“God bless Planned Parenthood” – PP Uses Abortions to Sell Baby Parts

[Wilikon]

Fifth Planned Parenthood video turns to 'intact' fetuses


A Planned Parenthood official discusses the procurement and cost of "intact" fetuses and altering abortion procedures to meet specific needs in a video released Tuesday by an anti-abortion group.


In the fifth video from the Center for Medical Progress, a woman identified as Melissa Farrell, director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, discusses contributing to the organization's "diversification of the revenue stream" and the potential to "get creative" with conditions for procurement needs. The video was reportedly filmed this past April at a Planned Parenthood facility in Texas.

"Just depending on the patient's anatomy, how many weeks, where it's placed in the uterus ... we're going to potentially be able to have some that will be more or less intact, and then some that will not be," she said.

"But it's something that we can look at exploring how we can make that happen so we have a higher chance," she adds.

"And we've had studies in which the company, or in the case of the investigator, has a specific need for a certain portion of the products of conception and we bake that into our contract, and our protocol, that we follow this. So we deviate from our standard in order to do that," the Planned Parenthood official says in the latest video.

"If we alter our process and we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers, then we can make it part of the budget, that any dissections are this, and splitting the specimens into different shipments is this. I mean, it's all just a matter of line items," she adds later.

Planned Parenthood, which has argued the series of videos are a part of a smear campaign against the organization, quickly fired back.

"The footage released today doesn’t show Planned Parenthood staff engaged in any wrongdoing or agreeing to violate any legal or medical standards," Planned Parenthood Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens said in a six-paragraph statement.

"Instead, the latest tape shows an extremely offensive intrusion and lack of respect for women, with footage of medical tissue in a lab. These extremists show a total lack of compassion and dignity for women’s most personal medical decisions," she added.

Laguens said the latest video "will be difficult for many people to see," adding that "[m]edical procedures and medical research are often difficult to watch."

Laguens alluded to graphic images in the video of a gloved hand with tweezers sifting through a dish of fetal parts and tissue.

"It is standard medical practice to review tissue to ensure the health and safety of patients, and this tissue was being examined and handled under the false pretense of a standard laboratory site visit for people purportedly conducting qualified medical research," she said.

Planned Parenthood has pushed back strongly on four other videos released in the past few weeks, noting that the recordings are heavily edited and maintaining that the group does not profit off the transfer of aborted fetal parts and tissue to researchers but merely gather costs relating to the tissue's preservation and transfer.

The Center for Medical Progress's David Daleiden said earlier Tuesday on CNN's “New Day" that the new video showed evidence "how Planned Parenthood is willing to sell fully intact fetuses to buyers of aborted fetal tissue.”

Debate over federal funding for Planned Parenthood is expected to resume on Capitol Hill after the August recess, after a measure to defund the group failed in the Senate on Monday.

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards defended the group on Monday, saying the Senate vote was “about denying women access to healthcare in this country.”

Several more videos from the Center for Medical Progress are expected to be released.


http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/250179-fifth-planned-parenthood-video-turns-to-intact-fetuses

[Wilikon]

Federal court strikes down “ag-gag” law, protects undercover journalism



The ACLU, PETA, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund won a major First Amendment case yesterday — and it should delight pro-life activists. The state of Idaho passed a law forbidding the use of undercover and other secret surveillance for journalistic purposes, a protection of the dairy and meat industries that had suffered public-relations disasters at the hands of exposés conducted by animal-rights activists. A federal judge overturned the law yesterday, ruling it a violation of free speech. Boise Weekly celebrated the win, and noted its own risks under the “ag-gag” law:

In April 2011, Boise Weekly visited a Jerome livestock auction as part of our award-winning investigation where we discovered high levels of drugs found in cattle linked to Idaho dairies (BW, News, “Got Milk? Got Drugs? Got Both?” April 6, 2011).

But auction officials weren’t too pleased with our presence—going so far as to manhandle our photographer and call us “terrorists.” But if a 2014 measure pushed through the Idaho Legislature and signed into law by Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter had been in effect at the time, we would have faced up to a year behind bars and fines of up to $5,000. …

And in a ruling issued Monday by B. Lynn Winmill, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for Idaho, the court found that the State’s argument in favor of the law was “narrowly tailored to protect private property” and “the State completely ignores that food production is not a private matter.”

“The remedy for misleading speech, or speech we do not like, is more speech, not enforced silence,” wrote Winmill.”The Court finds that [the Ag-Gag law] violates the First Amendment.”

The Chief Judge also wrote that, “Although the State may not agree with the message certain groups seek to convey about Idaho’s agricultural production facilities, such as releasing secretly-recorded videos of animal abuse to the Internet and calling for boycotts, it cannot deny such groups equal protection of the laws in their exercise of their right to free speech.”


These “ag-gag” restrictions have been proposed in several states, but only passed into law in a few, including Iowa and Utah in 2012. They are a relatively new phenomenon, pushed along undoubtedly by the low-cost barrier to entry for the kind of covert videography required. As I wrote earlier today, broadcasters have used the undercover-infiltration model for decades, but now activists can easily conduct similar investigations — and have.

The ACLU expresses its delight over the ruling:

The statue [sic] criminalizes undercover investigations that document animal welfare, worker safety, and food safety violations at an “agricultural production facility,” thus “gagging” speech that is critical of industrial agriculture, including speech that advances significant public interests in protecting Idahoans’ safety. Under this law, journalists, workers, activists, and members of the public can be convicted for documenting animal cruelty or life-threatening safety violations. The court ruled that this statute violates the First Amendment by suppressing speech that criticizes factory farms and was motivated by unconstitutional animus against animal advocates—which is a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Undercover video and photography has exposed numerous shocking practices that are “industry standards.” These pervasive, systematic procedures include routine mutilation, including debeaking birds with electrically heated blades and castrating male animals by slicing open their scrotum and ripping their testicles out without pain relief or anesthesia and intensive confinement—where animals are literally unable to turn around for months on end. Exposes have also detailed the sickening farming conditions resulting in contaminated meat products—posing serious health risks to the public—and life threatening conditions for farm workers.


That brings us to the pro-life cause. In San Francisco, a federal judge has placed a prior restraint on exactly the same kind of speech. The Center for Medical Progress conducted undercover investigations into Planned Parenthood, StemExpress, and the National Abortion Federation (among others, possibly) that “exposed numerous shocking practices” that are apparently “industry standards.” Judge William Orrick issued a temporary restraining order blocking that speech largely on the basis of the non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that CMP’s investigators signed to gain access to industry meetings and officials. However, most employers require new hires to sign an NDA, even those gaining employment in order to expose illegal or abusive practices. They’re generally meaningless when used in this manner, and more so when it comes to whistleblowing. Orrick is reaching on this TRO.

Since this decision came at the district court, it carries no formal precedential weight — yet. If the state chooses to appeal this ruling, and they will have to do so to continue enforcement of its ag-gag law, an appellate court will have the opportunity to establish a precedent by upholding this ruling, and it would be shocking if it did not. That would come in the same appellate district as California (9th), which means a precedent here would pertain to federal courts in San Francisco. The only question might be which case gets to the 9th Circuit first, but the outcome wouldn’t likely change in any case.

So here’s an exit question, to borrow the phrase from my esteemed co-blogger: When will the ACLU take up CMP’s case in San Francisco? I’d guess that will happen at roughly the same time that media outlets file amicus briefs on behalf of CMP to protect undercover journalism, which I predict will roughly be … never.



http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/04/federal-court-strikes-down-ag-gag-law-protects-undercover-journalism/

[Wilikon]

Yesterday, Democrats voted to force you to fund baby killers


Since Day One of the new Planned Parenthood scandal, Democrats have gone to the walls to defend the nation’s most prolific killer of human beings. For two examples from just yesterday: only two Senate Democrats voted for a bill that would shift Planned Parenthood’s federal funding to other organizations. And only days after she called the Planned Parenthood fetal harvesting videos “disturbing,” Hillary Clinton ran an ad that proclaimed defunding the abortion giant is “a full-on assault on women’s health…”

Meanwhile, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest has twice admitted that his comments about the scandal are parroted from Planned Parenthood.

And just what are Democrats (and some Republicans) using the power of government to make you pay for? Nothing less than death, destruction, and bad economics.

First, the obvious: Planned Parenthood is a prolific killer of people. More than 327,000 of them, officially, last year, and even more through “contraceptives” that are actually abortifacients.

Second, and nearly as obvious: Monday’s vote was a show vote that highlighted how the American people are funding Planned Parenthood’s lawbreaking. Whether a congressional investigation finds the sales of fetal parts were done illegally, it is very clear that illegal partial-birth abortions are being committed to get complete limbs and organs, and it is likewise clear that the style of abortion is modified to get complete baby parts — which is also illegal.

This is in addition to Planned Parenthood’s willingness to break state reporting laws when it comes to using rape victims and sex slaves for profit.


http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/04/yesterday-democrats-voted-to-keep-making-you-fund-law-breaking-economy-distorting-baby-killers/

[Wilikon]

MSNBC's Carmon Tries To Blame Republicans In #PPSellsBabyParts Scandal


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lr16-tMyag

[Wilikon]

Nurse Admits It’s ‘Fun’ To Dissect Fetuses


The transcript accompanying the latest undercover Planned Parenthood video has an employee of the group admit she finds it “fun” to dissect fetuses for their organs and would “enjoy” the opportunity to do it on behalf of fetal tissue purchasers.

The exchange isn’t included in the 15-minute edited video released Tuesday by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), but is instead buried deep in the 119-page transcript accompanying it (a full-footage version of the video hasn’t been released yet). In the exchange, Melissa Farrell, director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, admits she and her co-worker would find it enjoyable if a tissue buyer wanted them to dissect dead fetuses for parts.

“It would be exciting too if you needed it dissected, because LaShonda and I are the most Curious George of the group,” Farrell says. “I know it’s sickening on some level, but it’s fun.”


http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/04/new-planned-parenthood-transcript-nurse-admits-its-fun-to-dissect-fetuses/#ixzz3ht4iYTgJ

[Wilikon]

Video: Tapper asks Press Sec why nobody at White House has watched PP videos


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SvNmsCvpg


Tapper: There’s nothing in these tapes that bothers you or anyone in the White House?

Earnest: Jake, I gotta tell you. These videos were released because of their shock value and there’s no doubt that what’s depicted on these videos is shocking. I know that based on the news reports I’ve read about the videos. I haven’t actually looked at them. But people who have looked at them have raised significant questions about whether or not these videos are credible. About whether or not they’ve been selectively edited in a way to grossly distort the position and the policies of Planned Parenthood.

Tapper: The whole video is put up on the website of this anti-abortion group that put them out. You don’t have to watch just the edited version. You can watch the whole version.

Earnest: I’m relying on news reports that I’ve seen on people who’ve taken a look at this and raised questions about the videos themselves and there’s no doubt that this is an organization that has targeted Planned Parenthood for some time so they clearly have an ideological ax to grind. What we know to be true is that Planned Parenthood provides regular health care for millions of Americans across the country. And Planned Parenthood is not able to use federal funds to perform abortions. That is written into the rules. That is a rule that this administration has not just followed, but that this administration has supported. So it’s clear that there are some ideological games being played here. And what this administration and this president has long fought for is protecting access for women for health care. And that’s exactly why we want to make sure there’s not an ideological effort to defund Planned Parenthood that provides those important health care services to women all across the country.

Tapper: Well, somebody at the White House should maybe watch the videos in full.


http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/05/video-tapper-asks-press-sec-why-nobody-at-white-house-has-watched-pp-videos/

[Pentax]

Video: Tapper asks Press Sec why nobody at White House has watched PP videos


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SvNmsCvpg


Tapper: There’s nothing in these tapes that bothers you or anyone in the White House?

Earnest: Jake, I gotta tell you. These videos were released because of their shock value and there’s no doubt that what’s depicted on these videos is shocking. I know that based on the news reports I’ve read about the videos. I haven’t actually looked at them. But people who have looked at them have raised significant questions about whether or not these videos are credible. About whether or not they’ve been selectively edited in a way to grossly distort the position and the policies of Planned Parenthood.

Tapper: The whole video is put up on the website of this anti-abortion group that put them out. You don’t have to watch just the edited version. You can watch the whole version.

Earnest: I’m relying on news reports that I’ve seen on people who’ve taken a look at this and raised questions about the videos themselves and there’s no doubt that this is an organization that has targeted Planned Parenthood for some time so they clearly have an ideological ax to grind. What we know to be true is that Planned Parenthood provides regular health care for millions of Americans across the country. And Planned Parenthood is not able to use federal funds to perform abortions. That is written into the rules. That is a rule that this administration has not just followed, but that this administration has supported. So it’s clear that there are some ideological games being played here. And what this administration and this president has long fought for is protecting access for women for health care. And that’s exactly why we want to make sure there’s not an ideological effort to defund Planned Parenthood that provides those important health care services to women all across the country.

Tapper: Well, somebody at the White House should maybe watch the videos in full.


http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/05/video-tapper-asks-press-sec-why-nobody-at-white-house-has-watched-pp-videos/

Of course they've watched them.  Saying they haven't is a flat out fucking lie. 

Plausible deniability is all these bastards need.  Hide behind it like a force field.

They can't say they've watched them, as then they couldn't spin that these are distorted, edited, blah, blah, blah.

And then they'd have to do something about it, as these fuckers are clearly dancing on the wrong side of the issue.  And that would make their base angry.

So, instead of manning up, they simply lie and blather out the party spin.

I can deal with a lot of this spin doctor shit.  It's the shitty fucking world we live in. 

In this case, however, it's gone too far.  This is disgusting, repugnant, vile behavior that nobody in their right mind would think is defensible.  We are at the point where there is no, NO sense of morality if even this is going to be subjected to the spin doctor treatment.

The entire liberal base should be embarrassed by this obvious dodge by the administration and others on the left.  Those that support it or spin it like Earnest and the rest of the Obama administration should be forced to spend a week in those fucking places watching this crazy shit going on for real.  Motherfuckers.

[Wilikon]

Harry Reid: Republicans Have Lost “Moral Compass” Because They Won’t Harvest Baby Kidneys and Livers


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KOWR4vhBT4



Hmm...

[Wilikon]

2015 08 04 Rush Limbaugh caller inadvertently admits Planned Parenthood kills babies


Description: A caller into Rush Limbaugh's show claims that his wife works for Planned Parenthood and inadvertently admits that Planned Parenthood kills babies and stuff them in bags. But according to the caller, it's okay since they do more than just kill babies. The only problem is that PP is in the abortion business, thus the only other "service" they provide is to encourage sexual promiscuity to ensure that the abortion business remains booming.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJWCDLjVyD0

[Wilikon]

PolitiFact and Planned Parenthood: Erroneous Fact Checks All the Way Down



Planned Parenthood now finds itself being heavily criticized after being caught on tape brokering fetal body parts. Fortunately for them, they have no shortage of allies in the media, including PolitiFact.

Fox Business reporter Sandra Smith recently said on air "Almost 95 percent of all (Planned Parenthood) pregnancy services were abortions." On Tuesday, PunditFact, a division of PolitiFact, rated it false.

PolitiFact concedes the source of this statistic is Planned Parenthood's own annual report. If you take the number of services listed in the report, exclude the ones that don't apply to women who aren't pregnant, you do indeed get a figure that showing that over 94 percent of pregnant women who go to Planned Parenthood get an abortion.

After validating the source of the stat, PolitiFact then says, "For several reasons, that’s a misleading way to analyze the data." That's an odd statement because PolitiFact then goes on to provide one concrete reason for why the statistic is inaccurate. And it's a very dubious rationale:

Not all of Planned Parenthood approximately 700 clinics offer prenatal services because prenatal care is not Planned Parenthood's focus. As a result, many pregnant women are referred to outside obstetricians or other health providers for prenatal care.

How many? It's impossible to know.

Planned Parenthood does not record how many pregnant patients are referred to outside health care providers, said Catherine Lozada, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman.

If referrals were included, the 95 percent figure would likely change, though we can't say by how much — and neither can Smith nor the [pro-life] Susan B. Anthony List.

To what extent is a referral a service? Let's say a woman walks into a beauty parlor and needs a manicure, but is told they don't do manicures at this establishment and is told to go to another place down the road. Does the first establishment get credit for helping provide a service they don't provide? Now it's more complicated in the medical world, as sometimes you need a referral from one doctor to see another doctor or specialist. However, saying referrals to other doctors is a service Planned Parenthood provides -- let alone one they conveniently don't keep track of so that they can't be pinned down on when asked how many abortions provide relative to other services provided to pregnant women -- is quite a stretch. Especially when you consider that Planned Parenthood clearly tries to obfuscate how many abortions they perform.

Beyond that single dodgy reason declaring the stat false, PunditFact's ruling explaining their decison is full of irrelevant bluster. (PolitiFact is basically notorious for padding their rulings with irrelevant facts and context to make their reasoning more opaque than it needs to be.) But what's interesting is that in the process of explaining what's going on with Planned Parenthood's accounting of services provided, they manage to directly contradict another PolitiFact fact check. Here's what PunditFact said in their ruling Tuesday:

Of all services, abortions account for 3 percent of services performed, said Erica Sackin, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, pointing to page 18 of the report.

But looking at the share of abortions per patient (and assuming one procedure per patient), the figure rises to 12 percent.

Some critics have taken issue with Planned Parenthood’s measurement of "services." Performing an abortion is more involved than administering pregnancy tests or giving someone a contraception kit, for example. The share of abortions might be different if cost or hours of services were used. (However, that information is not in the 2013-14 annual report.)

In fact, the stat that only three percent of Planned Parenthood's services are abortion is so misleading, that the editorial board of USA Today has decided it's not credible and they won't use it for the exaxct same reasoning PunditFact lays out here.



http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/politifact-and-planned-parenthood-erroneous-fact-checks-all-way-down_1005629.html

[Wilikon]

Your Tax Dollars at Work
Firm Named in PP Video Sold Fetal Tissue to Govt for $300K


A company identified as a fetal tissue supplier in the sting videos of Planned Parenthood earned at least $300,000 from government agencies for material used in research of treatments for HIV and eye disease, but it is unknown whether the tissue came from abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics, officials told Politico.

Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) has had contracts with the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration since 2009.

Planned Parenthood has denied that its clinics sell fetal tissue, instead donating tissue for research with patients' consent and taking fees only to cover costs. It accuses the Center for Medical Progress, which released the videos, of distorting its practices.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, however, has launched a probe and is asking three tissue procurement companies mentioned in the videos for information about their connections with Planned Parenthood.

In one of the videos, Katharine Sheehan, a former medical director of Planned Parenthood Pacific Southwest, mentioned the company.

"We have already a relationship with ABR," she said to someone posing as a competitor to ABR, according to Politico. "We've been using them for over 20 years — a really long time… They're doing the big collection for government-level collections."

Officials told Politico that the National Institutes of Health paid Advanced Bioscience Resources $257,000 since 2009, including roughly $53,000 in 2014. Some of the tissue came from fetuses that were between 17 and 22 weeks old.

Federal health officials told the Food and Drug Administration it had paid roughly $73,000 to the company since 2009, mainly for liver and thymus tissue. This is often used to develop immune systems in mice to test new drug therapies.

Advanced Bioscience Resources, based in California, charged the government $340 for a 17- to 22-week human fetal thymus, $340 for a 17- to 22-week human fetal liver, $325 for a maternal blood test, and $120 for Fed Ex overnight shipping.

"Voluntary donation of tissue for research has helped understand, treat, and cure a number of conditions and diseases that affect millions of Americans, and it has enjoyed bipartisan support and the support of leading scientists and disease groups," Health and Human Services spokesman Kevin Griffis said in a statement, according to Politico.

"We make clear to all our grantees and researchers the legal obligations they are under and we know of no violations of laws in connection with the research done at our agencies."

In the aftermath of the videos, Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood has insisted that the organization has done nothing wrong. 


http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/planned-parenthood-fetal-tissue-abs-sale/2015/08/06/id/665693/#ixzz3i2otglbc

[protokol]

Few moral questions for the people in this thread that are opposed to these practices:

1) What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of dead babies for stem cell research, illegally on the black market, and a marijuana dealer selling dank weed illegally on the black market?

- In this context, let's assume that no women were solicited to abort a baby for the purpose of making money - they did so for personal reasons. Please justify your answer logically.

2) If no money is involved, apart from legitimate expenses (which I think is what PP is claiming), so the tissue is purely donated to stem cell research with no profit to PP, does this change your opinion? Why?

3) If the parts were being sold to other, less wholesome organisations (such as underground clubs where people eat fetal tissue), does this change your opinion? Why?

3) If it turns out that PP executives were (illegally I think?) exaggerating the expenses costs, and putting that extra money back into the organisation for care-related use (more clinics/better patient care/better clinicians etc.), would that be immoral? Would your opinion change for this question if the money went to more indirect activity, such as advertising and government lobbying for PP?

4) If it turns out that PP executives were funneling this expenses money corruptly into their own personal pockets (to buy Lambos etc, which is obviously fraud), do you think that this is worse than cases of fraud in other organisations, such as the recent LIBOR scandal, or ENRON scandal in 2001. Bear in mind that these scandals were orders of magnitude worse in terms of money lost by innocent people.

If you think that the (unproven) fraud in 4) is worse than the other scandals I mentioned, can you give some justification why, and who the victims are?

Please try and keep your replies succinct and free of too much emotion. I know this is an emotive subject, and I'm not trying to upset anyone by being logical about it even though I may come across as cold and "Spock-like". Just trying to get past the emotion and see who are the real victims in the scandal. Feel free to answer as little or many of these questions as you like.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Few moral questions for the people in this thread that are opposed to these practices:

1) What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of dead babies for stem cell research, illegally on the black market, and a marijuana dealer selling dank weed illegally on the black market?

- In this context, let's assume that no women were solicited to abort a baby for the purpose of making money - they did so for personal reasons. Please justify your answer logically.

They're lying to the women (saying the parts are just tissue, yet believing them to be human organs). They're harming the women (more than necessary) to collect the tissues.

2) If no money is involved, apart from legitimate expenses (which I think is what PP is claiming), so the tissue is purely donated to stem cell research with no profit to PP, does this change your opinion? Why?

No, I think it's pretty obvious, they're still lying to the women and harming them more than necessary.

3) If the parts were being sold to other, less wholesome organisations (such as underground clubs where people eat fetal tissue), does this change your opinion? Why?

That would add another moral objection. Some women may not like it if they found out their fetus was being eaten, or used in some religious practice.

There's also this site. It does make me sick to think aborted fetuses are used in vaccines and may end up in food/drinks.

Obama agency rules Pepsi's use of aborted fetal cells in soft drinks constitutes 'ordinary business operations'

Human Fetal Cells Make Pepsi Sweeter Also Used in Vaccines

I personally, stopped drinking pepsi after reading up and watching these videos. It's disgusting to me that they did this. I don't even know why they felt a need to do this, because over the 30 something years I've been drinking it, I've noticed the quality of Pepsi has gotten worse. (So it's not helping, and pretty disgusting!)

3) If it turns out that PP executives were (illegally I think?) exaggerating the expenses costs, and putting that extra money back into the organisation for care-related use (more clinics/better patient care/better clinicians etc.), would that be immoral? Would your opinion change for this question if the money went to more indirect activity, such as advertising and government lobbying for PP?

Yes, the lying, and tricking people and hurting them more than necessary is still there. 

4) If it turns out that PP executives were funneling this expenses money corruptly into their own personal pockets (to buy Lambos etc, which is obviously fraud), do you think that this is worse than cases of fraud in other organisations, such as the recent LIBOR scandal, or ENRON scandal in 2001. Bear in mind that these scandals were orders of magnitude worse in terms of money lost by innocent people.

If you think that the (unproven) fraud in 4) is worse than the other scandals I mentioned, can you give some justification why, and who the victims are?

I suppose both had to do with lying to others, and putting them out and harming them (in different ways), so logically very similar....

However, I personally believe that killing a baby is a sin, so I think that lying to someone to get them to commit a sin is much worse. Because the women have to live with it, the fathers have to live with it, and it all might have been avoided if the PP employee had not lied to try to get an outcome.

I know some may say it's not a lie to call a baby a fetus, but here's the thing....

Killing babies was considered murder, that's why they had a court case about it. The only reason they allow the killing of tissue (babies) is because the law calls them fetuses and tissue, not babies. According to the law it is only murder when the intact baby is delivered. These PP employees are purposefully getting the intact babies, for one. But even in situations where they're not, they are calling them human organs etc. They know it's a human, and yet they just killed it to get it out. They're purposefully telling the women that it's just tissue, but they know better. That's a disgrace and immoral.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Ever wonder why the government doesn't want to stop PP?

Video: https://youtu.be/2zBsP6h4FuI

The government has a contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources Inc (ABR) that buys fetal tissues 17-22 weeks old from PP.

News: U.S. Government Made ‘Humanized’ Mice With Tissue from Babies 17- to 22-Weeks Gestational Age

By Terence P. Jeffrey | August 5, 2015 | 3:34 PM EDT
A laboratory mouse (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

(CNSNews.com) - A group of government researchers working for a National Institutes of Health laboratory in Montana made “humanized mice” by implanting the mice with tissues cut from human livers and thymuses taken from babies at 17 to 22 weeks gestational age.

The researchers then published a paper describing how they constructed this particular type of “humanized” mouse, saying they hoped their description of the process would help other researchers seeking to make such mice in the future.

The same government researchers had collaborated on another journal article about the “humanized” mouse with an NIH-funded researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital--which has an ongoing federal grant that also involves humanizing mice using human fetal livers and thymuses.

The NIH could not answer some basic questions about the fetal tissue used in these research projects that U.S. taxpayers funded.

[Wilikon]

Few moral questions for the people in this thread that are opposed to these practices:

1) What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of dead babies for stem cell research, illegally on the black market, and a marijuana dealer selling dank weed illegally on the black market?

- In this context, let's assume that no women were solicited to abort a baby for the purpose of making money - they did so for personal reasons. Please justify your answer logically.

2) If no money is involved, apart from legitimate expenses (which I think is what PP is claiming), so the tissue is purely donated to stem cell research with no profit to PP, does this change your opinion? Why?

3) If the parts were being sold to other, less wholesome organisations (such as underground clubs where people eat fetal tissue), does this change your opinion? Why?

3) If it turns out that PP executives were (illegally I think?) exaggerating the expenses costs, and putting that extra money back into the organisation for care-related use (more clinics/better patient care/better clinicians etc.), would that be immoral? Would your opinion change for this question if the money went to more indirect activity, such as advertising and government lobbying for PP?

4) If it turns out that PP executives were funneling this expenses money corruptly into their own personal pockets (to buy Lambos etc, which is obviously fraud), do you think that this is worse than cases of fraud in other organisations, such as the recent LIBOR scandal, or ENRON scandal in 2001. Bear in mind that these scandals were orders of magnitude worse in terms of money lost by innocent people.

If you think that the (unproven) fraud in 4) is worse than the other scandals I mentioned, can you give some justification why, and who the victims are?

Please try and keep your replies succinct and free of too much emotion. I know this is an emotive subject, and I'm not trying to upset anyone by being logical about it even though I may come across as cold and "Spock-like". Just trying to get past the emotion and see who are the real victims in the scandal. Feel free to answer as little or many of these questions as you like.

1) The babies were still alive when they got cut up. Their flesh needed to be viable for research. Injecting any kind of poison would defeat the purpose of the sale of those babies. If you believe in the respect of laws, one of them forbids the use of ultrasound to move the baby around, still inside the womb, to harvest its parts. This is what the person on the video says. That part was already covered and well answered by a lady (I believe she is a woman, on the internet no one knows for sure)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1122310.msg12028727#msg12028727

What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of still alive babies for stem cell research, and gangs in india cutting little children so they look better for begging? Absolutely no differences.
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/04/gang-profits-from-maimed-child-beggars/


2) The Case for Adult Stem Cell Research
In recent years, new methods of cellular reprogramming have enabled the derivation of so-called induced pluripitent stem (iPS) cells, which seem to have the full powers of embryonic stem cells but are from adult body cells.
http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/section.php?id=71

Bloodletting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting was believed to be the most amazing advance in medicine for centuries, until it became clear it was a useless barbaric tradition, or as scientific as alchemy. The same fate will happen to the barbarism of cutting up still alive babies. Why would anyone want to defend the past is beyond me...


3.1) Like cannibalism, or eating the placenta?
http://www.webmd.com/baby/should-i-eat-my-placenta

The core of your questions is based on the belief that a baby is not human. Maybe you believe it becomes human as soon as it takes it first breath? Or maybe you believe post natal abortions is as justified as pre natal abortion? I do not believe a human, at any stage of its development, is a product, like weed in the pocket of an undercover cop. I am trying to answer based on my belief but going into that hypothesis is a moot point to me. Not a product, so no other possibilites to make money off baby body parts.

3.2) The fundamental of your question is "innocent until proven guilty, guilty being doing something like ticket scalping on a side to make pp better". Why would anyone be against cheating the IRS? How come they don't talk about what you believe they should be talking? No one forced them to say what they said in the videos. If you believe tax payers should pay more for pp then that is your position. What was that? $500M they get already? 0bamacare is supposed to do everything pp is supposed to do. PP does not need to exist, thanks to 0bamacare. Why would anyone be for government waste of money in purpose? I will never understand.


4) If a baby is a product, or commodity in your mind, then I understand your need to compare what we see in the videos, and Enron. ..." in terms of money lost by innocent people. "
Baby being cut up for profit = innocent victims. If I use your example then pp is Enron, a profiteer selling the flesh, LITTERALLY, of innoncent people.


"Spock-like"
How many hearts does mr spock have?
Vulcans only have one, but it is located where the human liver would be


You are obviously not a... Vulcan...

[Wilikon]

Reminder:

Planned Parenthood official defends post-birth abortions
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/planned-parenthood-official-defends-post-birth-abortions


After-Birth Abortion
The pro-choice case for infanticide.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2012/03/after_birth_abortion_the_pro_choice_case_for_infanticide_.html

[Wilikon]

Three Florida Planned Parenthood Clinics Practicing Beyond Their Licensing Authority…


Three of the 16 Planned Parenthood facilities inspected in Florida last week were performing procedures beyond their licensing authority, and one facility was not keeping proper logs relating to fetal remains, officials announced Wednesday.

The Agency for Health Care Administration released a report saying clinics in St. Petersburg, Fort Myers and Naples were performing second-trimester abortions when they were only licensed to perform first-trimester abortions. The report also found that a Pembroke Pines clinic was not following its own procedures for the labeling and dating of the disposal of fetal remains.

Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates Executive Director Laura Goodhue said in a prepared statement Wednesday night that the licensing violations resulted from the AHCA changing its definitions of gestational periods and that the centers were operating in compliance with Florida law.


http://www.wsvn.com/story/29720923/inspectors-find-violations-at-4-planned-parenthood-clinics


---------------------------------------
"Lone wolf planned parenthood clinics!!1!111!!1!"

 

[protokol]

Firstly, thanks again for the clear reply - It's refreshing to read posts which state the author's points clearly, without emotional hyperbole.

Few moral questions for the people in this thread that are opposed to these practices:

1) What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of dead babies for stem cell research, illegally on the black market, and a marijuana dealer selling dank weed illegally on the black market?

- In this context, let's assume that no women were solicited to abort a baby for the purpose of making money - they did so for personal reasons. Please justify your answer logically.

They're lying to the women (saying the parts are just tissue, yet believing them to be human organs). They're harming the women (more than necessary) to collect the tissues.

Well, I would argue that what the doctors call the tissue/human organs is irrelevant, (seeing as the women already know that by having an abortion they will be killing the baby, and their decision is not based on what happens to the fetus afterwards). It seems your point relates more to the actual decision of having an abortion, not what happens to the fetal parts afterwards.

Technically, the parts are both tissue, and human organs - tissue is a scientific term for a collection of cells, in this case cells from a [dead] human baby. So both terms, in my opinion are accurate. The problem that you're getting at I think, is that abortion law is based on the fetus not developing to the stage of a "classical human", one that can feel pain, have thoughts etc. Although it is a valid point, I don't think it relates to what happens to the baby parts after abortion - the law states that babies can be aborted before they develop to a certain point, and PP follow these laws. I don't see any moral issue with them using the wrong technical terms for fetal organs.

If you disagree with abortion in general, or the stage at which a fetus is legally allowed to be aborted, then this is a separate issue; not related to how PP treat the fetal tissue after abortion.

Now, your point about harming women is more serious. Are you saying that clinicians are putting patients in more physical pain than necessary, to increase chances of extracting better quality fetal tissue, without the patients consent? That would be unethical IMO, but not so if they warn the patient in advance, assuming the patients have agreed to donate the fetal tissue.

2) If no money is involved, apart from legitimate expenses (which I think is what PP is claiming), so the tissue is purely donated to stem cell research with no profit to PP, does this change your opinion? Why?

No, I think it's pretty obvious, they're still lying to the women and harming them more than necessary.

Again, I don't see the problem with what they call the tissue, whether it's baby/human/stem cell tissue. It's not really lying because the term is just semantic, the women already know that their baby will die, and if they desire, donated to stem cell research. But as I said, I wouldn't agree with a woman being harmed/hurt more than necessary without their consent. If there is evidence of this, I would condemn the practice.

In fact, I think that all aborted fetuses should be donated to stem cell research. It seems crazy not to use stem cells to help other people in need, when it's such an amazing resource to help people with degenerative diseases, and to grow new organs for people.

3) If the parts were being sold to other, less wholesome organisations (such as underground clubs where people eat fetal tissue), does this change your opinion? Why?

That would add another moral objection. Some women may not like it if they found out their fetus was being eaten, or used in some religious practice.

I agree that this adds another moral objection, I think it should be up to the woman having the abortion where the fetal tissue goes after the procedure.

There's also this site. It does make me sick to think aborted fetuses are used in vaccines and may end up in food/drinks.

Obama agency rules Pepsi's use of aborted fetal cells in soft drinks constitutes 'ordinary business operations'

Human Fetal Cells Make Pepsi Sweeter Also Used in Vaccines

I personally, stopped drinking pepsi after reading up and watching these videos. It's disgusting to me that they did this. I don't even know why they felt a need to do this, because over the 30 something years I've been drinking it, I've noticed the quality of Pepsi has gotten worse. (So it's not helping, and pretty disgusting!)

OK, you do understand that the cell lines used in the research of flavour enhancers bought by Pepsi from Senomyx were from an baby aborted in 1972? Let me try and explain how far away this is from simply drinking fetal tissue:

• A baby was aborted in Holland in 1972
• A specific type of cell was taken from the kidneys of said baby
• These cells were cultured, eventually producing a cell line called Human Embryonic Kidney 293
• The original cells went through many changes (genetic transformations) before becoming HEK 293
  
• This cell line is used in many beneficial applications, such as cell biotechnology, especially in protein research
• Senomyx used this cell line by adding receptors to the HEK 293 cell that detect taste.
• This allows them to test many flavour additives very quickly, to see if they taste sweet or savoury etc.
• The flavour enhancer in Pepsi would have been tested on this cell line, but this is the only contact with the cell line it would have
• There would be no more contact with the cell line before the flavour enhancer is used in consumer products such as Pepsi

It's similar with vaccines, some were developed with similar cell lines derived from aborted fetuses from 20+ years ago. But they don't contain cells from an aborted fetus. Don't worry, you are not eating or being injected with bits of dead baby!

3) If it turns out that PP executives were (illegally I think?) exaggerating the expenses costs, and putting that extra money back into the organisation for care-related use (more clinics/better patient care/better clinicians etc.), would that be immoral? Would your opinion change for this question if the money went to more indirect activity, such as advertising and government lobbying for PP?

Yes, the lying, and tricking people and hurting them more than necessary is still there. 

Fair enough, you don't think that this is an "everybody wins" scenario? It seems that the labs get their cells (to advance medicine and save more lives), and the patient gets their premium care.

However, I do have an issue here with an underground market, which may well favour bigger/richer institutions. I feel if there is a market for this type of commodity, the smaller guys may get pushed out, leaving only the bigger, possibly more corrupt guys (Glaxo/Bayer etc.)

4) If it turns out that PP executives were funneling this expenses money corruptly into their own personal pockets (to buy Lambos etc, which is obviously fraud), do you think that this is worse than cases of fraud in other organisations, such as the recent LIBOR scandal, or ENRON scandal in 2001. Bear in mind that these scandals were orders of magnitude worse in terms of money lost by innocent people.

If you think that the (unproven) fraud in 4) is worse than the other scandals I mentioned, can you give some justification why, and who the victims are?

I suppose both had to do with lying to others, and putting them out and harming them (in different ways), so logically very similar....

However, I personally believe that killing a baby is a sin, so I think that lying to someone to get them to commit a sin is much worse. Because the women have to live with it, the fathers have to live with it, and it all might have been avoided if the PP employee had not lied to try to get an outcome.

I know some may say it's not a lie to call a baby a fetus, but here's the thing....

Killing babies was considered murder, that's why they had a court case about it. The only reason they allow the killing of tissue (babies) is because the law calls them fetuses and tissue, not babies. According to the law it is only murder when the intact baby is delivered. These PP employees are purposefully getting the intact babies, for one. But even in situations where they're not, they are calling them human organs etc. They know it's a human, and yet they just killed it to get it out. They're purposefully telling the women that it's just tissue, but they know better. That's a disgrace and immoral.

I understand and respect your opinion, although I mostly don't agree. Your justification is basically the same as earlier, stating they were "lying to others" (the harming I'm unclear on, so I won't comment on that)

My view is, the seriousness of an act of fraud should be based on the personal/societal harm inflicted by said fraud. And I'm sorry, but even if PP was committing what they're accused of, I don't think it's in the same league as, say, the ENRON scandal in terms of suffering of innocent people. Literally no-one is being victimised (apart from possibly the dead fetus, and maybe stem cell research facilities).

Your comments, such as " it all might have been avoided if the PP employee had not lied to try to get an outcome." imply that solicitation was involved. This is not the case, as far as we know, all patients were treated because they had a personal reason for the abortion. Whether the PP employee calls it a fetus/baby/lump of cells I don't think has an effect on the final decision. After all, the woman made an appointment to have an abortion by her own free will.

I assume your quite a religious person? I'm not religious (I guess I class myself as an agnostic-atheist/humanist), but I can identify with the fact that most religions advocate peace and condemn suffering for the human species. Your last paragraph resonates with me - I can see that you have a strong sense of preserving life, which I admire.

However, you continuously reference the semantic terms the employees use (as if their terms are influencing the patients decisions) , and you need to understand that the women are going here of their own free will. They want an abortion for whatever reason, and I think we should respect that. In fact, I think that abortions help humanity as whole, by keeping population down and limiting poverty.

[protokol]

...

I will try and reply tomorrow, spent about an hour on the last post, live long and prosper hehe.

[protokol]

Few moral questions for the people in this thread that are opposed to these practices:

1) What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of dead babies for stem cell research, illegally on the black market, and a marijuana dealer selling dank weed illegally on the black market?

- In this context, let's assume that no women were solicited to abort a baby for the purpose of making money - they did so for personal reasons. Please justify your answer logically.

2) If no money is involved, apart from legitimate expenses (which I think is what PP is claiming), so the tissue is purely donated to stem cell research with no profit to PP, does this change your opinion? Why?

3) If the parts were being sold to other, less wholesome organisations (such as underground clubs where people eat fetal tissue), does this change your opinion? Why?

3) If it turns out that PP executives were (illegally I think?) exaggerating the expenses costs, and putting that extra money back into the organisation for care-related use (more clinics/better patient care/better clinicians etc.), would that be immoral? Would your opinion change for this question if the money went to more indirect activity, such as advertising and government lobbying for PP?

4) If it turns out that PP executives were funneling this expenses money corruptly into their own personal pockets (to buy Lambos etc, which is obviously fraud), do you think that this is worse than cases of fraud in other organisations, such as the recent LIBOR scandal, or ENRON scandal in 2001. Bear in mind that these scandals were orders of magnitude worse in terms of money lost by innocent people.

If you think that the (unproven) fraud in 4) is worse than the other scandals I mentioned, can you give some justification why, and who the victims are?

Please try and keep your replies succinct and free of too much emotion. I know this is an emotive subject, and I'm not trying to upset anyone by being logical about it even though I may come across as cold and "Spock-like". Just trying to get past the emotion and see who are the real victims in the scandal. Feel free to answer as little or many of these questions as you like.

1) The babies were still alive when they got cut up. Their flesh needed to be viable for research. Injecting any kind of poison would defeat the purpose of the sale of those babies. If you believe in the respect of laws, one of them forbids the use of ultrasound to move the baby around, still inside the womb, to harvest its parts. This is what the person on the video says. That part was already covered and well answered by a lady (I believe she is a woman, on the internet no one knows for sure)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1122310.msg12028727#msg12028727

What moral difference is there between an abortion clinic selling the parts of still alive babies for stem cell research, and gangs in india cutting little children so they look better for begging? Absolutely no differences.
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/04/gang-profits-from-maimed-child-beggars/

The babies were always going to die, whether they were technically alive is arguable, that depends on your definition of life. It's debatable whether the ultrasound is an issue at all, as I touched on earlier.

Jesus christ, you think there's no difference between slashing a 7 year old's penis and maiming him further (to exploit him to make profit for a criminal gang), and dissecting a dead fetus to get tissue for research to save people's lives?

That's shocking. You do understand that the maimed 7 year old has a whole life ahead of him, and the fetus has literally none, (the woman's decision, not PP's)?

I read a comment on a news site about the PP scandal, to paraphrase: "It's a shame that fundie Christian Republicans care more about saving fetuses than actual real-life children. And when a girl does have an unwanted kid, the Rebublicans refuse to give enough welfare to support it!"

I'm not suggesting you're a fundie christian republican, but it reminded me of attitudes such as yours.

2) The Case for Adult Stem Cell Research
In recent years, new methods of cellular reprogramming have enabled the derivation of so-called induced pluripitent stem (iPS) cells, which seem to have the full powers of embryonic stem cells but are from adult body cells.
http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/section.php?id=71

Bloodletting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting was believed to be the most amazing advance in medicine for centuries, until it became clear it was a useless barbaric tradition, or as scientific as alchemy. The same fate will happen to the barbarism of cutting up still alive babies. Why would anyone want to defend the past is beyond me...

Don't quite see how this relates to my question, but yeah the research into adult stem cell harvesting is certainly interesting. However they don't seem to have the potential of embryonic stem cells.

Quite why you talk about bloodletting, is a mystery to me. Are you trolling? Bloodletting was stopped because people realized it was detrimental and killed people. Stem cell research helps save people's lives and advance science.

3.1) Like cannibalism, or eating the placenta?
http://www.webmd.com/baby/should-i-eat-my-placenta

The core of your questions is based on the belief that a baby is not human. Maybe you believe it becomes human as soon as it takes it first breath? Or maybe you believe post natal abortions is as justified as pre natal abortion? I do not believe a human, at any stage of its development, is a product, like weed in the pocket of an undercover cop. I am trying to answer based on my belief but going into that hypothesis is a moot point to me. Not a product, so no other possibilites to make money off baby body parts.

I meant cannibalism. My question cannot be based on any belief, the answer arguably could though.

See, It's hard to discuss with you because instead of answering simple questions, you speculate on my opinion and ask me more questions. If you just addressed what I said, it would make things easier.

Anyway, the definition of a commodity/product is simply something that has value to others. I posted a link earlier which gave instructions on how to sell a poo for $40. Do you also disagree with sperm banks? They are a stage in human development.

Your points are related to actual abortion, not what happens to the fetus afterwards.

3.2) The fundamental of your question is "innocent until proven guilty, guilty being doing something like ticket scalping on a side to make pp better". Why would anyone be against cheating the IRS? How come they don't talk about what you believe they should be talking? No one forced them to say what they said in the videos. If you believe tax payers should pay more for pp then that is your position. What was that? $500M they get already? 0bamacare is supposed to do everything pp is supposed to do. PP does not need to exist, thanks to 0bamacare. Why would anyone be for government waste of money in purpose? I will never understand.

What? This hyperbole is unrelated to my question, and pretty unintelligible.

4) If a baby is a product, or commodity in your mind, then I understand your need to compare what we see in the videos, and Enron. ..." in terms of money lost by innocent people. "
Baby being cut up for profit = innocent victims. If I use your example then pp is Enron, a profiteer selling the flesh, LITTERALLY, of innoncent people.


"Spock-like"
How many hearts does mr spock have?
Vulcans only have one, but it is located where the human liver would be


You are obviously not a... Vulcan...

No, I don't think live babies are commodities. But dead ones are, because they were aborted by the free will of the mother. They have value, and fit the definition of commodity. It's cold, but it's the truth.

Dead babies don't kill themselves after a life of suffering, as a result of fraudulent lenders repossessing their house (for example). That's why corporate fraud is on another level to what we're talking about here. Live long and prosper, don't die in a meth lab explosion because your mother couldn't support you.