Thursday, July 16, 2015

Pardon my tone

I have a long blog post in the works that I may or may not get finished today that will discuss issues related to the gay marriage decision and its fallout, but in the aftermath of the release of the Planned Parenthood video revealing that abortions are often performed in such a way so as to maximize the ability of the doctors to harvest organs from the dead child, I couldn't let this story pass by without comment:

Reuters: Planned Parenthood head sorry for tone in video on fetal tissue use

Let's start with just the headline.  Firstly, as the good Dr. White remarked on Twitter yesterday, "tone" seems to have become the most dastardly crime one can commit--you can say the most heinous thing imaginable, but if you say it in a nice way or in such a way that it seems like you are trying to be sensitive to others, that excuses the actual content of the statement.  Of course, given that our culture today seems to be rapidly fleeing from the idea that language has any firm meaning, I suppose this shouldn't be terribly surprising, but it is still head-smackingly inane.

Secondly, I realize that Reuters is probably using the phrase "fetal tissue" because it is considered by the bulk of the media to be the most "neutral" phrase, but I believe this is a sign that the idea of the secular worldview being completely on board with all things proven true scientifically is complete nonsense.  I still find it fascinating that in this day and age, far advanced beyond the then-rudimentary prenatal knowledge of 1973, we still continue to pretend that we haven't had it established beyond any reasonable doubt that a fetus* is a child, a separate and new life.  The only thing that could possibly make it more clear at this point would be a literally transparent womb, and we virtually have that with the incredible advances in ultrasound imaging now available.

Just a few parts of the story I wanted to comment on:
Planned Parenthood's president apologized on Thursday for the "tone and statements" of a senior staff member who was secretly recorded in a video that critics say suggests the U.S. reproductive health organization sells aborted fetal tissue. Despite Planned Parenthood's denials of the allegation, the video's release earlier this week has rapidly spurred investigations in the Republican-led U.S. Congress. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a new video statement that the nonprofit organization does not profit from fetal tissue donation.
The verbal sleight-of-hand I have been seeing by PP defenders on Facebook is ever-present: "selling" versus "profiting."  We'll let slide the fact that they absolutely do profit from providing the abortions themselves.  I'm sure once the various governors and attorneys general investigating this are done, we'll have a very clear count of exactly what sort of margin Planned Parenthood is pulling down on baby livers.
She also apologized for the remarks of Dr. Deborah Nucatola, its senior director of medical services, recorded discussing fetal body parts over lunch and wine in a restaurant. She was meeting with actors posing as buyers from a biological company. "Our top priority is the compassionate care that we provide. In the video, one of our staff members speaks in a way that does not reflect that compassion," said Richards, whose statement did not name Nucatola.
This concept continues from the above defense being used by many right now: talk about Planned Parenthood as though it's a poor put-upon woman's clinic that just happens to have some detractors.  Don't allow anyone to bring up what is actually being discussed in the video: the murder of unborn children, and that murder being done in a particular way so as to preserve certain organs for use by others.  This is being acclaimed by the defenders, appallingly enough, as some sort of act akin to organ donation (I even saw one person, without the slightest sense of self-awareness, say "You must be against organ donation" to someone writing about this in a similar vein to me right now.)  This goes along with the longtime claim of abortion rights supporters: unborn children are just tissue, their disposal is the right of the mother and is without consequence.

The conscience-scarring act of adopting this viewpoint vexes me to the core, and demands a cry of "Repent!" from every believer.  Not because we are morally superior, but precisely because the only reason we have any different perspective on our own humanity beyond "It's there for me to do as I please" is by the grace of God.  That we have come to encourage mothers to regard their unborn offspring, the most helpless state of human life one could imagine, as simply a clump of tissue to be disposed of is wicked, and surely it is just as wicked as those who labored to defend the institution of slavery in the United States by claiming that an institution which debased and degraded its victims to the level of animal was, in fact, for their benefit.  George Orwell certainly did not invent doublespeak, but he codified very well the thought process of humanity when it rejects its Creator and chooses slavery and death.

And so it is with "compassionate care."  I fully acknowledge that Planned Parenthood does do many good things in providing needed healthcare for women, especially women without a great deal of means.  That does not excuse the wickedness of calling the act of killing an unborn child "compassionate care."

Finally, there's this:
Richards said Planned Parenthood stood by its work helping women to donate tissue for "lifesaving" research. "We know the real agenda of organizations behind videos like this," she said. "Their mission is to ban abortion completely and cut women off from care at Planned Parenthood and other health centers."
If I may be so bold: you are bloody right it is.  Just like it was the goal of abolitionists like William Wilberforce, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman to see the practice of slavery abolished and to see an end to the treatment of African-Americans as subhuman, so today those who have been set free from bondage to sin by the power of the Holy Spirit must raise their voice in protest against those who would degrade the imago Dei through this assault on motherhood and on our most helpless.

And I choose to do this by pointing out the evil in this practice, and by calling all who consider this act to be acceptable to have their eyes opened, to see the truth of what abortion really is before them, and to repent and know true forgiveness and life in Jesus Christ.  I do this because eliminating abortion is not the true end: the true end is in our work as ministers of reconciliation, calling our fellow imagebearers of God around us to the foot of the cross of Christ and to the true life only found in the Spirit.

*And I don't say "fetus" derogatorily, it's a legitimate word to describe a particular point in life just like "zygote" or "child" or "adolescent" is, or like "larva" is for an insect.  The issue comes in when the word is loaded down with the implication that "fetus" means "clump of random cells that are totally not at all anything you should worry about until they magically turn into a baby on the way down the birth canal."

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