As we’ve covered?recently, right-wing “pro-lifers” at the Center for Medical Progress produced a disturbing video highlighting the alleged abominable practices abortion service providers engage in with aborted fetuses. As it turns out, the video was a cleverly-edited hoax and the denizens of the Internet (you know who you are) were duped by its message.
This crap is ACORN all over again. I suppose it’s fitting the Center for Medical Progress’ “leader,” David Daleiden, is linked to huckster James O’Keefe.
The video allegedly showed Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, discussing black market fetal organ sales over a salad and red wine. But in reality, Dr. Nucatola was discussing donations of fetal organs to biomedical research laboratories that use the organs to help save lives — a perfectly legal, ethically justifiable, and encouraged practice.
Social media’s misdirected outrage with the video stems from misplaced hostility toward the practice of abortion and the service providers who perform the procedure. They view women who abort fetuses similarly to people like Andrea Yates and label the service providers with the same vitriol normally reserved for humanity’s most depraved. This is why moronic “fetal pain laws” exist and why Purvi Patel is serving a 20-year?prison?sentence.
Perhaps instead of using a factually-deficient book, junk science, or a deranged interpretation of social responsibility as grounds for an ideology that prompts Facebook and Twitter users to promote a doctored video with ridiculous fervor, an actual conversation could be had over what constitutes life and the social implications of women choosing to abort pregnancies.
Since I’m being preachy about the topic, I’ll enter into the public record that my stance on abortion is closely tied to my stance on euthanasia. I support both practices.
Much like how a person incapable of living without being hooked to machines can be unhooked at the request of family, a fetus incapable of surviving outside of its mothers uterus, using the same logic, can also be “unhooked.” I do not believe life begins at conception because I do not believe that an organism whose ability to live is solely dependent upon incubation has a life of their own. With this being the case, there is no life — no sentience — to take.
That aside, consider:
- In the event the pregnancy or delivery would likely kill the pregnant woman, is it logical or ethical to force that pregnancy to continue despite the risk?
- In the event the fetus has succumbed to either disfiguring, impairing, or even fatal defects, is it logical or ethical to force that fetus to be born, despite the suffering they would endure?
- In the event the pregnancy is the result of rape, is it logical or ethical to force the pregnant woman to give birth to that child, considering the fetus is a product of her violation and her rapist can petition for custodial rights?
- In the event the pregnant woman?is in no state — mentally, physically, economically, responsibly, etc. — to care for a child, is it logical or ethical to force her to have one?
These are just a few of the questions I have asked myself over the years when coming to my conclusions on the matter of abortion practices. I’ve even considered adoption as an alternative. While I support it as an alternative for those who wish to do so, I still cannot justify it as the sole alternative to parenthood. Is it logical or ethical to force a woman to endure the physical and emotional horrors of pregnancy for an outcome that will see her without child regardless?
Unfortunately, too many people do not consider abortion from an altruistic viewpoint, which is why a doctored video by an anti-abortion group made millions of social media users (they know who they are) look like fools.?The social media reaction is the same kind of population-wide irresponsible bullshit that provides life to other asinine claims, like the moon landing being a hoax, the existence of the Illuminati, or anything Deepak Chopra says.
Abortion service providers are not ghouls itching to displace a fetus for profit. Abortion service providers are not murderers. If I were to use a very specific example, abortion service providers are not deserving of having their heads blown apart by violent, deranged Christian extremists. Abortion service providers are people whose intentions and practices are well-placed and provide broad social welfare.
Planned Parenthood is not the Costco of black market fetal organ sales and abortion service providers are not the El Chapo of fetal organ peddling.
