Baby parts are on sale. We just didn’t know it. The release of the Planned Parenthood videos revealed repulsive secrets about the organization and our society.
Many people reacted with shock and disgust to the hidden camera footage of a Planned Parenthood physician callously discussing getting reimbursed for the organs of aborted babies. In the conversations I have had and in the articles I have read there has been a common question, “How could they do such a thing?”
My answer has caught people by surprise- “Why wouldn’t they?”
The Planned Parenthood policy of selling aborted baby organs is the natural and expected outcome of the worldview and mindset of the organization. Planned Parenthood believes that unborn life has no inherent value apart from that given it by the mother. Regardless of the stage of pregnancy or level of development, it is only a “fetus”, just a blob of tissue until the mother declares it otherwise. Life is only life when it is wanted.
While Planned Parenthood denies the value or sanctity of unborn life it proudly proclaims its support for adult life. (The “rights of the woman” are its guiding value) If unborn life is not at all life and adult life is of supreme value, why wouldn’t you collect the end products of a medical procedure so they could be used for medical research? And since your work is noble and valuable, why not make a little profit while you were at it?
If Planned Parenthood gave any credence to the opinions of those disturbed by the revelation of their tissue procurement policies they wouldn’t be in the abortion business to begin with. Arguments about the dignity of life or the morality of the policy were dismissed long ago. In the minds of Planned Parenthood those who make such arguments are anti-women, anti-science, simple-minded religious fanatics. Planned Parenthood knows what they are doing is right, they know the tissue they are dealing with is not a baby and not yet human. They have to believe this in order to continue in business. Like so many monsters in history their evil deeds are justified by their determination of what is fully human and what is not.
When something or someone is determined to be less than human then it is not entitled to the legal protection or respect accorded to other human beings. The Jews under Nazi rule, slaves in early America and Christians in many Muslim nations all attest to the atrocities that come when men determine that other men are not fully man.
We have allowed Planned Parenthood to determine what and who is human and who is not. The videos reveal the natural outcome of their determination. As shameful as their practices are, the greater shame is that we have allowed these practices for so long. As a society we have ignored the truth about the atrocities of the abortion industry and pretended that barbaric providers were rare. We turned the other way when Kermit Gosnell preyed on poor women, we ignored the fact that abortion clinics are disproportionately located in minority neighborhoods, and we lied to ourselves and pretended that abortions after the first trimester were rare and in the best interests of the mother. Worst of all, we lied and said it was “just a fetus” or a lump of cells.
It is a sad reflection on the nature of man that when we deign to decide what is and is not human we do so in a way that elevates ourselves and devalues other life. A true and correct definition of life can only come from the God who gives it.
- Bart
The drawing in the post is of a baby at 18 weeks of pregnancy. The first video released shows the Planned Parenthood doctor describe selectively crushing a child like this in order to harvest intact organs.
UPDATE: I have received some appropriate questions which have correctly pointed out the legality of Planned Parenthood's actions and that the fees charged for the tissue were not all that great and profits were nominal. Objections were focused on the term "selling baby parts", if money is exchanged for the intact liver of a baby of 18 weeks gestation the term is every bit as accurate as the euphemistic "reimbursement for collection of fetal liver tissue."
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