Over the summer, a series of videos ascertained by the Center for Medical Progress documented questionable abortion practices at multiple Planned Parenthood facilities across the country. Is this revelation proof that Planned Parenthood should be stripped of its ability to offer abortions, or is this just an obverblown and partisan story? 

Planned Parenthood should be defunded

Mark Parent
Opinions Editor

The issue of ridding Planned Parenthood of its funding for abortion has been plagued by misinformation and misdirection by blinded pro-choice activists.

These activists have tried to tell the public that any opposition to Planned Parenthood is unfounded, exaggerated and unfair.

Of course, these tactics are meant to mislead voters; in fact, the most common approach is to spread information about the plethora of wonderful women’s health services Planned Parenthood provides to women of limited financial means.

The common theme of all of these tactics, however, is that they never deal with abortion.

Now, I understand that abortion represents roughly 3 percent of the total services Planned Parenthood conducts. But, again, this is a simple misdirection. As the New York Post reported this past August, Planned Parenthood performs over 330,000 abortions per year, which accounts for about 30 percent of all abortions nationwide, or 1 abortion every 90 seconds.

And on top of that, Planned Parenthood provides only 19,000 prenatal services, roughly 17 times less than the amount of abortions conducted. So, it’s very clear that Planned Parenthood prioritizes and provides abortion on an epic scale, and should be, to some extent, defined by that practice.

With that being said, it’s important to thoughtfully and accurately examine the videos acquired by the Center for Medical Progress.

In the interest of objectivity, it must be noted that the Center for Medical Progress is a pro-life group. Yet, its political status should not be used as an argument against the content of the videos; after all, the videos are published in their full-length on its website, and the Planned Parenthood officials on tape were not coerced; instead, they were speaking freely to potential patients.

Now, what exactly did the tapes reveal about Planned Parenthood?

For starters, they showed the willingness of the organization’s officials to barter the price of fetal body parts. At first glance, this shouldn’t seem like a big deal; after all, Planned Parenthood is able to sell fetal tissue to research organizations.

But, that’s not what Planned Parenthood is really doing. You see, in order to maximize donations for these organs, Planned Parenthood is tailoring their abortion methods to keep valuable organs intact. So, when a Planned Parenthood doctor casually sipped wine and said, “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part; I’m gonna basically crush below; I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact,” it becomes increasingly apparent where her real motivations lie.

Now that it’s obvious to anyone and everyone that Planned Parenthood receives monetary donations for the organs they donate, and since an intact organ is worth a larger sum than a damaged one, the revelation that abortions are being altered in order to maximize that profit margin is deeply disturbing.

Then again, what’s the big deal about altering the methods of an abortion to keep the fetus’ organs in top condition?

Well, first of all, it’s blatantly illegal. According to the 1993 National Institute of Health Revitalization Act, passed by Democrats in each house of Congress and the White House, fetal tissue can only be harvested if “no alteration of the timing, method or procedures used to terminate the pregnancy was made solely for the purposes of obtaining the tissue.”

So, it’s pretty clear that Planned Parenthood is breaking the law in this respect.

Of course, that’s not the whole story. The reason why there is a federal law against such a practice is that it protects women. That’s right: Planned Parenthood doesn’t always act in the interest of women’s health.

Dr. Alto Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin explains, “The reason why the [abortion] procedure should not be altered solely to obtain tissue is that the procedure is being done for the benefit of the woman, and she deserves to get the medical standard of care.” She later added, “[Women] should not be put at added risk simply to obtain tissue.”

This added risk, however, is precisely what Planned Parenthood admitted to doing in multiple videos obtained by the Center for Medical Progress. So, I think it’s safe to say that Planned Parenthood isn’t really a great champion of women.

But to the activists on campus, this point doesn’t matter. All that matters to them is that a woman’s sacred right to choose is respected regardless of the cost. In their eyes, it doesn’t matter that Roe v. Wade was decided with a 1970s understanding of biology and a 5-to-4 vote; in fact, there are pro-choice activists on this campus that would even support and defend a woman’s right to a partial-birth abortion, which, ironically, Planned Parenthood has been accused of performing.

Obviously, partial-birth abortions are barbaric and blatantly disregard the value of human life. But, as usual, activists will continue to defend the practice on some phony grounds of the life not truly being viable.

Then again, I’ve always been dumbfounded by the fact that these same champions of science that disregard any viable life are on the edge of their seats whenever NASA begins looking for life on Mars. After all, to NASA, life on Mars is just a bunch of bacteria. So, isn’t it nice that our society would consider Martian bacteria life but not a 20-week old fetus that can feel pain?

As you can probably tell, I’m being facetious; in my mind, the type of logic demonstrated above has no place in our society and is an intellectual travesty.

It is for these many reasons that Planned Parenthood should be stripped of its ability to perform abortions. And, in the unlikely case of Planned Parenthood being stripped of all of its funding, there are plenty of state and federal health clinics that could easily provide all of the women’s health services currently employed by Planned Parenthood.

This is not an easy issue, nor is it an impossible one. But, out of respect and decency, the least our society can do is put an end to the intolerable practices of Planned Parenthood and begin cherishing life, not destroying it.

Planned Parenthood plays a valuable role in society

Ailey O’Toole
  Staff Writer

On July 14, 2015, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a right-wing, California-based, anti-abortion group, released the first tape in a series of secretly recorded videos that allegedly showed Planned Parenthood director Dr. Deborah Nucatola discussing how she facilitated the illegal sale of aborted fetuses for profit. At this point in time, 10 videos have been released. The republican-dominated House of Congress used these videos as evidence in their decision to freeze federal funding for Planned Parenthood for one year.

However, it has now been proven that the videos released by the CMP are heavily edited. A transcription service was hired to transcribe the videos and then compare those transcripts with supposed transcripts of the original videos released by the CMP. A careful analysis of both the videos and the two transcripts, performed by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research and corporate intelligence company, and its co-founder Glenn Simpson, a former investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal, showed that the anti-abortion group’s videos contained “substantive omissions.”

Fusion GPS’s official statement on the matter was, “A thorough review of these videos in consultation with qualified experts found that they do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict.” Glenn Simpson also added, “The short videos take a great deal of dialog out of context so as to substantively and significantly alter the meaning of the dialog contained in the long videos.”

The full, unedited video that Republicans cite as evidence for their decision shows a Planned Parenthood executive repeatedly explaining that clinics just wanted to cover their costs, not make money, when they donated fetal tissue from abortions for scientific evidence.

On top of that, four experts in the field of human tissue procurement told the Annenberg Policy Center that the price range for fetal body parts discussed in the video — $30 to $100 per patient — is an accurate representation of a reasonable fee. “There’s no way there’s a profit at that price,” said Sherilyn J. Sawyer, the director of Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s “biorepository.”

Suffice it to say that these videos do not constitute significant enough evidence to defund such an important institution as Planned Parenthood.

Even if Planned Parenthood was selling aborted fetus body parts for profit, I would argue that the organization still should not be defunded. StemExpress, one of the companies allegedly buying aborted fetuses from Planned Parenthood, explained that they obtain human tissue and blood that would otherwise be disposed of and sell those samples to companies that use them to perform stem cell research to find cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, cancer and many more. If you are not opposed to mothers donating their placentas to scientific research after giving birth, why would you be against aborted fetuses being used for the same cause?

I think the main flaw in the public’s image of Planned Parenthood is that they believe Planned Parenthood’s only health service is abortions, when in fact, only three percent of all of Planned Parenthood’s offered procedures are abortions. Planned Parenthood does cancer screenings; it helps to provide family planning and contraceptive advice; it works to provide some of the most difficult kinds of counseling, like for rape victims or those struggling with body image disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia.

The majority of the health care services that Planned Parenthood offers is primary care that helps to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduces the spread of sexually transmitted infections and screening for cervical and other cancers. Defunding Planned Parenthood would prevent more than 5 million men, women and adolescents from receiving these services.

Planned Parenthood helps prevent approximately 516,000 unintended pregnancies each year; they provide nearly 400,000 Pap tests and 500,000 breast exams every year as well, which are critical services in the early detection of cancer.

The organization gives nearly 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including 700,00 HIV tests, and Planned Parenthood affiliates provide educational programs and outreach to 1.5 million young people and adults each year.

Republicans are obviously not a reliable source of information when it comes to women’s health issues. Even knowing all the services that Planned Parenthood offers and how many people they help, Congress still voted to defund Planned Parenthood. I do not understand how you could support that decision knowing how many people would be left without these health care services.

I am especially disgusted by some of the commentary from the 2016 Grand Old Party presidential candidates regarding this issue and women’s health rights in general.

On Aug. 4, 2015, while speaking about Planned Parenthood and community health centers, Jeb Bush said, “I’m not sure we need a half a billion dollars for women’s health issues.” So what should we spend that money on instead? More guns for the military?

In a conference call on Aug. 25, 2015, Ted Cruz encouraged more than a thousand religious leaders across the country to rally support for an amendment to the federal budget bill to defund Planned Parenthood.

Last time I checked, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prevents religion from affecting government decisions. What happened to separation of church and state?

At a campaign stop in Iowa, Mike Huckabee said he supported Paraguay’s decision to deny access to abortion for a 10-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by her stepfather.

Not only is a pregnancy so dangerous to the life of a 10 year old, but she is forced to carry a child who was conceived out of such an abhorrent act as rape; that trauma will stay with her for the rest of her life every time she looks at her child. And what kind of life will that child have, with their mother being only 10 years old?

Surprisingly, Donald Trump seems to have the most logical view on abortion. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Aug. 16, 2015, Donald Trump said there should be three exceptions to abortion: “rape, incest and if the mother is going to die.”