APPARENTLY, CONSERVATIVES CONSIDER THEMSELVES ABOVE THE LAW

…Demonstrations caused by the false Biomax Medical Videos

 

First it was ACORN, now they have targeted Planned Parenthood

 

No matter how often we find out about how far the conservatives will go illegally against the American public, I am still amazed at their unmitigated disrespect for the law.

I was totally surprised back in 2009 when the conservative activists, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, played the roles of a prostitute and her pimp in a video scam against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, then known as “ACORN”.  This was the non-profit organization that had for nearly 40 years worked in promoting voter registration, community organizing and advocacy for low- and moderate-income Americans and minority groups.  O'Keefe later stated that he had "targeted ACORN for the same reasons that the political right does against ACORN’s massive voter registration drives."

In other words, doing illegal actions to give a false impression about a non- profit organization that helped organize poor people and minorities. 

Due to Mr. O’Keefe’s efforts, and the many re-plays of the ACORN scam video on Fox News, the US Census Bureau and the IRS ended their contracts with ACORN.  Then, the mostly Republican US Congress voted to suspend its funding for the non-profit. Soon ACORN also lost most of its private funding.  This was all despite several independent investigations that revealed no criminal activity by ACORN staff had taken place. ACORN finally had to file for Chapter 7 liquidation in November, 2010, closing the non-profit organization.

Well, now another conservative activist that was previously involved with the original O’Keefe caper has done it again, but this time it’s against Planned Parenthood.

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) is an anti-abortion organization founded by David Daleiden in 2013.

Daleiden also set up a fake biomedical research company, called Biomax Procurement Services.  Biomax poses falsely as a buyer of fetal tissues and they secretly recorded Planned Parenthood officials during their fake buyer meetings.  The highly edited videos of their meetings are promoted as showing Planned Parenthood officials "price haggling” over aborted “baby parts'",

A Factcheck.org article notes that the full, unedited video "shows a Planned Parenthood executive repeatedly saying its clinics only ask for money to cover their costs, not to make money, when donating fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research."  However, just as with the ACORN videos, the highly edited Planned Parenthood videos that have been played over and over again on Fox and accessed on YouTube, most of the viewers aren’t aware of what’s actually said on the unedited videos.

The reality is that we have a very contentious 2016 election season coming up.  In addition, with regards to most of the nation’s cultural issues, the conservatives have been put in a serious corner.

They’ve lost the major battles on gay marriage, Obamacare, and some on voter suppression, but the battle over abortion has gone nowhere…..until now.

It was just before the 2012 election that conservative Republicans made their last previous attempt at passing legislation to defund Planned Parenthood.  But now again, the country can anticipate that legislation will be introduced in Congress to prevent any federal funds going to the country’s biggest provider of reproductive health care.

This time, the focus is on what happens to the fetal tissue that is the result of the organization’s abortion efforts.

Fetal tissue donation is a service Planned Parenthood offers to its patients. Should they choose to do so, someone who receives an abortion at Planned Parenthood can make the fetal tissue available for medical research. Planned Parenthood only receives a small payment from the research facilities for reimbursing them for their expensive transportation and handling services of the tissue.  They are also very careful in showing that there is no profit or wrongdoing in these efforts.

When it became evident that the videos had been heavily edited in an attempt to show wrong doings by Planned Parenthood, a court issued a temporary restraining order preventing The Center for Medical Progress from continuing to release the edited videos featuring a company that provides fetal tissue to researchers.

But despite this, the attacks are continuing.

In fact, the websites of Planned Parenthood, The National Network of Abortion Funds and the Abortion Care Network have all been hacked and were totally shut down for a short period.  Another anti-abortion group, calling themselves “E”, has taken credit for the hacking of these nonprofit’s databases and for gaining access to their employee’s names and emails.

Just for this article, it bears repeating that due to the Hyde Amendment, no federal funding can pay for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest and life endangerment.

To ensure this, any federal funding Planned Parenthood currently receives for contraception, cervical cancer screenings, and well-woman exams is kept totally separate from anything having to do with the abortion efforts.

But regardless of these facts, the disgusting Texas Sen. John Cornyn has falsely cited the Hyde Amendment as justification for passing an anti-abortion bill now under consideration in Senate.  The Texas Senator falsely stated that, “This legislation will bring Planned Parenthood in line with something that’s been the law since 1976.”  That is a totally false statement.

Those of us, and there are many, who believe that these attacks against Planned Parenthood are disgusting, ought not take our eyes off the organization's goals of providing American women affordable health care.  We must all refuse to get pulled into the conservative’s smoke and mirrors issues while showing the anti-choice activists what they are doing in keeping affordable health care from the many lives that depend on it.

As I said.  What gives these conservatives the right to continue acting as they are above the Law?  Apparently to them, if you don’t like a law, just ignore it.

Copyright G.Ater  2015