July 15, 2015

Planned Parenthood “Sting” Video Is Yet Another Right-Wing Nothingburger

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Yesterday I watched the (now infamous) hidden video from the Center for Medical Progress, which allegedly shows a couple of undercover “buyers” for a fetal tissue procurement company having lunch with Deborah Nucatola, director of medical services for Planned Parenthood. And it was obviously pretty fishy. Nucatola was talking very openly about how they dispose of fetal tissue from abortions, and doing it in a way that exhibited no stress and no sense at all of being involved in a shady operation. The price per specimen was $30-100,which obviously covered no more than shipping and normal handling. It plainly wasn’t enough for this to be an illegal for-profit business.

So I shrugged and went on with my day. Then the video landed on the front page of the Washington Post and it went mainstream. I assume Fox has been running it on a 24/7 loop as well. But as near as I can tell, it’s completely bogus. The video tries to imply that Planned Parenthood is performing illegal abortions and that it’s selling fetal tissue for profit, also a felony. But there’s not the slightest evidence of either. In fact, as Media Matters points out, if you watch the unedited video it’s crystal clear that the charges for the fetal tissue they sell are designed only to cover the actual costs of the process. Nucatola says repeatedly that affiliates want to “break even,” not make a profit.

So there’s basically nothing here. Bioethicists have been debating for years whether it’s a good idea to sell fetal tissue, and as you can imagine, they’ve been disagreeing for years and show no signs of ever coming to a consensus. Some think it’s wrong and some think it’s OK. That’s not surprising since some people think abortion is wrong and some think it’s OK. And if you think abortion is wrong, you’re certainly not going to be happy about the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses.

Nonetheless, it’s a common practice, and one that’s critical for a lot of medical research. What’s more, it’s only done if the mother wants the tissue donated.

So: scandal? Not hardly. Is it wrong? If you think abortion is murder, then of course you think it’s wrong. If you think abortion is morally benign, as I do, then you’re glad to see donated tissue being used in important medical research. And that’s pretty much that. In the end, this is just another sad attempt at a sting video that goes nowhere once you get beyond the deceptive editing. It’s time for conservatives to find a different toy to manufacture fundraising opportunities for their base.

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