{"id":76476,"date":"2015-10-08T19:29:48","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T23:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=76476"},"modified":"2015-10-20T16:13:32","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T20:13:32","slug":"pro-abortion-talking-points-memo-writer-lies-prenatal-abortion-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pro-abortion-talking-points-memo-writer-lies-prenatal-abortion-images\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-abortion Talking Points Memo writer lies about prenatal and abortion images"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pro-aborts just can\u2019t let go of Carly Fiorina\u2019s challenge to watch the monstrous Planned Parenthood videos<\/a>. Now, Talking Points Memo\u2019s Sarah Erdreich tries to spin<\/a> Fiorina\u2019s flagrant act of honesty into \u201cpart of a long tradition of anti-abortion advocates who have no problem with lying about what abortion is and what it looks like to advance their agenda\u201d:<\/p>\n

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Fiorina has refused to back down from her statement, even in the face of evidence that solidly refutes her assertion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cevidence\u201d she cites is a report from PolitiFact, which is known to deceive when it comes to pro-life politicians<\/a>, rating Fiorina\u2019s claim \u201cmostly false\u201d because the baby onscreen was not the same one ex-StemExpress tech Holly O\u2019Donnell witnessed, and because \u201cWe don\u2019t know the circumstances behind this video: where it came from, under what conditions it was obtained, or even if this fetus was actually aborted (as opposed to a premature birth or miscarriage).\u201d<\/p>\n

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But it should have been obvious that Center for Medical Progress never meant to suggest it was the same baby; of course O\u2019Donnell wouldn\u2019t wear a hidden camera to work. And Gregg Cunningham, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, who provided the footage, confirmed<\/a> that it was of an intact delivery abortion:<\/p>\n

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It was filmed at an abortion clinic. It was not a miscarriage. Mothers don\u2019t go to abortion clinics to miscarry. Had this case been a miscarriage, the mother would have presented at a hospital and her baby would have been rushed to an Isolette for appropriate neonatal care \u2014 not abandoned to writhe and eventually expire in a cold, stainless steel specimen vessel.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After starting out on a less than confidence-inspiring note, Erdreich continues:<\/p>\n

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Antis use the approximate date of conception, also known as gestational age; physicians<\/a>, on the other hand, go by the date of the woman’s last menstrual period (LMP). One reason that physicians use LMP is because that\u2019s the last time a woman knows for sure she wasn\u2019t pregnant; the actual conception can occur anytime between that date and when she doesn\u2019t get her next period.<\/p>\n

Dating a pregnancy from the approximate date of conception fits nicely with the anti-choice interest in making fetal images even more shocking than they already are.
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\"Planned

Planned Parenthood says this is not a baby.<\/p><\/div>\n

Only in the twisted world of pro-abortion apologetics could dating a fetus\u2019s age starting with the beginning of its existence<\/em>\u2014the most objective and accurate standard possible\u2014be spun as somehow manipulative. Logic says just the opposite: that the preference for a point not directly tied to the creation of the new life is far more indicative of an attempt to deceive. Indeed, it\u2019s part of the broader push to redefine fertilization and the start of pregnancy as two separate points<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, which maintains an extensive library of these images, claims that they\u2019re unable to specify how they acquired the images due to the acquisition agreements used. But a 2010 Slate article stated<\/a> that the organization pays doctors and clinics to allow a photographer into an operation room and speculates that, since such an arrangement is \u201cunheard of\u201d in the U.S., the images were obtained abroad.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Erdreich doesn\u2019t specify that here she\u2019s shifted from talking about prenatal images in general to images of aborted babies, which are what CBR specializes in. By casting aspersions on the latter she\u2019s trying to sow doubt among the former, even though prenatal imaging<\/a> is well-established and easily confirmable<\/a> via scores<\/a> of educational resources<\/a> not affiliated with the pro-life movement.<\/p>\n

CBR maintains<\/a> it is fully prepared to defend the accuracy of its post-abortive images in court, that they are confirmable by comparing them to mainstream embryology texts, and that former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino vouches for them. That in and of itself doesn\u2019t independently prove they\u2019re accurate, of course, but Erdreich hasn\u2019t given us any hard evidence to doubt them, either.<\/p>\n

As for their possible overseas origins, it\u2019s hard to see that making a significant difference considering that even PolitiFact admits<\/a> most countries are actually more restrictive of abortion that the United States.<\/p>\n

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When he gave a speech on the House floor recently, Trent Franks displayed an image of a fetus terminated with a saline abortion\u2014but saline procedures haven\u2019t been commonly used in this country for decades, thanks to advances in abortion care.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Whether or not a Congressman\u2019s staff failed to do their homework on one occasion hardly a conspiracy makes. I\u2019ve been involved in pro-life circles for a long time, and I\u2019ve never been under the impression that saline abortions are still common. Pro-Life Action League, for instance, is quite upfront that they aren’t<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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One of the anti-choice movement\u2019s most famous images is of a fetus that was allegedly found in a jar along with several other fetuses, and that jar was apparently stored along with dozens of others in freezers near a Texas abortion clinic. Or so goes the anti-choice account, which conveniently doesn\u2019t name the clinic or explain just how a group of anti-choice activists happened to be the only people to find the freezers, or why they didn\u2019t call the police after their discovery.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"3d

3d ultraounds<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2009, New York Times reporter Damien Cave interviewed<\/a> Operation Rescue\u2019s Flip Benham, who personally witnessed finding the jar as part of a \u201cretrieval mission,\u201d which was so real he went to jail for a similar one. Cave wondered how they knew the child was aborted rather than miscarried (again, a purely speculative question), but didn\u2019t express doubt that the event took place. He also interviewed Professor Monica Migliorino Miller of Madonna University and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, who photographs and documents aborted fetuses, and examined her photos up close.<\/p>\n

Oh, and as to Erdreich\u2019s question why they didn\u2019t call the police: for what? Abortion isn\u2019t illegal. That\u2019s the point of the controversy.<\/p>\n

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At least they didn\u2019t decide to bring the fetuses with them to protests. The same can\u2019t be said for one anti-choice activist who showed up at a 1992 protest carrying a fetus. Think about that for second: A man who claimed to respect life so much that he saw nothing wrong with yelling at strangers about their healthcare decisions used a human fetus as a prop. I don’t know \u2013 to me, that seems like pretty much the opposite of respecting life and honoring babies. The reverend was arrested, the fetus was confiscated, and a coroner later concluded that the fetus was stillborn, not aborted<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One activist used a stillborn-rather-than-aborted body over twenty years ago; therefore you shouldn\u2019t believe scores of more recent images of aborted babies were really aborted even though we have no evidence specifically indicating they weren\u2019t? That doesn\u2019t compute. The plural of \u201canecdote\u201d is not \u201cdata,\u201d as they say.<\/p>\n

However distasteful the tactics in this particular case were, it does not change the fact that a dead fetus is a dead fetus regardless of how he or she died. The body still shows the humanity of what abortion kills\u2014and sorry Sarah, but throwing in the obligatory “it’s healthcare!” lie<\/a> doesn\u2019t make it not killing. It figures, though, that she’d consider carrying a dead baby more disrespectful than actually killing one.<\/p>\n

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[T]he creator of the Planned Parenthood sting videos\u2014the ones that were the subject of Carly Fiorina\u2019s misinformed furor\u2014tried to pass off at least one image of a stillborn fetus as having been aborted. Not only did he use the image without the permission of the family that suffered this loss, but he appeared unable to grasp<\/a> why it\u2019s dishonest to slip an image of a stillborn fetus into an anti-abortion video.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No he didn\u2019t. Again, the video<\/a> in question focused on O\u2019Donnell\u2019s testimony\u2014there was no reason to assume she would have secretly recorded things she didn\u2019t expect to see when she showed up to work, and common sense would tell any rational viewer the image was for illustrative purposes only. And contrary to Erdreich\u2019s insinuation, the Fretz family is fully supportive<\/a> of the picture\u2019s role in the project.<\/p>\n

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This is an aborted fetus, and people should believe us because we say so. That\u2019s the narrative the Center for Medical Progress has been using with its heavily and deceptively edited videos.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No abortion apologia is complete without a token reference to the videos being \u201cdeceptively edited,\u201d lazily thrown in without a hint of concern for whether it\u2019s true or attempt to specify which edits are deceptive, even though real analysis<\/a> confirms they’re accurate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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And that\u2019s what Carly Fiorina is doing with her campaign against Planned Parenthood for having the temerity to\u2014what? Give women who want to donate fetal tissue to medical research a way to do that? Provide health care? Simply exist?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is astounding how many adult professionals in the pro-abortion world are content to play dumb like two-year-olds, and are so dishonest that they stoop to pretending not to even know what the fuss is about<\/em>. Let us help you with that<\/a>, Sarah:<\/p>\n