by Jeffrey Walton, the IRD @JeffreyHWalton
Evangelical Left figures have begun responding to an unfolding scandal involving Planned Parenthood and the alleged sale of organs from aborted children for profit. The authors and columnists join officials from the Southern Baptist Convention, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others in expressing concern about the allegations.
Controversy erupted last week when an anti-abortion organization, the California-based Center for Medical Progress (CMP), released an undercover video showing Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) Senior Director of Medical Services Dr. Deborah Nucatola discussing the sale of organs from aborted fetuses. A second video released this week shows Dr. Mary Gatter, president of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors’ Council, negotiating payment for the sale of baby body parts. Both videos have gone viral, with over 2.5 million views of the first, and the hashtag #DefundPP trending on Twitter. CMP has indicated that the videos are merely the first of a series of recorded conversations exposing alleged wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood and its affiliates.
“We confess to being at a complete loss of what to say in the face of humanity’s brokenness,” wrote Sojourners President Jim Wallis and Sojourners Web Editor Sandi Villarreal July 23 on the web site of the progressive Christian magazine. “Beyond the ethical questions of how an organization receives payment for tissue or the debates around the potential benefits of the patients’ donations of fetal tissue, the videos are an in-your-face reminder of our culture’s blatant disrespect for life.”
Donation of fetal tissue is permitted under U.S. law with the express permission of the mother, but not for profit. Nine states and the U.S. House of Representatives Committees on Energy and Commerce and the Judiciary have launched investigations to determine if officials with Planned Parenthood broke the law. Planned Parenthood receives over $500 million a year in support from federal, state and local governments. The organization’s total annual revenue is $1.3 billion.
The column by Wallis and Villarreal follows a July 22 article by Jonathan Merritt, in which the Religion News Service columnist takes the New York Times editorial board to task for leaving the issue unaddressed for a week and then defending the abortion provider.
“We have enough information—and not just in these two videos—to conclude that Planned Parenthood is neither worthy of the public’s trust nor many of the millions our government grants them each year,” Merritt writes. “American tax dollars should be spent in the most ethical way possible, and we must reject the false notion that Planned Parenthood is the only option for providing the reproductive services to women.”
Fellow RNS columnist and Christian Ethicist David Gushee noted on July 22 that “The video seems pretty disastrous for her [Nucatola] and for Planned Parenthood” but observed that the alleged wrongdoing did not occur in a vacuum.
“People who help women end their unwanted pregnancies believe in the moral rightness of the work, so they get used to the less savory part of it. And then the products of their procedures turn out to have value to others. That value must be preserved. And we can talk about it over lunch,” Gushee interprets of the cavalier tone of conversation in the video. “Yucky. But we created the beast itself. We chose to create a society in which the trade-off between our sexual practices and fetal life is won by our sexual practices.”
The Mercer University professor does not address efforts to end government funding for Planned Parenthood, instead criticizing Republicans, asking “For all your pro-life rhetoric, would you really pull the trigger on rolling back abortion access in any serious way? Would you really want to face the political consequences of making abortion largely illegal, in this libertine country?”
According to the New York Times, Republican-led state legislatures have passed over 200 laws restricting abortion since 2011.
Gushee also questions Democrats, asking “Where’s your energy for seriously driving down abortion rates — and being willing to talk about why such a goal would reflect your party’s values of concern for the vulnerable and powerless?”
USA Today Columnist Kirsten Powers also wrote about the unfolding scandal on July 22, pronouncing the content of the videos as “stomach-turning stuff.”
“But the problem here is not one of tone,” Powers charges. “It’s the crushing. It’s the organ harvesting of fetuses that abortion-rights activists want us to believe have no more moral value than a fingernail. It’s the lie that these are not human beings worthy of protection.”
Powers quotes former Obama White House staffer Michael Wear who tweeted, “It should bother us as a society that we have use for aborted human organs, but not the baby that provides them.”
Powers column has been shared nearly 80,000 times on Facebook, and was widely distributed over various other forms of social media.
Read more at: https://juicyecumenism.com/2015/07/24/evangelical-left-begins-responding-to-planned-parenthood-videos/
18 Comments. Leave new
Has our very very humble stated clerk or our round robin moderator made any assinine pronouncements condemning planned parenthood? Just wondering because they have a assinine pronouncement for everything else.
I would not expect any formal comments from the institutional PCUSA. One, they have had a 35 year relationship with PP through the Board of Pensions medical plan as an authorized provider of termination services. Two, any critical comments would go against the grain of a core PCUSA demographic, really the only one that matters, college educated females over 60, whom PP retains almost sacramental qualities in feminist circles.
I do find it ironic while the PCUSA and its sycophants, supports bleed for all things peace, justice, equality, they do so in the full knowledge PCUSA funds go towards the crushing of thoraxes and body cavities for profit. I suppose their extension of their tender grace and mercies stops at the doors of PP. They die as a denomination simply because they embrace and enable the culture of death with their voice and money.
For those who disagree with this assessment I give the the ongoing “Big Tent” happening now. Where out of a reported number of 1.6 million, 600 or so are celebrating all things PCUSA, That’s about 3 days of membership loss that has been going on since 1973 and Row V Wade.
First of all–asinine is spelled as such. Second, and most importantly the videos are doctored and a hoax.
You want to stop abortions? Really, then do sex education and provide birth control—-which is what Planned Parenthood does. I am sure you who think abstinence education actually works can fight over your confusion.
Jim, leave it to you to know how to spell asinine, but then again I went to public schools. With that said, they may have cut parts of the videos, but what these people said is what they said.
I have no problem with birth control or sex ed, but harvesting aborted babies for profit, yeah, I got a REALLY big problem with that!
More than 25 years ago my wife had an ectopic pregnancy. She had to have an abortion or die. We went to Planned Parenthood. In the next ten years we were harassed and intimidated by people who got our license plate number and sent us hate mail, called to intimidate us repeatedly. People showed up at our church with signs to denounce us.
Yeah the pro-life people are just plain terrorists in my mind and in my experience.
Jim, no one had any right to do that to you , given the circumstances you were both in, and I’m sorry to hear that.
At James H
But the fact is the parts aren’t harvested for profit. That is a lie. But even if they were they cure others. Got that cure others and heal.
So to follow the logic of Jim. The utilitarian value of body organs and tissue harvested outweigh the medical, ethical, or profit motive of how they are optioned. The “good” of the many outweigh the needs or intrinsic values of the one or few or weak or unable to speak for themselves. Most interesting.
Under that logic, undocumented immigrants or other marginalized or economically disadvantaged should be abel to sell their kidneys, other tissues in an open exchange or trading floor or marketplace. Which is what PP is in essence. Or havested without their consent. The reason why PP is in such business. Terminated fetuses being unable to speak for themselves lose their value or worth as entities of God’s care and compassion? Maybe Heaven is not for real? Most interesting indeed.
Abortion both as a procedure and symbol has been debated for 40 years and will not be solved on this website. It should be noted that the process of coronary bypass was first attempted in the camps by German physicians in the 1940s, though I doubt very much the first subjects or tests were so willing to see the long teem value of their sacrifice.
As to Jim. My wife too suffered an entropic resulting in a total hysterectomy, ovary removals, and 7 blood transfusions. A medical procedure done in the context of a licensed hospital under established clinical protocols. A procedure legal in 1983, legal in 1963, legal in 1943. Row v Wade has no effect on the practice. As painful and regrettable as your experience, it has no bearing on the subject of abortion or the current matter with PP.
Your story sounds so wierd, it probably didn’t happen. Are you a planned parenthood troll? Judging from your knee jerk posts, it appears you are.
The honorable people who took the video (yes, it really happened) are prepared to go to court and Congress to back it up. Deal with it tonight in your prayers.
Just wondering….Did you HAVE to use PP, Jim…..if not why would you instead of real health care facility?
What one arth are you talking about Jim…..the videos were only edited for shortness….you can view the whole thing unedited if you wish. PP doesn’t deny what is in them….why are YOU??? And yes….this was all about making MORE money on the parts…that is “profit” jim. What exactly is wrong with someone so ideologically blinded that even this can be rationalized away?
I am firmly pro-life, but also believe that procedures should be available in situations where a mother’s life is in danger. I don’t know a single person who expects a woman to die from a lethal pregnancy. My sister had a similar pregnancy and was heartbroken to learn that her child contained a chromosomal abnormality that made it incompatible with life and a danger to her own. They had no choice but to terminate as neither mother nor child could survive. They were surrounded by love and compassion from their pro-life family and staunchly pro-life church. I am truly sorry for your loss and for the way you were treated. That said, both my sister’s procedure and my post miscarriage DNC were performed apart from PP. In fact, surgeries have risks and we would never have considered having our operations apart from a fully functioning medical center with emergency facilities. Perhaps you were without insurance, but under ACA insurance is mandated and, in theory, “affordable.” With that in mind Planned Parenthood is no longer necessary, even for mammograms and birth control (which are covered by ACA). In fact, it is a money laundering scheme for politicians that give state funds in exchange for endorsements. If people feel strongly about the work Planned Parenthood does, they are free to give generously and volunteer. But, it is time to take government (taxpayer) money out of PP.
@Common tater—PP is an approved medical facility and cheaper than a hospital And yes it did happen. Ever heard of Randall Terry and Operation Rescue? Ever heard of the harassment of people who go to PP? Ever hear of the harassment of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lincoln, Nebraska in the 1990’s? It is the ugly side of the “pro-life” folk.
It is well documented. And to all of you PP is not selling body parts. The videos were edited.
Sounds like you are intimately familiar, or involved, with Planned Parenthood, resorting to isolated irrelevant extremes to strengthen your rant. You should have included ‘racist’ or ‘hateful’ to your argument for better impact. PS; hope you got a certificate or some other ‘token’ from PP for your steadfast loyalty. See you at Congressional Hearings later this year cool aid drinker.
VERY well put, Observer. Thank you.
Get a clue from the nature of the defense for PP. It’s fanatical, hysterical, and pointedly deceptive. We’ve experienced it before in the modern age. But please, never become complacent or jaded in dealing with it. There’s an implacable side to industrial scale killing of the pre-born, and to fight this will require intellectual and spiritual rigor. Don’t blink.
I think that, by focusing on exceptional and difficult to judge cases, we may be loosing sight of the thousands of unnecessary abortions and selling of baby body parts that is going on and an abomination to God.