Over the past couple of weeks, a series of undercover videos has shown Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, to be allegedly selling the body parts of the fetuses they abort. Much of the conversation following the revelation of this information has been about whether or not it is morally right for Planned Parenthood to be harvesting and selling organs from these tiny bodies, and thankfully, many Americans are now starting to question the ethical standards of Planned Parenthood and why hundreds of millions of public dollars are funneled into Planned Parenthood each year.
The recent videos about Planned Parenthood showed their doctors discussing how necessary it is to be “cognizant of where you put your graspers,” careful not to crush the heart, the lung, or the liver. These videos have shown doctors describing how sometimes they need to use a “less crunchy technique to get more whole specimens.” How the ultrasound helps doctors “know where they’re putting their forceps,” is very important given that “a lot of people want liver.” How sometimes, if you use the right method, “you can evacuate an intact calvarium [skull] at the end.” How sometimes, “if the price [for these body parts] is still low, then we can bump it up.” Dr. Mary Getter immediately added, jokingly, “I want a Lamborghini.”
Without any euphemisms or deceptive rhetoric to hide behind, these videos exposed Planned Parenthood’s true colors – they are a multimillion-dollar corporation profiting off of women and the destruction of human life. Why are we so concerned with what Planned Parenthood does with the body parts and not concerned with how they get these human body parts?
If a human fetus has no value until it’s born, as the Planned Parenthood propaganda machine tells us, then why is Planned Parenthood so concerned with where they put their “graspers,” making sure they don’t crunch up the “specimen” too much? This type of deception has led many Americans to buy into the idea that “abortion,” in the most detached abstract sense, is a societal good and have thus given abortion and the abortion industry a protective shield from any criticism. These videos shatter that shield and show the reality of the abortion industry.
The conversation has shifted to what actually happens to a human body during an abortion, which is something Planned Parenthood wishes wouldn’t be public. Take a moment to re-read how they extract these body parts, with the words coming from the mouths of their own doctors. Read the full transcripts of these videos. This is happening in America. Yes, it’s disgusting and uncomfortable, but that’s exactly why we need to be so concerned about this issue.
Planned Parenthood is a corporation whose primary product and moneymaker is abortion. This corporation has performed more than one million abortions nationwide over the past three years and continues to receive over $500 million in taxpayer funding each year. Women deserve better than Planned Parenthood, and taxpayer funds ought to go to organizations that would authentically help them rather than just profit off of them.
Joe Puchner is a junior majoring in mathematics and Spanish. His column runs biweekly.
