I’ve taken my time the past week to read through and watch transcripts, videos, and podcasts, regarding the Planned Parenthood defunding campaign where claims have been made the organization is selling fetal tissue for a profit. As many might already know, proven heavily edited videos have hit the airwaves depicting top Planned Parenthood clinic leaders as discussing negotiations for “procuring” fetal tissue. This procurement is being purported as the sale of fetal body parts, not just donation.
And in all honesty, the video released by The Center For Medical Progress, makes you wonder at first. The tone of the Planned Parenthood representatives has a very business like tone, maybe matter-of-fact in expression, but the conversations skip around, and are obviously out of order and edited for specifically tailored context. So, I watched the unedited version of these undercover conversations with Planned Parenthood big wigs, as well. While still matter-of-fact in tone, and also at times cringe worthy in business humor, it is very clear that donation is being spoken of– not illegal sale and trade of fetal tissue.
The first issue that comes to my mind in this ruckus would be that apparently the American public and government have forgotten that donation isn’t cost free. These costs that are being mentioned covers the time of the employees working there who harvest the donation tissue. These costs cover the cost of space being used in labs to preserve specimens for travel to the agencies that are getting the tissue donation. These costs cover the cost of what Planned Parenthood has to pay the procurement specialists (the companies that send technicians to harvest and prepare the samples). Yes, the donation of fetal tissue by the mother is free. Making use of the donation and getting it to the medical research groups that request use of it is not. Planned Parenthood cannot use its federal funding for the tissue donation program, but it is perfectly legal for them to get the costs of processing the donation covered through a third-party. You hire a company to handle everything for you, and that company has a set rate they charge the research facility for handling the process, and Planned Parenthood gets a varied rate based on each case to help cover their man hours and lab space used in the process.
Additionally, our legislators and potential presidential candidates know that this is a false front to push an agenda. If even a single sentence of accusation were true that fetal tissue was being sold like candies at a market, people would already be in jail. Clinics would be immediately shut down. In fact, a shut down would be the number one result if any of this were true, and it would be immediate, even if only temporarily until the dust had settled and investigations were being thoroughly conducted. None of this is occurring. If you noticed, a lot of Senators are watching their step on action too. Sure, they’re scolding and threatening funding, but they aren’t in a hurry to pull that much healthcare off the table from America’s women. Even our government knows this isn’t what it seems, and instead, are taking advantage of a nasty rumor to force through more ideologically based restrictions in their abortion jihad.
Now, to be fair, I have had some conversations amongst friends, co workers, and even random strangers on the internet who want to argue about this. Some have brought up what they perceived as pretty damning evidence that this is a business of tissue sale and not donation. One of these supposed 
undeniable facts was that Nucatola said she would already know at the beginning of her day what was needed, or requested by research groups, and she would perform abortions accordingly. She would do what she could to make sure she didn’t damage certain tissues because she already knew what was on the list.
Seriously? You think folks just call up a clinic at random and say,”Hi! I’m Bob from a random lab in Randomville, Randobraska. I need liver by the end of the day today. Click.”
This is not how it works. Research groups put out requests, even ongoing requests depending on the laboratory work they are doing, well in advance of needing it. You cannot put down a definitive project deadline if you have to constantly last minute order in your supplies to complete the damn project.
Now to my counter point, I’ve been told,”But why would she adjust the technique if she didn’t even know if the mother would want to donate?” Again, there is planning ahead of time. Donation is discussed early on in the process folks, and the decision is already made well in advance of the procedure.
Of course, many have brought up the fact that Nucatola mentioned adjusting her technique to suit what needed to be harvested later. A co-worker suggested this meant, at times, that partial birth abortions were being committed in order to accommodate research requests. I believe it was the sequence where Nucatola discusses harvesting an intact cranium that seemed to make the assumption true in the mind of who I was talking to. 
And yet again, I ask why does changing the position of a fetus to breach mean it had to have been partially born alive before being terminated? I hate to be brutally honest here, but it’s probably easier to change the position of a dead fetus than a live one. I guarantee you the fetus was already terminated prior to delivery.
I offer the article “Unspinning the Planned Parenthood Video by FactCheck.org, for a really well explained understanding of what has been purported, what has been said, what has been done in reaction, and more. This article investigates the claims, along with a good explanation about the importance of fetal tissue donation. And for my naysayers, I ask another question. If Planned Parenthood should be defunded, or even shut down, 
for donation procedures and cost reimbursement, shouldn’t hospitals be shut down too since they do the same? Adults, children, and miscarried fetus organs are donated all the time by hospitals, and they use the same procurement cost recovery fees for the process. Can we have equal outrage if this is so criminal? Every day, a hospital somewhere has received a payment to cover their cost for harvesting retinas from a two or three year old who died. Couldn’t the hospital have altered its care procedures in order to effect the child to die so they could get the retinas?
Doesn’t this sound preposterous?
My point is that there seems to be an insistence on reaching for long-term decisions based on obvious lack of context, willful ignorance, and appeal to emotion. Honestly evaluating a touchy subject with real, unedited evidence, and honest discussion would do more to alleviate doubts and fears about a practice that is still considered taboo among the religious majority in this country. But at the end of the day, that isn’t what America wants right now. 
Right now there is a war being perpetuated in the minds of our citizens. A war amongst one another. We are willing to trample our own in order to get accommodation for every aspect of our personal ideologies. We are willing to view our fellow countrymen as the lesser if they do not match up to exactly what we want for ourselves. This purposeful projection of our personal world view onto others is the root of our dysfunction in America.
I can argue for hours why I am pro-choice, but all my compartmentalized opposition will hear is,”Give an inch and you’ve given up your soul.” Extremist thinking solves nothing but encourages alienation and stagnation. Alienation of fellow members in society that would probably agree with you on many other issues, but no longer participate because extremism is unreasonable in societal relationships. Stagnation in progress, as well, because we have to move forward as a people, and when you have a forced belief structure imposed on every aspect of science, education, health, and economy, there isn’t room for growth because the operational field is limited to an inflexible set of rules.
Now, some claim that by simply allowing for a choice in whether one can abort or not we are forcing ideology onto others, but I fail to see that. If one does not obtain an abortion, then their ideology is intact because they are not getting an abortion. Taking away the right to choose whether you want to eat meat or not on Fridays, being able to take birth control or not, or being able to work on a Sunday or not, is removing the right of personal choice. When we decide that imposing a Christian state religion, or allow Sharia law to be legally recognized in our courts, we are no longer operating on just the personal level we are guaranteed. We are recreating the very tyranny our earliest Pilgrims sought escape from.
So, what is the bottom line point of all this writing I’ve spewed on to this page tonight? I am arguing that personal choice is the heart of your personal beliefs, as it is for others around you. When we take away the right to choose for oneself, we infringe upon personal belief and freedoms. The fact you have the right to choose to use a service or not enforces the fact you are already recognized in your beliefs. Your constitutionally guaranteed liberty is being enforced simply by having the right to choose.
