Back in 1983, there was also a debate about Planned Parenthood. The issue at the time was parental notification for contraceptive services. Here's how Ronald Reagan addressed the issue, speaking to a convention of Evangelicals in Orlando (pdf):
Let me state the case as briefly and simply as I can. An organization of citizens, sincerely motivated and deeply concerned about the increase in illegitimate births and abortions involving girls well below the age of consent, sometime ago established a nationwide network of clinics to offer help to these girls and, hopefully, alleviate this situation. Now, again, let me say, I do not fault their intent. However, in their well-intentioned effort, these clinics have decided to provide advice and birth control drugs and devices to underage girls without the knowledge of their parents.
While I disagree with the position Reagan ultimately took in this speech--and especially his attacks on "modern-day secularism", and his support for a religious basis for US laws--what I wanted to highlight is the way he describes, in the above paragraph, those with whom he disagrees. Note that he doesn't see the need to malign their motives, or to grossly distort the basic facts of what it is they are doing.
Instead, he sees Planned Parenthood as a "sincerely motivated and deeply concerned" "organization of citizens" who are making a "well-intentioned effort" "to offer help". Compare that to the language we see from some of the current leading Republican candidates.
Chris Christie:
Let’s ask Hillary Clinton. She believes in the systematic murder of children in the womb to preserve their body parts…
Ben Carson:
Well, maybe I’m not objective when it comes to Planned Parenthood. But you know, I know who Margaret Sanger is, and I know that she believed in eugenics, and that she was not particularly enamored with black people. And one of the reasons that you find most of their clinics in black neighborhoods is so that you can find way to control that population. And I think people should go back and read about Margaret Sanger, who founded this place — a woman who Hillary Clinton by the way says she admires. Look and see what many people in Nazi Germany thought about her
Jeb Bush:
I for one don’t think that they should, that Planned Parenthood ought to get a penny, though. And that’s the difference. Because they’re not actually doing women’s health issues. They’re involved in something way different than that.
Carly Fiorina:
Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it’s heart beating, it’s legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.
Marco Rubio:
Now what you've done is you've created an industry—now what you've done is you've created an incentive for people to be pushed into abortions so that those tissues can be harvested and sold for a profit
Ted Cruz:
These Planned Parenthood videos are horrifying. I would encourage every American to watch the videos. See — seeing your Planned Parenthood officials callously, heartlessly bartering and selling the body parts of human beings, and then ask yourself, “are these my values?”
These are horrifying. On these videos, Planned Parenthood also essentially confesses to multiple felonies. It is a felony with ten years’ jail term to sell the body parts of unborn children for profit. That’s what these videos show Planned Parenthood doing.
Mike Huckabee:
Terrorists cut people’s heads off and that’s what they do in the Planned Parenthood clinics. Civilized people don’t hack other people to death and then sell the parts because there’s money to be made.”
Rand Paul:
I’m guessing when this consent is being obtained that no one is telling them, ‘We’re going to harvest your baby’s organs'.
Those are quotes from 8 of the 9 top candidates in the Republican field right now, every candidate polling greater than 2% in the
latest polls, save Donald Trump. And every one of them
flat out lies about what Planned Parenthood actually does, and then also
assumes nefarious motives (some more outrageously and explicitly than others).
And this when talking about an organization which the majority of voters support. These candidates aren't only insulting Planned Parenthood, they are insulting us. If one of these candidates is the Republican nominee, will it even be possible for the nation to have a civil, respectful, debate on these issues?
The most reasonable Republican candidate on this (of the top 10 anyway) has actually been Trump:
Let's say there is two Planned Parenthoods in a way. You have it as an abortion clinic. Now that's actually a fairly small part of what they do, but it's a brutal part and I'm totally against it and I wouldn't do that. They also however service women. We have to help women. We have to look at the positives, also, for Planned Parenthood.
Maybe unless they stop with the abortions, we don’t do the funding for the stuff that we want. There are many ways you can do that, because I'm totally against the abortion aspect at Planned Parenthood, but I've had many women, I've had many Republican conservative women come up and say Planned Parenthood serves a good function other than that one aspect.
I disagree with Trump on abortion, and on funding for Planned Parenthood, but at least he acknowledges that abortion is only a small part of what Planned Parenthood does, and he's not comparing them to terrorists, nazis, and murderers, or telling outrageous lies about them selling baby parts for profit.
All of these candidates are potentially dangerous, in some degree, to the fundamental reproductive rights of women. But this goes beyond that. This really demonstrates a party that is a danger right now even to civil democratic discourse.
