What Can Be Done? (Free To Believe: The Battle Over Religious Liberty In America - Part 3/3)

Luke Goodrich works for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He's won multiple Supreme Court victories for religious freedom. He has appeared on Fox, CNN, ABC, NPR, and been in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine. He's also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah law school where he teaches constitutional law.

I am summarizing his important and timely book in three installments that match the three sections of his book:

1) What Is Religious Freedom (read it here)
2) What Are The Most Serious Threats (read it here)
3) What Can Be Done? (the subject of this post)

What I blog is a mix of direct quotes and paraphrases from his writing. I will try to note where I am stepping out of the book and offering my own commentary.

What Are The Most Serious Threats? (Free To Believe: The Battle Over Religious Liberty In America - Part 2/3)

Luke Goodrich works for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He's won multiple Supreme Court victories for religious freedom. He has appeared on Fox, CNN, ABC, NPR, and been in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine. He's also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah law school where he teaches constitutional law.

I suspect he will also surprise - and challenge - both liberals and conservatives on the issue of religious freedom. While it's written broadly for people of faith and specifically for Christians, I think it also offers great food for thought for those who are not religious.

I have already begun to blog a review/overview of his book in three installments that will match the three sections of his book:

1) What Is Religious Freedom (read it here)
2) What Are The Most Serious Threats (the subject of this post)
3) What Can Be Done?

What I blog will be a mix of direct quotes and paraphrases from his writing. I will try to note where I am stepping out of the book and offering my own commentary.

* * * * *

THE CULTURAL CREED OF THE UNHOMED

If I’m honest, I’m not sure where I fit in anymore.

When I look around to see who is my political neighbor, I realize I’m in a land triangulated between the liberal Left, conservative Right, and those chaotic Libertarians. I didn’t feel like the 2016 presidential candidates from any of those three parties represented my moral universe adequately enough to get my vote. I cringe at CNN and Fox in equal measure. I increasingly feel that it is important for me not to be beholden to a “side” culturally or politically.

I’m just not the kind of guy who can say, “This party or person, do or die.” 

So I increasingly find myself wandering uneasily in the topography of a world that seems intent on filling in all the Valleys full of Gray Uncertainty and leveling all the Hills of Important Nuance.  

Don’t get me wrong - I like the Plains of Certainty and the Fields of Truth. I just want to acknowledge that those mountains and valleys of Uncertainty and Nuance exist. And I don’t want to climb them with cable news talking heads, youtube faux philosophers, conspiratorial bloggers, tweeting politicians or blindly partisan Christian leaders. 

I want fellow explorers who don’t mind the hard work, who know when and how to pick a philosophical fight full of grace and truth, and who will join me at The Brew afterwards at a table full of the laughter and tears of friends because, in the end, we are determined to love each other well in a world that is broken enough already.  

If we can do that with mutual thoughtfulness and respectfulness, that table might just feel a bit like home no matter what land I inhabit.

Here we go, in no particular order: The Cultural Creed Of The Unhomed.

                                                              * * * * * * * * * *

If We Want To Be Taken Seriously

The list of people I know who are leaving the church or questioning their faith during the past several years is growing. The reason they give is consistent. It's not a growing doubt because of an intellectual struggle; they lose interest in Jesus because they have experienced the people of Jesus, and they begin to think, "If this is what Christian transformation into the image of Jesus looks like, I'm not interested."

Some of it is being around Christians who leave no room to wrestle with questions and doubts. Some of it is being publicly shamed by Christians on social media over standard disagreements that should never have escalated like they did. Some of it involves private confrontations characterized by harsh judgment rather than grace and truth. Some of it is the unequivocal  support by Christians of President Trump, who for them is a deeply confusing champion for evangelicals.

A lot of it is that, actually. President Trump seems to represent for virtually all of them the separation between what they thought Christians were supposed to support and applaud vs. what they apparently do. This is the new tension in the American evangelical church, particularly for those under the age of 30. This is not a mere reflection of my musings; this reflects what I have learned through numerous personal conversations and plenty of surveys.

If you argue that it's not there, you're wrong. If you argue that it's not fair, you may be right. The Trump-supporting evangelicals I know – at least the vast majority of them – are undeserving of most of the vitriol aimed at them. They are about as far from ‘deplorable’ as they can get. They constitute many people in my family, my church family, and my friends who love Jesus and love others, and I wouldn't trade them for the world.

Yet, fair or unfair, the reality is that the public witness of the church in general has suffered a huge blow, and this is a matter that must be considered. There is a confusion in a watching world brought on by the perception of an unflinching embrace of a man whose history and many of his ongoing actions stand in sharp contrast to both the ethics and the people whom Christians have historically supported.

My 2019 Wish List

1. We value life - all life. It starts in the womb, and it continues until death. The question of personhood and humanity looms ever larger as science reveals more and more about the life of the unborn. We must figure out how to exercise justice and mercy at our southern border to those who are born. Speaking of doing better, we can also do this by looking more carefully about the context in which crime flourishes. We value life when we value all of life.

• "Thinking About Illegal Immigration As A Citizen Of Heaven"
• "Why I am Pro-Life"
• "Crime And The Statistics That Clarify (Or Distort) The Issue"

2. We address the causes of the #metoo movement at the core. Specifically, how do we create a culture that trains us from the time we are children on how to honor others sexually? We appear to be doing a terrible job. I suspect the two biggest culprits are families in which honor is not modeled and entertainment that is remarkably crude, shallow and selfish when portraying relationships, sex, and sexuality. Morality, character, integrity. They matter. Oh, and pornography is a monster.

• "When Men Become Monsters"

3. We reject materialism as the standard for the good life. "But the economy is good!" has become my least favorite phrase of 2018, as if having money in my pocket is more important than anything else. I want leaders and policies that model and promote truth, generosity, justice and mercy for all people, even if the achievement of these goals literally costs us something. The United States has plenty of money. We have room, as a nation and as individuals, to exercise what Timothy Keller calls a 'generous justice.' 

4. We give up caustic, abrasive, confrontational public discourse. Obnoxious people and/or mean posts get headlines. It's ruining our ability to have meaningful conversation about just about everything. I would love to see this modeled from the top down, beginning with our president and all other elected leaders in Washington.  If politicians never used Twitter again to make an argument, vent, or explain something, I would consider 2019 a win.

5. The entertainment industry listens to itself and watches itself, and makes the connection: what they celebrate, their audience will do. If you want better people, make better entertainment. Write songs and tell stories that bring out nobility in people. You reap what you sow.

• "It's Not Just Entertainment."
• "Dying To Be Entertained (The Hunger Games And Philosophy)"
• "Worldviews in Entertainment: Starting the Conversation"
• "Are You Not Entertained?"
• "Getting What You Deserve"

6. Christians remember that our kingdom is not of this world. Our citizenship is in heaven. Our allegiance is to Jesus. We do not owe allegiance to Trump, Obama, Clinton or Sanders. The Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian parties are not to be revered. In 2019, may we feel increasingly uneasy in a world that is not our home. May that unease inspire us to holy engagement with everyone and everything around us, and that includes holding said politicians and parties accountable when they contribute to the brokenness of the world.

• "Empires, Shires, And Incense To Ceasar"
• "What This Election Has Revealed About The Church"

7. All of us recommit to the pursuit of truth. Fake news is a problem from the Right and the Left; calling real news 'fake news' just because we don't like it is just as problematic. We need to do our own research: go to primary sources; absorb perspectives from multiple viewpoints; read, watch and listen widely; filter opinion from fact. The truth is there. It's just harder than ever to find it. Do work.

• "All The News That's Fake To Print"

8. The church - which I love - becomes a compelling community of salvation, truth, love, generosity, justice, mercy and hope that truly reflects the character and nature of Jesus.

• "What Makes Me Proud Of The American Church"
• "America's Blessings: How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists" (Rodney Stark)
• "Moving Into The Neighborhood"

The Problem With Planned Parenthood's "Unstoppable" Campaign

Planned Parenthood has a new “Unstoppable” campaign.  In the section for reproductive rights, we read the following: 

“Everyone deserves the freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies... for women to live full, healthy lives and plan their futures...People deserve quality prenatal care, and the ability to give birth in a safe and welcoming environment without fear of preventable causes of maternal death... We should be working towards a world where our bodies are our own, and women are able to access full reproductive care.”

At first glance, those look like pretty good quotes. Is it possible that I am going to find myself - against all odds - in agreement with a Planned Parenthood campaign? Let's take a closer look at these points. 

A Defense of Missouri's Proposed Abortion Restrictions

Considering all the noise about Missouri's attempt to outlaw abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy, I figured it is worth taking the opportunity to look at more closely at how the facts of fetal development argue for more restrictive abortion limits in the interest in protecting unborn human persons.

First, what is that thing inside the womb that it impacted by abortion? Is it a clump of cells or a baby? I will let pro-choice advocates give their explanation of what an abortion does:

• ''In 1970, an editorial in California Medicine noted: “Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices.” 
• Former Planned Parenthood President Dr. Alan Guttmacher was perplexed that anyone would question these basic scientific facts. “This all seems so simple and evident that it is difficult to picture a time when it wasn’t part of the common knowledge,” he wrote in his book Life in the Making. (A. Guttmacher, Life in the Making: The Story of Human Procreation, New York: Viking Press, 1933, p. 3.)
• A Planned Parenthood brochure in 1963 noted, “Abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun.  It is dangerous to your life and health.”
• Faye Wattleton, the longest reigning president Planned Parenthood, told Ms. Magazine: “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.”
• Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL, in an article for the New England Journal of Medicine in 1974: “There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy…”

Note that the issue is not whether or not abortion ends a developing human life. The question is about who gets to make the call about what happens to that growing human life, and why. The Supreme Court has weighed in on that very issue. According to lifenews.com:

"Viability... is an important mark in the abortion debate. In Roe v. Wade and the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the U.S. Supreme Court argued that states do have an interest in protecting an unborn baby’s life once they are viable. Viability at the time was considered to be about 24-26  weeks [22-24 is more commonly cited now]..."  

Paul Barnes, special assistant to the attorney general of Missouri, argues that Missouri's stance is in line with the Supreme Court standard:

"The viability line is constantly moving. When viability is the issue, then the state’s interest trumps the woman’s interest. It’s always moving in favor of the state’s authority, it’s never moving the other direction. The more developed the fetus is, the state’s interest is stronger in protecting unborn life.”

Since I don't think legal necessarily equals moral, I believe there is an important question worth asking: is viability the right line to draw when it comes to the protection of unborn human life? Perhaps a better phrasing: Must human beings be viable in order to be human persons and thus deserving of the moral status that would rightly be accorded to them?

First, there is good reason to think the 'viability' line is a philosophically tenuous position:

Here is the Court's entire argument in Roe v. Wade for using the viability criterion: 'With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb.' 

That's seriously the entire argument... It is, of course, circular reasoning. Viability is important, the Court says, because that's when a child can live outside the womb (the definition of viability). Viability is important, that is, because it is viability.

"[T]he Court's defense seems to mistake a definition for a syllogism," noted the eminent Yale law professor John Hart Ely (who personally supported legalized abortion). Indeed, "scholars from a wide variety of backgrounds have recognized," writes University of Georgia law professor Randy Beck, that "Roe literally provided no argument in favor of treating viability as the controlling line, much less an argument grounded in constitutional principles..."

If we do take this to be an "argument," it is a fallacious one, as Francis J. Beckwith writes: 'For the Court to make its argument valid, it would have to add to its factual premise [the fact of fetal non-viability] the normative premise: whenever a human being cannot live on its own because it uniquely depends on another human being for its physical existence, it is permissible for the second human being to kill the first to rid the second of the burden.'

The Court assumed that premise in both Roe and Casey. The Court has never argued for it.

So the first point is that the Supreme Court is not infallible, and may, in fact, build their rulings on a discouraging lack of reason at times.

Second, there is good reason to think it is a morally problematic position given the nature of the unborn. Perhaps the following walk through the weeks of fetal development during pregnancy will make this second point more clear. I encourage you to watch the videos as you read (they are not 'gotcha' videos about abortion).

Is It Statistically Safer To Have An Abortion Rather Than Give Birth?

Planned Parenthood Black Community recently posted on Twitter: “If you are a black woman in America, it’s statistically safer to have an abortion than to carry a pregnancy to term or give birth #scarystats.“

According to commonly cited stats, all pregnant women are statistically safer having an abortion than giving birth, though the degree of safety falls on a sliding scale. The rate of maternal death in the United States is lowest for white women and highest for black women, with pregnant women of other races or ethnicities landing somewhere in the middle. 

I want to address this question: is it statistically safer for a pregnant woman in the United States to have an abortion than to carry a baby to term or give birth? 

It’s not statistically safer for the unborn baby, of course, who always dies in an abortion. One cannot address the broader moral issue of abortion without addressing the status of the unborn. But, for the sake of this post, I am only going to look at the initial claim involving the mothers. 

My interest in this is not to make an anti-abortion argument, though I am happy to do that and have done so elsewhere. My interest is in the facts swirling around a claim that has life-changing implications for pregnant women.

When Planned Parenthood Fights For the Right To Live - and DREAM

“DACA has helped so many young DREAMers to go to Planned Parenthood abortion centers. We are resolved to fight back against this cruel and heartless decision — and I hope you are, too.

Here at Planned Parenthood, we firmly believe that every person has the right to live, work, and raise a family freely and without the threat of deportation or separation.

We believe in every person’s right to control their own destiny and their own body.

We stand with our allies who are leading this fight and will never stop fighting for this vision. Protecting immigrant families from inhumane attacks, assault, and deportations is critical to making that vision a reality.

- Cecile Richards, President, Planned Parenthood Federation Of America

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Oh, my.

Planned Parenthood clearly does not believe every person has the right to live, work and raise a family. They are responsible for ending the life of unborn babies at the remarkable rate of 887 a day on average (that’s about 320,000 in 2015 in case you were wondering).  Oh, and “79% of their surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of African American or Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods.” So those DREAMers they are helping? They are helping them abort the next generation. Deportation is bad for business, a business that makes at least a third of its income (and perhaps as high as 50%) through inhumane attacks and assaults against unborn human beings (click on the link to see my defense of this definition of a fetus).

Oh, Cecile, you have such moral clarity for the born, and I’m with you on that. I, too, think DACA needs to be reinstituted by the legislative branch. It is a morally good law implemented poorly. Let’s use the just means this time to achieve the same just ends.

But please, please apply your thinking to those who have not had the privilege of being born. They are truly the marginalized, the discarded, the ones being deported not just from this country but from this life. They are the ones being separated from their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Let them live so that they can truly control their own destinies.

I actually agree with your vision (with some clarifications about when deportation is appropriate): "We firmly believe that every person has the right to live, work, and raise a family freely and without the threat of deportation or separation. We believe in every person’s right to control their own destiny and their own body." Cool. Just…don't stop there. Walk it back. Every person's life begins not at birth, but at conception. The biology is incontrovertible. All they did after that moment was grow. 

Let them live.

Let the dream, too.

Reader's Digest's 12th Mind-Blowing Discovery Scientists Made This Year

The latest Reader’s Digest (September 2017) has the click-bait worthy “13 Mind-Blowing Discoveries Scientists Made This Year.” Though I must confess my mind remained relatively calm, the 12th one did catch my eye:

“A tool to repair DNA in embryos. Chinese scientists devised a gene-editing tool that may eliminate certain disease-causing mutations in the DNA of human embryos. It is the first such technology to be used on viable human embryos and could one day help prevent babies from inheriting serious genetic diseases. But it has already raised ethical concerns about the potential to effectively design children – and alter the genetic heritage of humankind.”

I note the following:

• This is the DNA of something living, not something that will potentially live.
• The DNA being repaired in human embryos (unborn children) is the DNA of a human being. There has been a diagnosis of a serious genetic disease that is passed on from one human being to another. Not from a human being to a blob of tissue or to something that may or may not vaguely have personhood. It’s what human parents pass on to human babies. The distinctive embryo/baby language used in the article may be helpful in identifying the stage of life the baby is in, but there is no ontological difference between the child mentioned with both those terms.
•  The repair done in utero will be a part of a 10-year-old’s history or a 70-year-old’s history. There is a unity to his or her life that begins before birth. What happens to this unborn baby happens to the person whom that baby was, is and will be. A 50-year-old who had this kind of treatment probably won’t say, “Before I was a baby (or a human or a person) I had this treatment…” They will likely say, “Before I was born...” Before I was born. 
•  The DNA being repaired is not the mother’s or the father’s. Neither one is affected by this. It is the DNA of a unique, separate human being. This is not something done to the mother’s body; it’s done in the mother’s body to the baby’s body. 

There is a unity to human identity that begins at conception. The story of our life begins in the very first moments, and every stage adds chapters. Abortion does not stop a story from starting; it ends a life story that has already begun.

The March For (At Least Some Of) Science

“In a way, the worldview of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.” (George Orwell, 1984)

* * * * * * * * * *

The March For Science, according to various news article I have read, was focused on the value of evidence-based science, an enterprise that is apparently under fire. I suspect this is mostly a political broadside against President Trump, specifically when it comes to global warming,vaccines, and alternative theories to evolution.

Now, I am a fan of both science and evidence. Though the march is largely symbolic and baldly political, I don’t think anyone actually thinks the theoretical framework of the march is problematic (“Boo evidence and science! Stop learning stuff!"). However, the march seemed to me to be somewhat naive and far too narrowly focused.

Beyonce's Inadvertent Pro-Life Baby Bump

• "When Beyonce steps out at the Grammys Sunday night (Feb. 12), at presumably around the 5-month mark, she’ll be carrying not one but two babies…” 
•  “Beyonce (and Her Twins)Set to Perform at 2017 Grammys.” 
•  “Beyonce And Her Twins Are Performing At The 2017 Grammys.” 
•  “GRAMMY Awards: Beyoncé (and Twins) Will Perform “Slowed” Set at Sunday’sShow.” 
• "Beyoncé, fresh off the announcement that she is pregnant with twins, took the stage to perform a spiritual, sweeping, multimedia-filled tribute to motherhood."
• "It was beautiful, majestic, and every bit as Beyoncé as one would expect. And of course, through it all, the twins were already killing it from the womb."
•  “Beyonce and the twins did the Grammys.” (twitter)
•  “So Beyonce's twins already performed on ‪#GRAMMYs making them the youngest artists to ever perform.” (twitter) 
• "The twins slayed their first performance, as expected." (twitter)

    ___________________________

Who knew Beyonce would turn her fans pro-life? It’s almost as if they suddenly recognized unborn babies for what they are – babies. If Beyonce were to miscarry, she and her fans would not mourn the loss of clumps of tissue. They would mourn the loss of her children. If Beyonce were attacked and she miscarried, I suspect the news reports would be full of language that talked about her babies, not her fetuses, being killed, and rightly so. Twenty-nine states would prosecute the attacker for murder. 

And yet Beyonce could have walked off the stage and, in seven states in the United States, gotten an abortion even if the babies were viable. (And yes - third trimester abortions are a real deal. See here and here and here and here and here.) Beyonce herself fights for the right to do this. This would be celebrated too, I suppose, because it's her choice. But then the term 'fetus' would be used, because it's a much more impersonal and dehumanizing way of referring to the unborn than 'baby'. 

The difference between 'baby bump' and 'fetal bump' apparently has nothing to do with ontology and everything to do with perspective. It's as if Planned Parenthood has convinced the world that Schrodinger's Baby will be what people want it to be when they finally decide whether or not to keep the baby. The Federalist asks, "Would Beyoncé’s Babies Still Be Babies If She Chose Abortion?" Well, yes.

As if to highlight this tension, there’s a bar in Chicago throwing her a baby shower – a baby shower – with the proceeds going to Planned Parenthood, which stops more baby showers than any other entity in America. 

Cognative Dissonance Level Rating: Epic. 

NGOs, Abortion, and Federal Money: The Truth About The Mexico City Policy

The Mexico City policy (so named because it was announced at the United Nations International Conference on Population in Mexico City) has been implemented or suspended on strict partisan lines since the Reagan administration. All Republican Presidents implement it; all Democratic ones suspend it. The fact that President Trump has reimplemented it should surprise no one. However, now that it's getting either wildly applauded or criticized, it's worth looking at the reality of the policy.

Let’s begin by looking at the facts. First, from usaid.gov:

USAID'S FAMILY PLANNING GUIDING PRINCIPLES AND U.S. LEGISLATIVE AND POLICY REQUIREMENTS

Restrictions on Support for Abortions

Since the enactment of legislation in 1973, recipients of U.S. family planning assistance have been legally prohibited from supporting abortion as a method of family planning using U.S. funds. USAID is committed to expanding access to voluntary family planning and reducing unintended pregnancies which saves lives and reduces reliance on abortion. USAID continues to support post-abortion care, which includes emergency treatment, counseling on and provision of family planning options, and community mobilization.  

The Helms Amendment: No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions. Under the Helms Amendment, post-abortion care is permitted. USAID post-abortion care programs include emergency treatment for complications of induced or spontaneous abortion, counseling on and provision of family planning options, and community mobilization. 

The Leahy Amendment: The term "motivate," as it relates to family planning assistance, shall not be construed to prohibit the provision, consistent with local law, of information or counseling about all pregnancy options. 

The Siljander Amendment: No foreign assistance funds may be used to lobby for or against abortion. {Note: later amended to add ‘or against.’) 

The Biden Amendment: No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for any biomedical research which relates, in whole or in part, to methods of, or the performance of, abortions or involuntary sterilization as a means of family planning.

Why I Am Pro-Life

"Being pro-life" could potentially cover a lot of issues (capital punishment, euthanasia, etc). There is also a discussion to be had about the importance of protecting and honoring all born life - a position often referred to as "whole life," and which is probably a more accurate term for how I feel about the sanctity of human life.

However, that's not the focus of this blog post. I am going to focus on abortion, a 'life' issue that is front and center in our culture, especially on a day during which hundreds of thousand will March For Life  specifically for the issue of abortion

I am going to give four different arguments for this position. The first two arguments draw from Judeo-Christian history; the others will offer arguments that can be made apart from a belief in the veracity of the Bible.

1. THE ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE

Historically, the Judeo-Christian consensus has been that the unborn child is a human being.

Planned Parenthood And The Lives That Don't Matter

In response to the latest police shootings, Planned Parenthood posted the following  response in an attempt to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement: "You deserve to parent your child without fear that he or she will be hurt or killed. Freedom from violence is reproductive justice."

I agree with Planned Parenthood's statement. I would have phrased it differently (can we include what kids deserve?), but I embrace the general sentiment. Of course black lives matter; of course we want a world where parents don't have to worry about children experiencing violence or being killed.

This is why I am also angry at the hypocrisy of this claim and heart-broken at the reality it supports. Do they really want to have a discussion about the intersection of violence and reproduction? Planned Parenthood is one of the leading providers of abortion in the United States, an act which by its very nature takes the life of a unborn human child. Thousands of unborn children suffer violence every day when someone receives an abortion in a Planned Parenthood clinic. If freedom from violence is reproductive justice, then there is no reproductive justice at any Planned Parenthood clinic by their own standard.

I know Planned Parenthood is attempting to support the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement, and as I noted earlier I agree with their sentiment. But their statement fails dismally because it only reveals their hypocrisy. Planned Parenthood's track record shows that, in spite of their rhetoric, not all black lives matter to them.

NARAL, Doritos, And The "Tactic Of Humanizing Fetuses"

During the Super Bowl, Doritos aired a fan-made ad that generated a lot more response than they expected. Here's the ad:

I suspect viewers would have laughed (or cringed) and moved on - it was, after all, just a chip commercial - except that NARAL promptly weighed in. Apparently, "humanizing fetuses" (or making unborn baby humans seem, well, human) is merely an anti-choice tactic, a scurrilous misrepresentation of what happens during a pregnancy. 

Rather than repost pro-life arguments that I have made elsewhere, I will simply offer the following five videos for your viewing pleasure. They aren't gross; they aren't made by rabid pro-lifers. The first two simply shows what happens in the womb when a fetus develops. The final three show when and how an unborn baby begins to respond to his or her environment.

Are Pro-Lifers Hypocrites?

An abortion routine from Reginald Hunter, a comedian, has been making the rounds lately on social media. He's asking a relevant question: are pro-lifers hypocrites if they think it is sometimes okay to take human life? However, his flawed argument fails to do justice to the issue.

* * * * * * * * * * 

"Fundamentalist conservative Christians believe that an embryo in a woman’s body is sacred, and no one should harm it."

“Fundamentalist, conservative Christian” usually drags up mental images of uneducated, angry, bigoted hypocrites. Rhetorically, it’s a great way to get people on your side. Logically, it’s both irrelevant and inaccurate. There are secular pro-lifers as well as pro-life supporters from many other religions. 

I assume “sacred” was chosen to make it seem like solely a religious issue. It's not. Yes, religious people believe there is a religious perspective on the question of abortion, but it's only one of several components that make up a unified, cumulative case argument for why abortion ends the life of a human being.

Rejecting Reality: How Planned Parenthood And Its Defenders Hide The Truth

In early July, The Center for Medical Progress began to release videos procured after three years of undercover work. They released short teaser videos, long videos from which the short versions were edited, and transcripts. The videos not only showed the calculating, callous way in which key players in Planned Parenthood viewed their clients and the unborn children, they also provided reasons to believe that certain Planned Parenthood clinics were breaking the law in the process of harvesting fetal tissue. 

That's when Planned Parenthood and their defenders began a methodical campaign of  distortion, denial and deception to help people avoid looking at the reality of abortion and the industries that profit from it. One example requires a certain amount of speculation*; the facts supporting the rest of my points are clear enough on their own.
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(UPDATE 9/26/15: When a reader offered a rigorous challenge to the veracity of many of my claims (you can read our dialogue in the comments section), I realized I needed to restate some of my points with better clarity and precision. I want to be as committed to truth as I wish Planned Parenthood and the press would be; I hope this update accomplishes that purpose.)
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A Response To “Planned Parenthood is Not Selling Baby Parts, You F****** Idiots.”

When Skepchick Rebecca Watson wrote her now viral post on the Planned Parenthood scandal, no one had to guess which side she was defending or what she thought of the pro-life crowd. The article is worth considering – not because she's right, but because what is presented as fact is so woefully wrong in so many ways.

As I respond to her arguments, I will be quoting the shortened blog version of the video that she posted on her website. A lot of what I have to say will challenge her claim that nothing illegal is happening. The rest will hopefully point out why it shouldn't be legal in the first place.

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Planned Parenthood is in the news a lot these days thanks to a maliciously edited video making it look like they SELL BABY PARTS.

First, the Center for Medical Progress released the uncut video along with the edited one. All anybody has to do – including all the journalists and bloggers who keep repeating this silly charge - is watch the whole video or read the transcript CMP provides on its website. If CMP were trying to deceive, they would have kept the uncut video a secret.

Second, if you think the edited videos makes it ‘look like’ Planned Parenthood is selling baby parts, just watch the videos and see for yourself. You will hear the following:

• "We don’t want to get called on…selling fetal parts across states.”
• “If you have someone in a really ‘anti’ state doing this for you, they’re probably going to get caught.” Get caught at what? Obeying the law?
• “I think a per item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.”
• “I think for affiliates, at the end of the day, they’re a non-profit, they just don’t want to—they want to break even. And if they can do a little better than break even, and do so in a way that seems reasonable, they’re happy to do that.” Every business would like to do a little better than break even. That's called profit. It's probably worth noting that In 2014, Planned Parenthood's revenue exceeded their expenses by $90 million.
• “The Federal Abortion Ban is a law, and laws are up to interpretation.”
• “Here’s the heart. My fingers will smoosh it if I try to pick it up. The heart is right there… A lot of times I‘ll get a full torso, spine, kidneys. You could send the whole thing or pick that apart… It’s a baby.” There's the baby parts. 
• “If someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then they [the babies] are intact…” Which is good for those clients who want intact babies. 

If you think I am trying to trick you or I am ripping quotes out of context, please go watch the videos or read the transcripts.

The 'Ick Factor' And The Planned Parenthood Videos

While discussing the recent Planned Parenthood expose, I have been told that my opinions about abortion are influenced by the ‘ick factor.’ Apparently, my opposition to abortion can be minimized or dismissed because I think abortion is gross. If I recommend that people view a picture or video so they can be fully informed, the response is fairly consistent: “There are a lot of medical procedures I don’t want to watch. Just because seeing them might make me squeamish doesn’t mean they are a bad idea. After all, I don’t want to see what happens in a heart surgery, but heart surgeries are a good thing.”

That's true. Something is not wrong because it makes me squeamish any more than it is right because it doesn't make someone else feel the same. So is this a legitimate argument? Am I and other pro-life advocates simply wanting to create a moral framework to support our weak stomachs? Obviously, I don't think that's the case.