Live Action Puts Out Another Titillating but Misleading Video About Planned Parenthood
Source: SLATE
The conservative media is a-flutter thinking they have a "gotcha" against Planned Parenthood: a video supposedly exposing the organization for "selling" fetal body parts, which is against the law. The video, created by a group called the Center for Medical Progress but distributed and promoted by Live Action, shows Planned Parenthood's senior director of medical services Deborah Nucatola at a lunch meeting with people who apparently pretended to be medical research organizers seeking donated fetal tissue. But of course, Nucatola's actually dining with conservative operatives running one of the many "stings" that Live Action is built on promoting. (The organization has also attempted to scare people about Planned Parenthood's acceptance of patients who practice BDSM and to portray sex-selective abortion as common when it is not.) But this isn't evidence of wrongdoing. It's another masterful piece of propaganda.
The video purports to reveal that Planned Parenthood is violating both the ban on a certain late-term abortion procedure called a D&X and the law forbidding the sale of fetal tissue. But there is no evidence from the video of either claim. Nucatola correctly points out that the "partial birth" abortion ban is confusing, which makes sense as it was written by anti-choice ideologues and not by people who understand medical science, making it open to interpretation. She does not say she violates it.
Nucatola also does not agree to sell fetal tissue. Eric Ferrero, the VP of communications for Planned Parenthood, clarifies this in a statement. "At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does—with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards." He notes that there is "no financial benefit for tissue donation." The prices that Nucatola cites, after being pressed to come up with a number in the video, likely refer to the "cost to transport tissue to leading research centers."
Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/07/14/lila_rose_and_live_action_have_another_planned_parenthood_sting_yet_again.html
ReTrumplicans are pouncing on BS to whip up the base into a frenzy:
http://www.newsweek.com/after-video-accuses-planned-parenthood-selling-body-parts-bobby-jindal-353828
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/07/perry-touts-defunding-of-planned-parenthood-after-undercover-video-surfaces.html/
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