Parenthood donation visit: Planned Parenthood Federation of America, call 800-798-7092, or mail donations to: Planned Parenthood Federation of America PO Box 97166 Washington DC 20077-7543 Special thanks to 'W' and the Facebook page Being Liberal. Thanks also to Pro-Choice Liberals and Kossack, 'Armd'. #StandWithPP