The Planned Parenthood Videos Seem to be Getting a Fair Amount of Traction

[Shadowy Man]

Will he remember? I used to give my niece horsey-back rides when she was 18 months old. She loved them. I asked her when she was 10 years old if she remembered them.

She said, "No."

So I really doubt a child even younger than 18 months gets anything out of a party.

I hear this a lot from people, that somehow doing things with a child that they won't remember somehow has no impact on them. Do you think this would be true about abuse? Imagine the following version of what you typed:

"I used to beat my child with a belt when he was 18 months old. He hated it. I asked him when he was 10 years old if he remembered the beatings. He said 'no'."

Am I then supposed to conclude that a child of 18 months old or younger isn't impacted by abuse? That childhood experiences that won't be remembered will not be part of the psyche in adulthood?

 

[prideandfall]

It's all about public opinion, and right now Planned Parenthood is losing that battle. I think they believe that their core of support is unwavering, so they haven't been waging a public opinion campaign, nor do I think they are going to change any of their practices to gain public support.

sorry, i know i'm late to this, but this really stuck out at me because of how much i disagree with it.
i think it's disingenuous from the start of the conversation to imply that PP has a battle that they can win or lose in the first place, because i think that is patently incorrect.
there's a battle, to be sure, but it's "basic human intelligence" vs. "the complete mental retardation of most humans", and there's frankly nothing that any given institution can do about that.
what PP does is a moral, ethical, social, medical, and personal good by every metric, in every context, for everyone regardless of if they personally use services through PP or not.
that so many people have such inherent and fundamental chromosomal damage as to make their brains incapable of functioning within a nominal range isn't something that i think can be pinned on PP.

I think they are wrong about this assessment. As I said earlier, the anti-choice campaign has been successful in maintaining moral high ground on the national level while restricting abortion access on the state level. Planned Parenthood is not doing anything to break that cycle, and they need to. Stopping this practice might be a start.

because PP CAN'T do anything - they're just an organization offering a service, one that is absolutely right to be offered in every conceivable way.
it's not like what PP is doing is somehow cagey or kind of iffy and it's all about selling the public on the idea of spending 7 dollars for bottled water. the problem is that the only acceptable answer to the question of abortion is "on demand without apology" - there is no other possible rational position to take. and as a general rule that's the failure of the culture of the "pro-choice" movement in general, to cower away from that and hedge and haw about it.

 

[Achwienichtig]

sorry, i know i'm late to this, but this really stuck out at me because of how much i disagree with it.
i think it's disingenuous from the start of the conversation to imply that PP has a battle that they can win or lose in the first place, because i think that is patently incorrect.
there's a battle, to be sure, but it's "basic human intelligence" vs. "the complete mental retardation of most humans", and there's frankly nothing that any given institution can do about that.
what PP does is a moral, ethical, social, medical, and personal good by every metric, in every context, for everyone regardless of if they personally use services through PP or not.
that so many people have such inherent and fundamental chromosomal damage as to make their brains incapable of functioning within a nominal range isn't something that i think can be pinned on PP.

I think they are wrong about this assessment. As I said earlier, the anti-choice campaign has been successful in maintaining moral high ground on the national level while restricting abortion access on the state level. Planned Parenthood is not doing anything to break that cycle, and they need to. Stopping this practice might be a start.

because PP CAN'T do anything - they're just an organization offering a service, one that is absolutely right to be offered in every conceivable way.
it's not like what PP is doing is somehow cagey or kind of iffy and it's all about selling the public on the idea of spending 7 dollars for bottled water. the problem is that the only acceptable answer to the question of abortion is "on demand without apology" - there is no other possible rational position to take. and as a general rule that's the failure of the culture of the "pro-choice" movement in general, to cower away from that and hedge and haw about it.

I'm a sucker for compromise. More of a "safe, legal, and rare" kind of person myself. But you might be right. The right wing has had no issue with becoming more stubborn in their positions, and that's worked for them. Maybe the best way to preserve the right to choose is to simply be stubborn about it.

 

[blastula]

If you ask me, Planned Parenthood would do well to stop the practice of donating/selling fetal tissue, whether its legal or not. I myself am a little repulsed by the idea, though I am not strictly ethically against it. I did, after all, have my children vaccinated with vaccines which were in part cultivated with materials derived from aborted fetuses. Some people will not even get their children vaccinated for just that reason.

Are you repulsed by non-fetus human tissue being donated for research?

 

[prideandfall]

I'm a sucker for compromise. More of a "safe, legal, and rare" kind of person myself. But you might be right. The right wing has had no issue with becoming more stubborn in their positions, and that's worked for them. Maybe the best way to preserve the right to choose is to simply be stubborn about it.

yeah i don't get why the "pro-choice" position has always seemed to be one of concession from the outset - i mean even when you're dealing with more extreme and uncompromising sides of the debate, one side seems to be dug in deep and the other is kind of walking around their trench going "is there any way we can make you more comfortable?"

 

[credoconsolans]

Will he remember? I used to give my niece horsey-back rides when she was 18 months old. She loved them. I asked her when she was 10 years old if she remembered them.

She said, "No."

So I really doubt a child even younger than 18 months gets anything out of a party.

I hear this a lot from people, that somehow doing things with a child that they won't remember somehow has no impact on them. Do you think this would be true about abuse? Imagine the following version of what you typed:

"I used to beat my child with a belt when he was 18 months old. He hated it. I asked him when he was 10 years old if he remembered the beatings. He said 'no'."

Am I then supposed to conclude that a child of 18 months old or younger isn't impacted by abuse? That childhood experiences that won't be remembered will not be part of the psyche in adulthood?

Let's just say that a case of sexual molestation occurred in close relatives, done to a little girl around the age of 4.

The sexual molestation was halted and there was some talk about whether to just let the girl forget or make a big deal about it and thus possibly MAKE a problem. Her parents decided to let her forget.

She did.

She is now an adult, happy, healthy, engaged to be married to a nice young geeky man. No sign of any problems.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

All of their abortions are privately funded anyway. Creating a separate business entity would have no effect.

Sure it would. It would be harder for pro-lifers to defund the new PP that does not do abortions. It's easy for them to attack with, "OMG baby parts for profit". It would be much harder for them to attack women's health. Yes, there will still be those who are fiercely against providing birth control, but lets draw them out in the open and point out that their stance causes more abortions.

Unless they did totally separate businesses with considerable duplication of facilities they would still be accused of using non-abortion money to fund abortions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Option A: Sell unwanted/unused fetus parts in order to help other fetuses/babies/humans.
Option B: Throw unwanted/unused fetus parts in the trash.

Not sure why A is so offensive relative to the alternative.

aa

Because it's not about reason.

1) It's something to bash PP with. The honesty doesn't matter.

2) They don't like *ANY* good coming from something they oppose. It's the same logic that lead to the Islamists blocking polio vaccination.

 

[Achwienichtig]

Are you repulsed by non-fetus human tissue being donated for research?

I see your point. I must admit the repulsion is much less in the case of an adult, but it is still present. My own natural instinct is that it is wrong to desecrate a body. Although research is completely different from desecration, many of the outward actions are the same, e.g. dismemberment, cutting into, etc. Getting past this similarity is something I need to consciously do in order to be comfortable with it.

The same is true in the case for fetal tissue. I am very uncomfortable with the practice and wish that there were other means of accomplishing the same ends. The idea of a dead baby is bad enough. A dead baby being dismembered is even worse. I don't think there is anything unnatural about this repulsion, because I don't think there is anything unnatural about the instinct to preserve our young from the onset, even before birth. Having said that, I am able to hold back my repulsion well enough so as to maintain my pro-choice stance.

 

[Achwienichtig]

I'm a sucker for compromise. More of a "safe, legal, and rare" kind of person myself. But you might be right. The right wing has had no issue with becoming more stubborn in their positions, and that's worked for them. Maybe the best way to preserve the right to choose is to simply be stubborn about it.

yeah i don't get why the "pro-choice" position has always seemed to be one of concession from the outset - i mean even when you're dealing with more extreme and uncompromising sides of the debate, one side seems to be dug in deep and the other is kind of walking around their trench going "is there any way we can make you more comfortable?"

As a moderate myself, I tend to avoid extremism on all levels. The problem is, when extremists take the dominant role in the cultural debate, I don't know that a moderate position can be held. I don't see myself as a supporter of abortion on demand, but when given the choice between that and the opposite extreme, I have to take the pro-choice side.

 

[RavenSky]

The anti-abortion crowd love to declare that a fetus is a child.

Do they also object to allowing parents the right to donate a dead child's body to science or organs to help someone else live?

If not, why not? What is the moral/ethical difference in their mind between consenting to donate the body of an already born child vs consenting to donate a fetus? The Catholic Church even allows parental consent to donate fetal remains to research in the case of a miscarriage, so what is the difference?

 

[Shadowy Man]

I hear this a lot from people, that somehow doing things with a child that they won't remember somehow has no impact on them. Do you think this would be true about abuse? Imagine the following version of what you typed:

"I used to beat my child with a belt when he was 18 months old. He hated it. I asked him when he was 10 years old if he remembered the beatings. He said 'no'."

Am I then supposed to conclude that a child of 18 months old or younger isn't impacted by abuse? That childhood experiences that won't be remembered will not be part of the psyche in adulthood?

Let's just say that a case of sexual molestation occurred in close relatives, done to a little girl around the age of 4.

The sexual molestation was halted and there was some talk about whether to just let the girl forget or make a big deal about it and thus possibly MAKE a problem. Her parents decided to let her forget.

She did.

She is now an adult, happy, healthy, engaged to be married to a nice young geeky man. No sign of any problems.

Problem solved then, eh? The fact that you can find one counter-example does not nullify my argument. Do you think there are any examples of adults having psychological issues derived from child abuse they can't remember?

I find it hard to believe that a person's adult psyche is only informed by those things that are remembered. Certainly a toddler is developing mental capacities that inform its adult life. Are we to believe that this development is completely fluid until long-term memory is established?

 

[NobleSavage]

I used to be fairly certain that this issue would always be about 50/50 with the voting public. But looking around the web it looks like the pro-life activists dominate the discussion. On YouTube search for "abortion video" it's filled with what look like late term aborted fetuses, some I'm sure are doctored or fake. One woman, Emily Letts, posted her positive abortion experience and it went straight to Drudge Report and she got attacked by the pro-life lynch mob.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Well most Pro Choicers like to feast on the "baby parts" so we want to keep all this 'bortion stuff hush hush.

 

[Achwienichtig]

I used to be fairly certain that this issue would always be about 50/50 with the voting public. But looking around the web it looks like the pro-life activists dominate the discussion. On YouTube search for "abortion video" it's filled with what look like late term aborted fetuses, some I'm sure are doctored or fake. One woman, Emily Letts, posted her positive abortion experience and it went straight to Drudge Report and she got attacked by the pro-life lynch mob.

Isn't there something wrong with the idea of a "positive" abortion story? That's kind of like saying you had a positive colonoscopy story. Sure, you might be relieved when it's over, but it sure would have been a lot better if you didn't have to go through it at all.

 

[NobleSavage]

Isn't there something wrong with the idea of a "positive" abortion story? That's kind of like saying you had a positive colonoscopy story. Sure, you might be relieved when it's over, but it sure would have been a lot better if you didn't have to go through it at all.

Yes, bad choice of words as pointed out by Cara Santa Maria.

 

[bilby]

Extremists always dominate discussion. Reasonable and moderate people whose intent is to allow others to live their private lives unmolested simply don't have the motivation to spend hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars pushing their agendas.

Looking around the Internet, it seems like everything is a big deal. But most people simply do not support the extremists - which is a very different thing to opposing the extremists - and so the extremists dominate the debate, even if they have essentially no wide support base.

Looking around the Internet (or at the news media) is an extraordinarily bad way to judge public opinion.

 

[credoconsolans]

Let's just say that a case of sexual molestation occurred in close relatives, done to a little girl around the age of 4.

The sexual molestation was halted and there was some talk about whether to just let the girl forget or make a big deal about it and thus possibly MAKE a problem. Her parents decided to let her forget.

She did.

She is now an adult, happy, healthy, engaged to be married to a nice young geeky man. No sign of any problems.

Problem solved then, eh? The fact that you can find one counter-example does not nullify my argument. Do you think there are any examples of adults having psychological issues derived from child abuse they can't remember?

I find it hard to believe that a person's adult psyche is only informed by those things that are remembered. Certainly a toddler is developing mental capacities that inform its adult life. Are we to believe that this development is completely fluid until long-term memory is established?

Problem was solved. Quite neatly too.

It doesn't nullify your argument but it does put it on less secure footing.

As for psychological health, it's been well established due to the very cruel rhesus monkey experiments that a child will grow up dysfunctional if it is not coddled and held and attention lavished on it during its infancy.

But aside from that who can say? Children are very resilient. Before modern medicine, women died quite frequently in child birth and complications. People died young due to illnesses. Other children already born had to learn to adapt to new circumstances, new mothers and new fathers.

So it may be that some traumas of normal life are not absorbed by the very young and they do forget it for psychological protection

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Option A: Sell unwanted/unused fetus parts in order to help other fetuses/babies/humans.
Option B: Throw unwanted/unused fetus parts in the trash.

Not sure why A is so offensive relative to the alternative.

aa

Because it's not about reason.

1) It's something to bash PP with. The honesty doesn't matter.

2) They don't like *ANY* good coming from something they oppose. It's the same logic that lead to the Islamists blocking polio vaccination.

I'll take acute personal soapbox tangents for $800 Alex.

- - - Updated - - -

OTOH, part of the shift toward pro-life is due to the increase in Hispanics, both due to immigration and greater birth rates. They are still mostly voting Dem. Given the high % of hard core pro-life candidates that are also blatantly racist, this won't likely change soon.

What will likely change is the the number of pro-life Democrat candidates. We'll see more of them to attract the Hispanic vote.

Yeah, because the Republican Party is currently doing a great job attracting the Hispanic vote.

 

[Valjean]

The anti-abortion crowd love to declare that a fetus is a child.

Do they also object to allowing parents the right to donate a dead child's body to science or organs to help someone else live?

If not, why not? What is the moral/ethical difference in their mind between consenting to donate the body of an already born child vs consenting to donate a fetus? The Catholic Church even allows parental consent to donate fetal remains to research in the case of a miscarriage, so what is the difference?

It's the yuck factor -- it violates Haidt's 6th Moral Foundation:
6. Sanctity/degradation: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions. (Alternate name: Purity.)

Conservatives believe it's government's job to compel propriety. They want all six foundations enforced (liberals see only the first three as government's concern).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Foundations_Theory