To The Source asked me to give my impressions of the Planned Parenthood “fetal parts for sale” imbroglio. I was happy to oblige.
Sadly, I am not surprised that the scandal–and that’s what it is–has been forcibly erased by the media from the public’s consciousness. From, “Erasing the Truth About Planned Parenthood:”
When videos were released of Planned Parenthood executives apparently admitting that fetuses are harvested for their body parts for pay after abortions, many pro-lifers were hopeful that—at last—a tipping point had been reached that would discredit the organization responsible for more than 300,000 feticides in the United States each year.
Dream on. As I wrote elsewhere at the time, a nation that embraced Jack Kevorkian as a “compassionate” crusader—even though his stated goal was to conduct experiments on living people he was euthanizing—and that also supported the cruel intentional dehydration death of Terri Schiavo at the orders of her husband—living at the time with his “fiancé” by whom he had sired two children—was unlikely to remain upset for long by the utilitarian use of fetal parts obtained in an abortion.
The Planned Parenthood controversy is about more than selling fetal parts:
Planned Parenthood is more than an abortion provider and dispenser of contraception. Its more potent role is as a vivid cultural symbol—to both supporters and detractors of the ongoing cultural contest between what is often called traditional morality around sexuality and the sanctity of human life and modern mores that extol abortion as essential to ensuring women’s equality.
The mainstream media is adamantly on the side of the modernists. Thus, it didn’t take long for newspapers like the New York Times and television journalists to claim—without factual substantiation—that the videos released by the Center for Medical Progress had been edited to create a false impression and were, thus, “discredited.”
I was, however, surprised that liberal law enforcement politicians used their police powers to attack David Daleiden, charging him with felonies in Texas and raiding his home to seize his computers and videos in California.
This is a major escalation in the “culture wars,” by which policy disagreements are being transformed into indictable offenses. I conclude:
A strong message has been sent that not only is Planned Parenthood potentially above the law, but that concerted efforts to discredit the organization will be met with criminal charges or investigations against those seeking to undermine the organization. A Congressional hearing here and there can’t do much to counter those hurricane winds. That chill in the air doesn’t have anything to do with the weather.
This same tactic is being deployed against global warming skeptics. The Jacobins are loose and they take no prisoners.