Fruits ‘N Nuts: Journalists Charged with Practicing Journalism in California
In 2015, pro-life organization The Center for Medical Progress began exposing via undercover videos the shocking practices of Planned Parenthood clinics that have been involved in the harvesting and selling of tissue and organs from unborn children. Several videos—one more disturbing than the next—showed high-level PP executives admitting to CMP undercover journalists that they often alter their procedures in order to preserve vital organs of these unborn babies in order to sell them to various companies who sell them for scientific research. (Check out the original postings here and here).
Just last week, with the release of another video, two CMP journalists, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, were charged with 15 felonies by California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Becerra’s charges center on “invasion of privacy” issues, saying that recording someone without their knowledge is against California law.
It should be noted that Beccerra is a former Democrat member of Congress, and his predecessor, Kamala Harris has a long and friendly relationship with the nation’s largest abortion provider. Harris ran successfully for the U.S. Senate due in part to help from her friends at PP, that were undoubtedly paying her back for not going after them 2 years ago when the first videos were being released. Like Becerra, she too went after the whistleblowers at the Center for Medical Progress, but all those charges were eventually dropped as having no validity.
In this newest video, Dr. DeShawn Taylor, Medical Director Emerita of Planned Parenthood Arizona, is captured on tape making some pretty callous comments about her work, and how she profits off the destruction of the unborn. At one point, she talks about the strength that it takes in her upper arms to perform abortions where “disarticulation”—a fancy word for dismemberment—is done with the forceps. Remembering her glory days as a young Fellow training to kill innocent children, Dr. Taylor recalls having to “hit the gym for this. [laughs]. I need to hit the gym.”
As if that weren’t enough, this medical professional, when asked about how signs of life are determined during an abortion, Dr. Taylor admits, “the key is you need to pay attention to who’s in the room, right? And like, you know, because the thing is the law states that you’re not supposed to do any maneuvers after the fact to try to cause [fetal] demise. So it’s really tricky. It’s really tricky so, most of the time we do dig [digoxin], and it usually works. And then we don’t have to worry about that because Arizona state law says if any, if there’s signs of life, then we’re supposed to transport them. To the hospital.” Dr. Taylor also expresses her distaste for the word choice of those who do the paperwork once her job is done: “We have the people who do our paperwork for the fetal death certificates; they email us calling them ‘babies’. Baby this, baby that, baby so-and-so, and I’m like, that’s creepy!”
In Dr. Taylor’s world, calling an unborn human being a “baby” is creepy. No, what’s creepy, doctor, is that you go on to actually find some compassion—for your staff, who according to you, get creeped out when a baby actually comes out looking like—a baby: ““It’s not a matter of how I feel about it coming out intact, but I gotta worry about my staff and people’s feelings about it coming out looking like a baby.” If you can take watching the entire video, you can watch it here.
CMP journalists Daleiden and Merritt were only doing what journalists used to do as a matter of practice. Going undercover to break a story goes back a long way in our history as part of our Constitutional Freedom of the Press. It seems the attorney general’s office in California only cares about the state’s privacy laws when the journalists doing the exposing are those who agree with a particular worldview. As a California Democrat, it would be hard to imagine that Becerra himself hadn’t benefited from Planned Parenthood as he pursued public life. It’s also very strange that other undercover journalists using the same tactics as CMP had not been charged with breaking privacy laws there in the past few years. For example, in 2014 and 2015, a California animal rights group, Mercy for Animals, released some videos that showed cruelty against animals at a chicken farm. The organization was never charged with violating privacy laws, but the government did investigate the farm. This was also the case for incidents with other animal rights groups who exposed similar incidents of cruelty.
If California is going to limit freedom of the press there, they should do so across the board instead of making examples of David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. Then they can free themselves from their already sketchy attachment to the U.S. Constitution. Better yet, maybe that whole succession movement in the Land of Fruits and Nuts will actually take hold.
Mad Women
It was one of those headlines that you know is fake news, or at least extremely-manufactured news. But, like a train wreck—it’s sometimes hard to look away. A recent Yahoo News (of course) headline screamed, “Disney Princesses Show the Terrifying Reality Facing Women in Trump’s America”. It was linked to an article in Glamour magazine’s news and politics section. Who knew the magazine that feeds women (and men) unrealistic images of how women should look and act had a political section, much less can be taken seriously on a topic they say is a “War on Women”?
Nevertheless, the article sounded the alarm to the women of America that women’s healthcare in the Trump administration may all but disappear. Healthcare, by the standards of women like this, is usually defined by two things: abortion and birth control. So this article claims that any dismantling of Obamacare will be especially devastating to women. The author pointed to a couple of women who wanted to use their writing and illustration skills to help combat the supposed “GOP war against women.”
Illustrator Maritza Lugo and writer Danielle Sepulveres joined forces and imagined life for several female Disney characters if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and replaced. They depict Beauty and the Beast’s Belle (below) as no longer being able to get her birth control; Disney’s first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor, getting turned away from Planned Parenthood (by Cinderella’s evil step-sisters, no less); Pocahontas being denied overage due to a pre-existing condition, and Aladdin and Jasmine are forced to hold a funeral for their miscarried child.
First of all, what kind of a twisted mind do you have that you re-imagine these fictional, innocent ladies as going to a Planned Parenthood clinic or buying birth control? Who even goes there?
Second, what world are they living in if they believe that women didn’t have access to Planned Parenthood and birth control until the Affordable Care Act became law? Women who wanted these services had wide-open access to them long before Obamacare, and nothing is likely to change that. That last scenario with Aladdin and Jasmine is just bizarre—has Trump made some proclamation that parents who experience the pain of miscarriage must hold funerals for them? Where do these women get this stuff?
I’m guessing it comes from people like those who planned and spoke at the rabid rally of women held right after Trump’s inauguration. When you get women like Ashley Judd and Madonna pouring out venomous rants in front of largely left-wing women who take the time to march for rights they already have, you’re bound to inspire other mad women to take something good and pure and turn it into something absurd.
If only they would open their eyes from their fantasy War on Women and fight against some real-world problems that are going on while they whine. Things like the women who leave Planned Parenthood every single day, no longer pregnant, but wounded emotionally and –very often—physically. Or why don’t they cry out for all of the Black and Hispanic babies who make up the vast majority of the innocent victims of Choice inside the walls of Planned Parenthood? How about shedding some real tears for the real women, girls and boys that are lost inside the dark underworld of human trafficking and slavery? Will they be planning any marches on their behalf?
No, but they are planning to continue their “fight” sometime soon (see update below). The planners of the Inauguration weekend women’s march are said to be planning more forms of resistance, like a strike to be held sometime in the near future. No one really knows what they’re striking against or when it will be. It could possibly be held on May 1st. That’s the day that many labor groups like the SEIU will be holding a strike to “resist fascism and autocratic leadership.” Or maybe tomorrow, International Women’s Day, will inspire them to go on strike against whatever it is they’re angered over–which seems to be just about anything.
Incidentally, these women really should be thanking the GOP this week. It seems that Paul Ryan’s new replacement for Obamacare keeps all the things that make it so horrible, and ignores the free market altogether. According to the Washington Examiner, “…the GOP bill preserves much of the regulatory structure of Obamacare; leaves the bias in favor of employer healthcare largely intact, replaces Obamacare’s subsidies with a different subsidy scheme, and still supports higher spending for Medicaid relative to what was the case before Obamacare.”
Nice going, GOP. Now you can own the healthcare mess. What was that some nice lady once said about putting lipstick on a pig?
UPDATE 3/8/17 5:14 CST: They did it! Today, International Women’s Day was “A Day Without Women” where women were supposed to forgo working in an effort to protest “inequality”. Nothing like protesting the supposed pay gap and glass ceiling by not showing up to the job you have—makes sense only to progressives.
Twisted fairy tales: What’s the world coming to when fictional women have to pay out-of-pocket for their birth control?
All Unborn Lives Matter
The annual gathering of pro-life advocates took place today in Washington, where just one week ago, Donald Trump was sworn in as our 45th president. As so often happens, those who march come from all over the country, braving the typical January gloom and cold weather in order to take their stand for the most innocent of human lives with this year’s theme being “The Power of One”.
Since the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in January 1973, more than 58 million innocent lives have been snuffed out—many for a profit—as was exposed by the horrific videos from an investigation done by the Center for Medical Progress in 2015. Hundreds of thousands showed up to hear speakers ranging from Vice President Mike Pence, Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah) and Baltimore Ravens team member Benjamin Watson. Watson issued a challenge to men to be leaders in the pro-life movement, telling the cheering crowd, “It is past time that we be the leaders, caretakers and providers that we were meant to be… even if it wasn’t demonstrated for you by a father, you can be different, you can change the course of [a] generation.”
Vice President Pence brought renewed energy that the new administration will be more open to the pro-life cause than the preceding one was. He is the first vice president (or president) to address the March for Life crowd in person. Before the march this morning, Pence encouraged participants by telling them, “Life is winning in America because of you…let this movement be known for love, not anger. For compassion. Not confrontation.”
That may have been a thinly-veiled jab at the lunacy, bitterness, and filth that came from the likes of Madonna and Ashley Judd, who led profanity-laced rantings at the Women’s March held last weekend after Trump’s inauguration. Of course, pro-life women were excluded from that one.
The March for Life comes just after a newly-released undercover video from the organization Live Action exposing the continual lie of Planned Parenthood that they are all about prenatal healthcare for women. Watch the video and you’ll see that they called and visited PP offices across the country—and found only 5 that actually offered it.
More good news for the unborn came earlier in the week when Congress voted for a permanent ban on taxpayer-funded abortions. The law also bans the federal government from subsidizing elective abortions. For his part, President Trump re-instated a ban that had begun with President Reagan against U.S. government funding and promotion of overseas abortions.
This isn’t a bad start for the new president, especially where life issues are concerned…unless you’re Madonna, Ashley Judd or one of the thousands of women who marched last weekend. They seem to be obsessed with their own bodies (and body parts), and their message does nothing but set women back decades, making us all look bad. (More on this next time)
Everyday Heroes
Fathers sometimes get the short end of the stick. After more than a couple of decades where popular culture has often made them look like know-nothing chuckleheads, or an accessory—instead of a necessary part of a child’s life—the image of fathers has taken a beating. That could be partly because of the culture, and partly because of the fact that some people don’t have a positive experience with fathers. Maybe they had one who was absent, either physically or emotionally. After all, most men can father a child but not all men can be a Dad.
Those are the fathers that are celebrated this weekend: the fathers and father figures in our lives, who raised us, guided us and protected us as we grew up.
Marine Captain Jeff Kuss was a father of two young children. He grew up wanting to fly fighter jets and saw his dream come true. He was a member of the Blue Angels, an elite team of Navy and Marine aviators who perform in airshows A couple of weeks ago, while practicing for a Blue Angels performance for an airshow in Tennessee, his jet crashed and Capt. Kuss lost his life. It’s believed that he did not eject himself from the aircraft on purpose in order to save the lives of innocent people on the ground. The area of Smyrna, Tennessee where Capt. Kuss was flying was a heavily-populated area filled with apartments, offices and people who were just there to watch the Blue Angels practice. In staying with his plane, as fighter pilots are trained to do when the possibility of hitting civilians exists, Capt. Kuss died a hero. A dad and a patriot doing what comes naturally to dads—sacrificing and protecting. But most would never call themselves heroes. They’re just doing what good dads do.
Your dad may never have flown a fighter jet. Most likely, he earned his living doing things the world sees as less spectacular and less heroic than a Blue Angel. If your dad was an accountant, a plumber or a farmer, it doesn’t matter. Great dads and heroes can be found in humble places.
My dad wasn’t a pilot, though he did serve his country honorably in the Air Force during the Korean War. But to me and my six brothers and sisters, he was a hero. He worked very hard—at times working multiple jobs—to provide for us. Later in life, once he got his first computer and taught himself to use it, he became a writer. He never would have called himself a writer (I don’t think), but he wrote short opinion pieces to his local newspaper from a conservative viewpoint.
I always told my dad he should start a blog, but he wasn’t interested. So after he passed away in 2012, I wanted to share some of his wisdom from those articles on the Liberty Bell Blog, and a couple of those have been posted here and here over the years. I encourage you to read them because it’s amazing how much he could see of where the country was headed. I have a notebook of my dad’s that he kept near his computer where he wrote down websites and notes on things he was researching. But most of the pages in the notebook are filled with quotes from famous people, mostly of our nation’s Founding Fathers. Here’s one from Samuel Adams that he must have found important at the time, and I think speaks volumes about where we are now: “The general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.”
Dad’s notebook isn’t much to look at—it’s really only a part of a notebook that doesn’t even have the front cover on it, and slips of paper with other random notes falling out of it. It could have easily been thrown away as a list of websites that may or may not still exist. To me it’s priceless. What makes it valuable is what’s inside, because it has things written in Dad’s own hand that were important to him: his notes for his articles, websites he used for his research and ones he just liked to visit regularly…and the quotes. Wisdom from the Founding Fathers that my father found noteworthy. That reminds me of a t-shirt that he used to wear that had one of his favorite quotes on it from the Bible, from Ecclesiastes 10:2: “A wise man’s heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man’s heart directs him toward the left.” Sounds like a conservative blogger to me.
I keep that t-shirt and the unassuming, partial notebook written by my hero who’s now in heaven… but I would have kept it even if it had only been a list of websites that may or may not still exist.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad!
About Those Super Bowl Ads…
The fanatics of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) have been having a hashtag hissy-fit over a Doritos ad that aired during Sunday night’s Super Bowl 50. It doesn’t take much to offend most people these days, but the religiously pro-abortion crowd at NARAL took to social media after the spot aired.
It features a couple in a doctor’s office. The woman is pregnant and is having an ultrasound, while her husband crunches through a bag of Doritos, much to his wife’s dismay. She apparently finds it an inappropriate time and place to be scarfing down chips. While he mindlessly enjoys his snack, we can see the unborn child on the monitor showing some interest in his (or her) dad’s Doritos. When the wife gets mad and throws a chip across the room…the baby decides to fly out after it.
NARAL failed to see the attempt at humor in the ad because they claimed it “humanizes a fetus”. Under the #NotBuyingIt, Twitter lit up throughout the game with tweets on spots they saw as sexist, and used #MediaWeLike for those that passed their politically correct test. Some of the other commercials that raised their ire: A Buick ad showing a wedding (for showing women fighting over a bouquet; an Audi ad (for having no female astronauts) and a Snickers ad (for being “transphobic” and claims it’s saying it’s “OK to objectify women as long as they have a snack”).
I have to comment on their objections to 2 of those ads. First, the Audi ad, called “Commander” is touching and nostalgic. It shows an elderly man who had once been an astronaut tearfully looking at photos on the wall of his glory days in space. Then his grandson comes by, and during a ride in an Audi R8, the older man’s spirits are lifted as a David Bowie tune plays. The NARAL complaint that there were no women astronauts shown is idiotic since there were not likely to have been any female astronauts back in his day.
Secondly, the Snickers spot is pretty clever and says absolutely nothing about objectifying women. Had the nags at NARAL bothered to check, they’d know that it’s one of a series of such ads telling viewers that people aren’t quite themselves when they’re hungry–until they have a Snickers. This is the “Marilyn Monroe” ad that spoofs her famous white-dress-blowing-up-around-her scene from the 1955 film “The Seven-Year Itch”. At first we see a director filming “Marilyn”, which is really a disgruntled dude in a white dress and heels—until someone gives him a snickers bar. Lo and behold, he is transformed into the real Marilyn now that Snickers has taken care of her hunger pangs. Snickers aired a similar commercial during last year’s Super Bowl with characters from “The Brady Bunch.” Talk about missing the whole point (and having no sense of humor).
They did manage to find at least one commercial that didn’t offend them, like the one by Axe for men called “Find Your Magic”. They liked that one because it showed “non-traditional” images of men…like a guy wearing high heels dancing in a nightclub.
As for that Doritos ad, perhaps the crazies at NARAL should get a grip and ask themselves why humanizing the “product of conception” (as Planned Parenthood clinics refer to the unborn) between two humans is wrong, offensive, extreme, etc. That’s not the image of a cat, a chicken or anything else on the ultrasound screen—it’s the image of a human being, and that’s the fact they can never get around. The personhood of the “fetus” upsets them because it forces them to see just what it is that is being destroyed on their altar of choice.
Super Bowls are known for their commercials and this year, sponsors paid $5million for a 30-second spot…but when they get people talking, tweeting and writing about their ads—for better or worse—that’s worth every penny.
The ad that made abortion supporters cringe.
Shooting the Messenger
What should have been one of the biggest news stories of 2015 took an unexpected—and seemingly political–twist this past week. The undercover investigator responsible for exposing Planned Parenthood’s illegal harvesting and sale of body parts from unborn children has been indicted by a Texas grand jury for purchasing them.
According to LifeNews, David Daleiden and another pro-life activist, Sandra Merritt, were charged with a felony for allegedly using a fake ID during their undercover investigations of various Planned Parenthood affiliates, including PP Gulf Coast in Houston. The biggest slap-in-the-face: they were also charged with a misdemeanor for buying human tissue. Their videos were released throughout last year by the Center for Medical Progress, renewing calls for Washington lawmakers to de-fund the abortion giant.
However, to no one’s surprise, it appears that politics and revenge could be behind the grand jury’s move. After the indictment was announced, it came out that Lauren Reeder, a prosecutor for the Harris county District Attorney’s office, was also on the board of the Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast—the same office the journalists were investigating. Harris county DA Devon Anderson told Houston media that Reeder would “not be involved in any manner with this investigation”. By the way, Anderson also said the investigation into Planned Parenthood itself was closed.
So she indicts the whistle-blowers, but ends the investigation against Planned Parenthood. Daleiden is being charged with buying human tissue, but doesn’t there also have to be a seller? Since he wasn’t there to actually buy anything and was only posing as a party that wanted to buy something, how can charges be filed against them, but not Planned Parenthood? Sounds a little fishy.
In his own defense, Daleiden said he was only using an investigative tool that journalists have been using for decades while exercising their First Amendment rights. He stated, “Planned Parenthood still cannot deny the admissions from their leadership about fetal organ sales captured on video for all the world to see.”
Daleiden is understandably receiving much support from the pro-life community. Cheryl Sullenger, Senior VP of Operation Rescue expressed her disappointment about what such an indictment could mean for future investigations that expose crimes: “This has the effect of chilling the First Amendment freedom of the press”, said Sullenger, “and could scare crime witnesses away from coming forward for fear that they might suffer similar retaliatory prosecution.”
If you’ve watched any of the videos, it’s hard to not be horrified by what is going on inside Planned Parenthood clinics across the country. They claim to be advancing healthcare for women, but their big money is made on the backs of frightened women—mostly young, poor and Black…and their unborn children. Even though the district attorney in Houston has misapplied the rule of law and chosen to go after the messenger, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast is still under investigation by other agencies in the state of Texas. Pro-life groups have been asking state officials for an independent special prosecutor to be appointed for these investigations citing the obvious conflict of interest in the district attorney’s office.
The Center for Medical Progress will be holding an Emergency Briefing Webcast on Tuesday night at 9 pm Eastern (#IStandWithDavid).
Look Up
The Christmas Moon won’t be back until 2034
Christmas these days seems to stress people out more than give them the joy that it was meant to give. As people get busier and busier, they find themselves always looking down: at the next text message, the next email, the next status update on Facebook. What has all this racing around, looking down at some electronic device done? Could it be that the stress so often accompanying this time of year is of our own making? It’s made us forget times that were simpler…Christmases past that seemed to hold more magic, more beauty, more imagination.
Maybe it’s time to stop looking down for a while and start to notice things again. Today we have a Christmas Moon—a rare event– a full moon on Christmas Day. It’s the first time in nearly four decades that that has happened, and it won’t happen again for another 19 years. The sky was beautiful last night, and the moon was bright. It’s not politically correct any more to say “Merry Christmas” or to even use THAT WORD in some places (like our public schools), but last night’s sky, at least where I was, reminded me of that first Christmas that gave us this opportunity to celebrate the birth of Christ every year.
Even though we don’t know the exact date of the Savior’s birth, it still started with a starry night and Wise Men from the East who had been observing the nighttime skies and studying ancient prophesies for quite some time before they noticed one star in particular. It seemed to be different from the others—bigger, brighter, and more magnificent. So they followed it, for what may have been as long as 2 years after the actual birth. When they found the Young King and His parents, they presented him with precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Regular folks like shepherds found Him too (even sooner than the learned mean of means did)…and the Bible tells us the child’s mother treasured all of these things in her heart. She took nothing for granted, and I can imagine that every year that went by as he grew into a boy, then a man, that she looked back with awe and fondness on the Holy Night when she first held her child in her arms.
It’s often said, “Christmas is for kids”. How wrong people are who say that. I don’t think you can really appreciate all that this season and this day has to offer until you have some wisdom of years behind you. You may not remember every gift you got for Christmas over the years, but you most likely will recall the stories of Christmases past—funny or poignant moments that you talk about together around a table full of good things to eat. Stories that are told year after year and they never seem to get old—some get even better with each retelling. Like the young woman Mary of the manger scene, you’ve been storing up those treasures of memories in your heart. They don’t get old, wear out, need batteries or fall apart after 3 days.
If you’ve been stressed out for the last several days or weeks because you were preparing for this day, consider trying something new next year: re-focus on what Christmas really is about. Before this becomes Christmas past, set aside the distractions and look around you. Return to the manger, Follow the star.
Merry Christmas, Everyone!
Profits of Doom- Part 2
***UPDATE : 8/16/15: STEMEXPRESS BREAKS TIES WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD^^^
***This is Part 2 of a 2-part posting that began last night…
The most recent video, the 6th one released by The Center for Medical Progress, begins the 2nd episode of their web series “Human Capital”. Released on Thursday, it has an interview with a whistle-blower who confirms that many women are pressured into donating their babies to research. She also claims she’s witnessed technicians go into the rooms of women who didn’t give consent and “take what they wanted”, especially in cases where the pregnancy was further along. Holly O’Donnell, former Procurement Technician with StemExpress, didn’t work for PP, but her work required her to be inside the abortion facilities every day, developing relationships with clinic staff members. She expresses sympathy and regret and speaks openly about what she was told to do: get the women to consent. If patients seemed reluctant, she often told them not to do it, even telling them not to get the abortion at all. This would get her reprimanded by her supervisors.
In one chilling segment, O’Donnell describes the PP clinic in Fresno, California as being “in an alley”, a poor area and very high-volume. This, she said, took a toll on her: “The environment was morbid, like you could feel it. You could hear…you could hear screaming, you could hear crying”.
Aren’t we always told by abortion supporters that women need this choice as a “safe and rare” alternative so that we don’t “go back to the days of back alley abortions”? A change in location doesn’t improve women’s health—the table only moved from the alley itself into a building in the alley. The end is still the same. It’s also not so rare. O’Donnell said during an 8-hour workday, the Fresno clinic would have more than 40 patients coming in for abortions.
She also mentions one doctor by name, Dr. Ron Berman, who “had a reputation for going viciously fast” in his work, and that she had to watch him or risk losing specimens. O’Donnell said he seemed agitated when he didn’t have a patient in the room, almost as if he enjoyed it. She described how he would go in, quickly do ‘the procedure” and move on.
Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had always wanted there to be a place where poor people (especially people of color) and immigrants could go for “family planning”. She once said, “The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” She’d be happy to know her deadly legacy is continuing in assembly-line fashion in Fresno and in hundreds of other inner-city neighborhoods that are predominantly African American and Hispanic.
For their part, StemExpress, LLC, a small biotech company in California that partners with Planned Parenthood and other facilities to buy tissue and body parts for research, claims no wrong-doing. They put out a statement alleging the interview with Holly O’Donnell was “deceptively edited” and the allegations she made are untrue. CMP responded to their statement and they aren’t backing down. In fact, they’ve now raised some interesting questions about the PP-StemExpress relationship. It appears the Dr. Berman mentioned by O’Donnell was (and may still be) the Medical Director of StemExpress.
But then that raises even more questions. If Berman were profiting from intact parts as an executive for StemExpress, wouldn’t he want to take his time with each patient to make sure that was the case? Its possible Holly O’Donnell is just another disgruntled former employee with a bone to pick, but she’s making some pretty serious charges. Why would she do that if there weren’t some grain of truth to what she’s saying?
If you are someone against the use of fetal stem cells for research, visiting the StemExpress website is upsetting. They have order forms with drop-down menus and even a Wish List like you might see on Amazon or other shopping websites. The following screenshot shows there’s much money to be made in the aftermath of an abortion:
Screenshot from StemExpress site where orders for body parts are placed.
As you can see, StemExpress has no issue in putting a price on a life that never had a chance to live. I guess the high end of the spectrum would be for a more developed baby…$24,000 is a hefty sum, and how it gets divided up is one of many things that should be investigated. It certainly shoots down PP’s assertion that they don’t do this to make a profit. On the StemExpress website, where potential partners can go for information, “financial profits” is the first thing mentioned.
The words of Dr. Mary Gatter from an earlier video are eerie when you see a screenshot like the one above: “The patients don’t get anything, of course.”
Not that letting them in on the deal would make it better or more right. That would only make them one of many in the line of profiteers in what has become Big Abortion. More videos are on the way from The Center for Medical Progress. If any good is to come from the horrible things spoken of and shown in them (and I’ve barely scratched the surface), maybe women considering abortion will be repulsed at the prospect of a dollar value being assigned to the child they carry and will decide in favor of life.
Profits of Doom- Part 1
In case you’ve been away on vacation or depend on traditional newscasts for information, an organization called The Center for Medical Progress has been releasing videos nearly every week this summer that show Planned Parenthood reps at their worst. Even if you’ve only watched the short versions of each one—edited for time, not context—you can gather something very sinister going on with the nation’s top abortion provider. In the videos, they talk freely and casually about their practice of harvesting and selling fetal remains.
In one video, Dr. Mary Gatter, President of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors’ Council, comes off as not just cold-hearted, but calculating as she talks numbers. Over lunch, the mad doctor haggles with the undercover researchers over the price of body parts like someone would haggle with a used car salesman. Incidentally, she may get to do that in time because she later laughs it off saying, “I want a Lamborghini”. Just in case you forget that Planned Parenthood is all about women’s health care, Gatter makes sure those she’s negotiating with understand where the money goes when she makes the stunning declaration, “The patients don’t get anything, of course.”
Of course. They’re just there to terminate their pregnancies and get on with their lives, right? They don’t care that PP sees them as another revenue stream. Wrong…the women don’t know going in how this is done or that people other than themselves will benefit financially from their “product of conception”, as the unborn child is called. They’re told it’s strictly for research—not profit, so it’s easy to imagine that a patient already stressed out by her situation may feel some comfort from that. Gatter seems totally detached from the idea that many of those women (and girls) are terrified, confused and heartbroken, or that being there is the last place they want to be.
If donating tissue for research is the way this is sold to the patients who come in for abortions, it’s presented in the same way to the general public. Dr. Savita Ginde, VP and Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains, clearly admitted they have to present what they’re doing with fetal tissue as benefitting research as opposed to making a profit. According to Ginde, “..In public I think it makes a lot more sense for it to be in the research vein, than I’d say, business venture.” She continues, “Because if you have someone in a really anti state that’s going to be doing this for you, they’re probably going to get caught.”
When something is legal or good, you don’t have to worry about getting caught.
Perhaps the video featuring Dr. Deborah Nucatola, PP’s Senior Director of Medical Services, has drawn the most attention from conservative media because she’s shown eating salad and drinking wine while discussing the heinous harvesting process. She’s very matter-of-fact while giving graphic details about how she can preserve certain organs that will bring greater profits: “…we’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part I’m going to basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
Nucatola candidly admits some doctors do ultrasounds with the sale of the parts in mind, and will alter their normal procedures to get what they want (which is a violation of federal law). According to Nucatola, “… for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.”
I’m not sure how these people sleep at night. They must have to lie to themselves every day that what they’re doing is really helping women by ending an unwanted pregnancy that (they think) isn’t really a life at all but a mass of tissue.
How can they make that argument now? If it were just a clump of cells or tissue as they’ve always said, then why is it necessary to preserve certain parts? Why is it so valuable to them? Why, if there’s nothing wrong with what’s going on, do they cover their tracks by having their affiliates (local Planned Parenthood branches) contract directly for body parts sales? As Nucatola says, this is “too touchy an issue for us to be an official middle man.” So, if at some point (like now?) the grisly transactions are exposed, it will be the affiliates that will feel the heat, thereby shielding Planned Parenthood.
There is so much on these tapes, it’s amazing that there’s been hardly any outcry for something to be done. Even those we’ve put in power can’t agree that PP should be defunded, at least temporarily until there’s a full investigation into these activities. Women and unborn children are being abused and exploited by an organization operating under the banner of women’s health.
Part 2 of this posting will be published tomorrow (8/15) in the afternoon…video 6 just came out this week. In it, a whistleblower shares her story about what she saw inside the clinics.
The Bigger Story
There was a meme going around on Facebook a while back that surely was put together by someone (or a group of people) who undoubtedly think of themselves as open-minded, tolerant, live-and-let-live types. They would also have to be pretty ignorant of what’s going on given their pat answers to questions such as “Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t get one”; Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one”. (Unfortunately, there’s more—see below).
Given the events of this past Friday, let’s just focus on the gay “marriage” question. I wonder what words of wisdom the creator of that meme would have for all the people of faith who have lost businesses and livelihoods because they refused to take part in someone else’s gay “marriage” ceremony? What consolation—if any—do they have today now that the Supreme Court decided to expand the definition of marriage to allow for two people of the same sex to have the designation of “married” partners? Do they care, that in doing this the court told millions of people like myself, “To hell with your vote—we know what’s best!” My guess is, the author(s) of that meme couldn’t care less. In states where we voted to uphold one man/one woman unions as being the only true marriage, these black-robed strangers changed our states’ constitutions against our will. Legislating from the bench was not what the founders intended, but it’s now the way it is—even the highest court in the land isn’t immune to playing politics.
As with most major news events, there’s a bigger—mostly-untold—story that needs to see the light of day. The decision last Friday didn’t close down any gay and lesbian activist organizations now that “marriage equality” has been achieved. With this newfound freedom and boldness, will they now be more forthcoming about what it is they really want? Marriage equality, in the minds of many activists, is only the beginning.
According to Masha Gessen, an outspoken LGBT activist, gays should be allowed to be married, but calls it a ‘no-brainer” that marriage as an institution should not exist. In 2012 she stated: “Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there. Because we lie, that the institution of marriage isn’t going to change, and that is a lie.” [emphasis mine].
And then there’s this admission from Paula Ettelbrick of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force: “Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. … We must keep our eyes on the goal … of radically reordering society’s views of reality.”
This militant “gay liberation movement” has been around for decades, and its disdain for traditional genders, gender roles and the nuclear family are apparent throughout the Manifesto of the Gay Liberation Front, published in London in 1971 and revised in 1978. The authors of this manifesto claim homosexuals are an oppressed group and were determined then—and now—to erase any tradition they see as undermining or squelching their alternative lifestyles. They advocate for “gay communes” and ideals that clearly threaten any free-enterprise/ capitalist society. Reaching far beyond sex issues and gender roles, this Manifesto states: “…besides the practical hang-ups of finding money and a place large enough for a collective to live in, there are our own personal hang-ups: we have to change our attitudes to our personal property, to our lovers, to our day-to day priorities in work and leisure, even to our need for privacy.” (Just as a side note: when you write something and call it a ”manifesto”, history tells us that you have serious mental issues which are usually so severe as to be dangerous to yourself and others.)
While the activists celebrate their victory, the truth is this: marriage is what it has always been: one man and one woman vowing before God (in most cases) to live as one until death they do part. Marriage not only pre-dates the Supreme Court, it pre-dates homosexuality. In the early days of our Republic, marriages weren’t the business of the state, they were the business of the church, and many people still see it that way.
I don’t think most people, Christian or otherwise, care what other people do in their bedrooms. Go and love who you want and unite your lives, but call it something else, because the word “marriage” is already taken. Also, don’t cry “hater” when my pastor or a Catholic priest refuse to preside over your union—go find one who will. It can’t be that difficult at this point in time.
While there are other pressing issues in our nation, we should worry about the agenda that remains under-reported because it threatens everything the majority of us have known to be true. Militant activists now have the Supreme Court to do for them and their minority what they could never accomplish at the ballot box. That’s something to worry about.
What’s in a meme? Apparently more than this one tells us
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