So We Agree Then?

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The tenth video from the Center for Medical Progress is out and the issue highlighted by the videos appears to be gaining some mainstream traction. This video is one of the more effective of the released videos — though they all of them have packed a punch — and I wanted to take a minute to explain why I think this is so.

First, if you haven’t seen this video, take a few moments. There is no graphic footage here, but there are some amazing and nightmarish statements.

The issue is hypocrisy, and what is being revealed is that Planned Parenthood is guilty of high hypocrisy. Not only so, but it is a hypocrisy that is plainly self-aware.

Bernie Sanders just spoke at Liberty University, and was there asked about abortion. He said, in effect, “look, we just disagree about this.” He was received courteously, and his security detail did not have to fight their way to the door for him afterward. Now, despite the fact that pro-lifers believe that he is advocating murder, he denies it. This question, and this denial, all occur in the framework of a large gathering place where people were being civil and courteous to each other. That is a good snapshot of how the abortion debate usually goes.

Because of the way the issue has been framed for us, we say “child” and they say “tissue,” and isn’t this just another political disagreement? That is certainly how it has been played — with the pro-lifers being cast for the last four decades as being on the extreme end of this political disagreement. How do we get past this assigned cultural framework for the disagreement?

Well, it is happening with these videos. What the videos are revealing, in effect, is that we say “child” and they also say “child.” Then, out in public, when they know that the cameras are running, they say tissue, research, tissue, research on tissue. Because science. The issue is no longer between what pro-lifers know and what pro-choicers deny. The glaring discrepancy now is between what pro-choicers know in private and what pro-choicers deny in public. This is a different debate entirely, and the only fair conclusion is that PP has been running a monstrous operation.

This breakdown for them is happening in several distinct ways. First, if it were just indeterminate tissue, they would dispose of it like they thought it was tissue. This is what might be called the dumpster problem. Why is everyone outraged that they are selling gonads and livers, but there has not been the same kind of outrage-traction when the babies were being thrown into dumpsters? Pro-lifers are outraged by this, obviously, but the pro-aborts have been able to defend themselves at that point, and have done so successfully for decades. And why? Because they claim it is just tissue in public and they were treating it like “just tissue” in private. No one has a problem with how hospitals dispose of the placenta after a birth. In an honest disagreement you would predict that pro-lifers would treat it like a baby and that pro-choicers would treat it like tissue, which means that throwing it in the dumpster appears at least consistent.

The great problem for Planned Parenthood now is this. They were getting away with all of this because a lot of people took their word for it. Because they did not want to look at it too closely, they were willing for medical professionals to dispose of lumps of tissue. “Some people say this, some say that, and I don’t want to be disturbed.” But now it appears that all parties to the dispute are saying the same thing, and we are dealing with very specific nouns. Eyes, brain, livers, thymus, heart, and now gonads. These are all human parts, and the veil has been lifted.

But the veil has not been lifted on the children — we have always had photos of the dead children who were dumpster bound. When shown such photos, people usually just recoil and retreat to a safe place where they can treat it like just another political dispute.

The damning thing for Planned Parenthood now is that the veil has been lifted on their knowledge of what they are doing. It has now been revealed to the world that Planned Parenthood agrees substantially with the pro-life movement — and so  the veil has been lifted on this stratospheric hypocrisy.

This can be seen in another way. This last video revealed that they know exactly how the whole thing would look to normal people. As one woman in the video put it, “just think of the headlines.” So they know that they are trafficking in the sale of human baby body parts, and they know how it would look if the veil were lifted on that. Well, it has been.

The one miscalculation apparent in the video is that they appeared to think that any revelation of this could shut them down entirely. And it really should have by now. But while Planned Parenthood has had a very bad summer, and if it had been anyone else they would have been shut down, they did underestimate the depth of complicity in our ruling class. It turns out that they are not the only hypocrites.

This hypocrisy is their vulnerability. This hypocrisy is the place where we must dwell. This is why the videos are so devastating and so effective. We can help make them more effective by accentuating and underscoring the same point.
I have been in any number of debates and discussions, and I know that the end is nigh if I am able to say something like this to an opponent, “So we agree then?”

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PerfectHold
PerfectHold
8 years ago

“the depth of complicity in our ruling class”
Doesn’t the disease (& sin) of complicity in the public mind extend to our ruling church elders as well?
And to nearly all us sheep?
How many times have you rightly called for OUR repentance on this?

Gary
Gary
8 years ago
Reply to  PerfectHold

The ruling class are are ruling because we voted them there.

Malachi
Malachi
8 years ago

Perfectly chilling, and deliciously exhilarating at the same time. Like having a bucket of ice water dumped on you in the shower. Makes you scream and thrash from the shock of it all, and then move with great energy and purpose.

How I pray that God is dumping a massive bucket of ice water on America right now!!

Maid of Kent
Maid of Kent
8 years ago
Reply to  Malachi

Indeed. Let’s also pray that God will dump a massive bucket of ice water on church leaders who fail to recognise the seriousness of sexual abuse (a dangerous crime as well as a gross sin), and minimise its devastating effects.

A sexual abuser can receive the forgiveness of Christ. No-one’s sin, however dreadful, is beyond His cure and His capacity to restore. But that same abuser must still face the legal consequences of their crime(s), and adequate protections must be in place in churches.

Agreed?

Maid of Kent
Maid of Kent
8 years ago
Reply to  Maid of Kent

(In case there is any doubt, I think PP’s actions are utterly repugnant.)

jigawatt
jigawatt
8 years ago

That woman was so concerned about New York Times headlines? Really? Did she not get the memo?

That’d be like the head of the NRA saying “We have to be careful we’re not seen as too ‘pro-gun’ or else we might get ridiculed by Rush Limbaugh.”

jigawatt
jigawatt
8 years ago
Reply to  jigawatt

Actually her being scared of the NYT headlines helps to prove Doug’s point. Someone might object, “Well, they don’t really think the aborted babies are babies, they’re just worried about getting the wacko anti-abortion folks stirred up.” But she was most afraid of the NYT and their readers, not WND or Breitbart or the Federalist or even Fox News! She was thinking that her own liberal friends would go after her. Now, of course, they haven’t, but her admission proves that she was worried about backlash from all sides.

Will G
Will G
8 years ago

Watching these videos always reminds me of the end of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ when the whole witch coven lets the truth out. The camera angle is even the same.

ashv
ashv
8 years ago

Hard to come away from these with anything other than thoughts about millstones, necks, and a beach at low tide. :-/

gerv
gerv
8 years ago

“Think of the New York Times headline”… well, here it is: “Government Shutdown Could Harm Anti-Abortion Cause, Campaigner Says.” http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/16/government-shutdown-could-harm-anti-abortion-cause-campaigner-says/

Even when the video calls them out in person, they don’t seem to want to write about it. It seems like the person speaking substantially underestimated the level of support for PP inside the NYT.

Anna A. Marten
Anna A. Marten
8 years ago

This is revolting…We need a William Wilberforce to take on this industry.

"A" dad
"A" dad
8 years ago

Ephesians 511 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Poor kids……

Matt
Matt
8 years ago

People in the past used to just throw their infants in the river. If actually seeing their children didn’t stop them then, it’s hard to imagine how any terminology shift is going to stop them now. Which makes these videos a primarily political thing aimed at Planned Parenthood alone. The cultural impact is nil.

holmegm
holmegm
8 years ago
Reply to  Matt

And … you like that?

David Zuniga
David Zuniga
8 years ago

These monsters in our midst are treated as normal human beings by their neighbors and friends. I think Hell on earth begins where women at dinner tables talk about crushing babies to death, with no shred of conscience. For 40 years, we who call ourselves followers of Christ, have countenanced domestic genocide and foreign plunder and mass murder. The former because it is an ‘uncomfortable’ subject (yes, being saline-burned or hacked to death must indeed be uncomfortable!) and the latter because we must cheer for the ‘good old USA’ and ‘our warriors in harm’s way’ making plunder of foreign oilfields… Read more »

Kelly M. Haggar
Kelly M. Haggar
8 years ago

Here’s a Catholic writing about his local priests rating two Catholic candidates: START In my own parish, during an election featuring two Catholic candidates, a voter guide produced by the local bishops set forth their positions on ten issues. The result was a tie: One candidate favored taxpayer funding for abortion, but the other one supported uranium mining. You would have thought that the Church made no distinctions between issues based on their moral gravity or the scope of prudent judgment allowed to public authority. We can expect a lot of this from Catholic Democrats during the pope’s visit. They… Read more »