Hanging by a Limb

[woodchip]

As a aside, the group calling itself Planned Parenthood seems to be a false label as they seem to be in the business of abortion and selling of baby parts. With the big war on women ruckus last years I thought the focus of Planned Parenthood would be contraceptives. And if birth control is relatively cheap, why all the abortions? In New York City there are more black babies being aborted than being born. In another thread slick laments the killings by guns. Yet here I hear no protestation about the number of human beings being killed in the abortionist's office. Perhaps here-in lies the problem, if we view fetus's as disposable, why should we not view people in general as disposable?

[woodchip]

As a aside, the group calling itself Planned Parenthood seems to be a false label as they seem to be in the business of abortion and selling of baby parts. With the big war on women ruckus last years I thought the focus of Planned Parenthood would be contraceptives. And if birth control is relatively cheap, why all the abortions? In New York City there are more black babies being aborted than being born. In another thread slick laments the killings by guns. Yet here I hear no protestation about the number of human beings being killed in the abortionist's office. Perhaps here-in lies the problem, if we view fetus's as disposable, why should we not view people in general as disposable?

[woodchip]

As a aside, the group calling itself Planned Parenthood seems to be a false label as they seem to be in the business of abortion and selling of baby parts. With the big war on women ruckus last years I thought the focus of Planned Parenthood would be contraceptives. And if birth control is relatively cheap, why all the abortions? In New York City there are more black babies being aborted than being born. In another thread slick laments the killings by guns. Yet here I hear no protestation about the number of human beings being killed in the abortionist's office. Perhaps here-in lies the problem, if we view fetus's as disposable, why should we not view people in general as disposable?

[callmeslick]

well, one of those two posts was disposable. That much I can tell you.

[callmeslick]

I'm confused as to why there was so much discussion of having to be careful not to crush things if they're not "body parts". If it has enough structure that you have to be careful not to smoosh it, "tissue sample" seems like an awfully antiseptic term to use to describe what it actually is.

I'm also confused as to how a trained biologist can continually refer to an 8-9 week fetus as though it doesn't have organs. Yes, it's only an inch long, and not every piece of it is fully formed -- but it has a regular heartbeat (implying a heart), eyes and partially-formed eyelids, and every major organ is partially formed and differentiated from the other major organs. We're not talking about an undifferentiated mass of cells (people like to misleadingly point to images resembling the right side of page 6 at http://time.com/3876085/drama-of-life-b ... des-later/ ) but rather something with both visually-distinct human-looking features (as on page 5 and the left side of page 6), and cells which have differentiated and partially formed every major key structure that's present in an adult body.

The "just a tissue sample" response comes across to me much like a "welfare leeches" comment -- insultingly dehumanizing. The rest of the "tissue donor" is now dead, and we're glossing over it like it's totally cool as long as the pieces of it being sold off are small and indistinct enough!

not one organ system is functional, sorry. This bit about 'distinctly human looking' and such is a distraction, at best. The fetus is still a completely maternally dependant organism. As for the rest, without some experience in what is being done when developmental tissue is extracted, I am not going to be able to explain why I don't call tissue samples 'body parts'

[callmeslick]

Woody, I don't know how PP works out your way, but around here, they provide free gyn services, birth control services and other screening services that poor women cannot readily afford. Abortion is something they do like 1 day per week in an office that is open 6 days per week.

[vision]

I got my vasectomy through Planned Parenthood. They did a spectacular job and it was so cheap that it was almost free. I've also used them for periodic STD testing with equally good experiences. In fact, I don't know a single person to have a bad experience with them. I think it's fantastic that they offer fetal cultures for research, especially since abortions are essentially bio-waste. How many people do you know personally who have had a funeral for an abortion? In fact, this news story makes me want to donate to Planned Parenthood. Thanks!

[Ferno]

This shouldn't come as a suprise to people familiar with this kind of.... tactic.

Anti-vaxxers are orchestrating it

[callmeslick]

I gave them a grand. Good to see I wasn't alone:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pla ... n=politics

[callmeslick]

oh, and as I stated:

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/unspin ... ood-video/

[Ferno]

One place I like to look at regularly is rationalwiki.org.

just sayin'.

[woodchip]

Nice to see congress is going to vote on defunding PP.

[callmeslick]

Nice to see congress is going to vote on defunding PP.

they can vote until they turn blue, they won't be able to overturn a veto.

[Foil]

[mod] Cleaned up this thread - slick, woody, keep it professional.[/mod]

--------

Back on topic:

I'm not fond of the conspiracy-theory video tactics that have triggered this national debate, and I really despise all the semantic arguments, "they're not 'body parts'!" "yes, they are!" (asserting this kind of distinction and debating the semantics only serves to detract from the issues at stake).

With that said, I'm actually happy to see that this ugly debate is turning the focus of the dialogue back toward the core issue: The humanity of embryos and fetuses.

[callmeslick]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/07/31 ... ing/204705

what? It was all just lies and BS? Who would have guessed......?

[woodchip]

One state down, 49 more to go. Funny how some left leaning judge has now banned more of these vids from coming out. What do you suppose they are trying so desperately to hide.

[callmeslick]

One state down, 49 more to go. Funny how some left leaning judge has now banned more of these vids from coming out. What do you suppose they are trying so desperately to hide.

probably trying to cut down on the inevitable slander lawsuits.

[callmeslick]

by the way, if Indiana found nothing to pursue, in a state that is anti-abortion, with the investigation triggered by a governor who has tried to close down PP in the past, it says a LOT more than a simple-minded, "1 down and 49 to go". More like 'game over, BS exposed'.

[woodchip]

one out of 50 does not mean the whole scummy outfit is clean. too bad some people think human remains can be treated as a renewable resource when permission is not granted. Wow, I just had a brain storm. ISIS could contact PP and tell them they have a whole lot of body parts that PP could sell for them. Since a lot of the parts are from Christians, no one will mind.

[Ferno]

Don't take the bait, slick.

[Lothar]

"It has been the honor and distinction of the liberal-progressive movement to champion the rights of the weak against the strong. From racial minorities, to women, to children, to immigrants, to LGBTQ, liberals and progressives have sought to broaden our understanding of who is fully human. It is but a small leap of immagination to extend the circle of protection to unborn children. The horrifying thing about the PP videos is not the allegation that the organization may have profited from the abortion trade but the callousness with which those working for PP approach their work. The videos are changing the way we think about abortion. We can no longer say, "We didn't know."" - Brent Orrell (former head of doleta.gov)

That's what I've been struck by too. I don't care if what PP did in these videos is illegal; they might very well be "cleared of wrongdoing" from a legal standpoint. I don't care if these videos have been "selectively edited" to leave out a lot of other content. What I care about is that we're talking about methods and practices designed to avoid crushing the organs of very small humans, which makes it much harder to say things like "blob of tissue". Far from "distinctly human looking" being a "distraction, at best", we're now at a point where people are recognizing "blob of tissue ... no organs" is the true distraction, misleading at best and an outright lie at worst. And that brings us back to the truly important question, which Foil also pointed out, of the humanity of embryos and fetuses.

[Spidey]

Yea, but what you fail to realize is…they always have the next argument lined up, so even if you were to determine that the unborn are in fact human, the next argument in line would be used…”It’s not a person”.

Etc...

[Foil]

[mod]

The recent back-and-forth pot-shots have been moved to No Holds Barred:

http://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=22279

[/mod]

[vision]

What I care about is that we're talking about methods and practices designed to avoid crushing the organs of very small humans, which makes it much harder to say things like "blob of tissue".

How about bio-waste? Because that's what it is, as hard as that is for ultra-sensitive types to swallow. Dead bodies no one is having a funeral for. Why not create a similar outcry for medical cadavers? Not cute enough?

[woodchip]

What I care about is that we're talking about methods and practices designed to avoid crushing the organs of very small humans, which makes it much harder to say things like "blob of tissue".

How about bio-waste? Because that's what it is, as hard as that is for ultra-sensitive types to swallow. Dead bodies no one is having a funeral for. Why not create a similar outcry for medical cadavers? Not cute enough?

I understand the Nazis didn't have funeral services for the Jews they "aborted". I guess we should go and release the the death camp guards as they didn't really do anything wrong.