KudzuRunner wrote:
I think it's possible to be a long-term friend of Planned Parenthood, somebody who knows they've done a lot of good work on behalf of working-class women in need of birth control, and still be shocked and revolted by the three videos in question--not because they're manipulative or edited in a way that lies, but because they show us some of what is going on behind the scenes. This is where I find myself.
I don't actually think the distinction between harvesting aborted fetus parts for profit and harvesting aborted fetus parts for research is particularly important. What is excruciating it the cold, almost flippant--actually, WARM and collegially flippant way in which the PP doctors and other interviewed PP workers talk about those body parts. The videos open the door into what might be called the culture of abortion from the provider-side. Every subculture has insider ways of talking. The sociologist Irving Goffman talked about "front of the house" language and "backstage" language. The videos show us the backstage language. And it's chilling, nauseating, disgusting. Nobody forced the doctor in the first video to sip white wine and nibble on salad as she talked about harvesting fetal tissue. She assumed she was safely ensconced among fellow professionals. I'm sure that orthopedic surgeons discussing their workdays would talk in much the same swaggering, instrumental way.
What was sickening and jarring here was the discrepency--the inevitable discrepancy--between the way that PP workers couch abortion in somewhat detached language when speaking to clients and the general public and, on the other hand, the casual, in-group way they spoke about those same procedures in these videos.
Speaking as a (chastened, skeptical, but longterm) progressive, I applaud the organization that blew this open--just as I applaud the undercover investigators on the left who bring cameras into factories where pigs are shocked, slugged over the head, etc., and where steaks are harvested from cows. In both cases, the reality principle explodes into the midst of carefully pruned rhetoric and reveals serious problems in need of reform.
I remain a friend of Planned Parenthood. They've done a lot of good work for women over the years. But this is truly disgusting, and a big cleanup--and shakeup--is needed.