Cecile Richards, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion chain, has apparently gained another title: torture victim.
Arthur Caplan
Arthur Caplan (pictured right) seems to think so, anyway. Caplan heads New York University School of Medicine’s medical ethics division, and in a recent Wall Street Journal article, he commented on the series of undercover videos that the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) has released.
Filmed with hidden cameras, they show senior Planned Parenthood officials offering to commit multiple felonies. CMP has released them one by one over a period of weeks, an approach Caplan doesn’t support:
What is bothering me is the leaking of the tapes one at a time. If you’re concerned about what’s going on, you should release all at once. Leaking them one at a time, that’s politics. This type of water torture is to maximize political impact.
Ms. Richards agrees: last week, she quoted part of Caplan’s statement in a tweet.
Now, I can understand why Planned Parenthood’s boss would be upset; the footage is pretty damning. But it’s absurd to compare how these videos have been released to any kind of torture. I’m sure Richards understands that. After all, she must know what examples of real torture look like.
They happen in her clinics all the time.
Medical research suggests that a baby can feel pain by twenty weeks into pregnancy. That’s troubling when you consider how at twenty weeks, an abortion involves getting pulled apart piece by piece.
Well, most people would find it troubling. For staff at Planned Parenthood’s Gulf Coast affiliate, it’s just something to chuckle about, as you can see in the fifth video from CMP.
Filmed at Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast’s abortion facility in Texas, it features two people claiming to be fetal tissue purchasers. At the 9:42 time stamp, one of them asks if there are any “fresh specimens” he can look at.
Staff members laugh and explain that “it’s been a long day,” so the severed body parts are “all mixed up together in a bag.” Still, they manage to find him a twenty week-old child who’d been aborted earlier that day. “It was a twin,” one of them matter-of-factly notes.
This attitude is on display in CMP’s other videos as well. In the first one, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, explains how she can abort a child and still harvest his or her organs:
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.
As you’re reading this, keep in mind that Dr. Nucatola performs abortions at up to twenty four weeks.
Of course, Planned Parenthood doesn’t just torment those in the womb; victims of sexual violence suffer there too. Denise Fairbanks did. She was brought to a Planned Parenthood clinic by her abusive father after he got her pregnant. Fairbanks would later describe in a lawsuit how she explicitly told clinic staff that her father had raped her. Instead of contacting authorities, they responded by performing an abortion and sending her home. With the evidence gone, her father’s abuse continued.
Gary Cross’ thirteen year-old stepdaughter had a similar experience. So did Timothy Smith’s. Adam Gault and John Blanks, Jr. also brought their victims in for coverup abortions. Accused serial rapist Tyler Kost evidently got a hand from Planned Parenthood without even knowing it. One of his alleged victims said that when she went to Planned Parenthood, she was told that reporting her rape would involve too much paperwork. Law enforcement officials have indicated that an investigation could have started months earlier if the report had been filed.
I’m going to take a guess and say that most Americans really aren’t fans of torture. Unfortunately, they’re still subsidizing it. Every year, Planned Parenthood receives over half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding. While pro-lifer senators tried to change that this month, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and all but two Senate Democrats stood in the way. Further, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has promised that any move to defund Planned Parenthood “would draw a presidential veto.”
Live Action has created a petition asking Congress to end the relationship with Planned Parenthood. It’s available here, along with additional proof of the group’s wrongdoing. Because like Cecile Richards, Americans know what torture looks like.
They also know that they shouldn’t be paying for it.
