Update: On Saturday, August 22nd, hundreds of planned peaceful protests will be held across the U.S. at Planned Parenthood locations. If you would like to show your support for the #DefundPP and #ProtestPP cause you can find a protest location near you by going to the ProtestPP website.
Amid the noise of news and politics this week, a sixth video exposing Planned Parenthood and “tissue procurement” firm StemExpress was released by The Center for Medical Progress. In this newest video, C.M.P. speaks in depth with a former StemExpress employee, Holly O’Donnell, about her experiences as a Blood and Tissue Procurement Technician working inside Planned Parenthood.
The thrust of this video, beyond the PTSD-inducing horrors Ms. O’Donnell witnessed on a regular basis while working for StemExpress, is that she also states that she knew without doubt that many of the women whose aborted babies were later harvested for blood and organs had not given consent for the procurement, an explicitly illegal practice. The Center for Medical Progress has managed to put together another well done video that highlights the illegal activities going on at Planned Parenthood facilities while at the same time exposing Americans to the reality that is abortion. Along with C.M.P., Ms. O’Donnell deserves a lot of credit for coming forward with her story.
On Wednesday night, Ms. O’Donnell spoke with the co-hosts of Splintered Caucus in a sobering interview that left everyone listening at a loss for words. Her ability to stay poised and speak about her experiences clearly, experiences that she explains affected her deeply, is admirable and will hopefully prove to be well worth her effort to talk about things she would probably rather forget. I encourage you to go listen to it (Holly is on for about 25 minutes):
It’s listening to stories like Ms. O’Donnell’s, or watching the preceding weeks’ videos online, that makes it hard to now fathom the depths of the depravity in what we see coming out of the mainstream “comedy” site FunnyOrDie.com.
In the skit, actors feigning seriousness tell about their experiences at Planned Parenthood, sticking only to the most uncontroversial of routine procedures, like getting “accurate information about sex, contraception, STIs, pregnancy, and childbirth.” We’re meant to believe that Planned Parenthood barely does abortions because 97% of what they do isn’tabortions.
Another actor goes on aghast to say that she was, “appalled to find out that it was privately funded and any government money has been going toward contraceptives and family planning.” An argument that Jay Caruso has already explained here is a false one.
Beyond the comedic tool of using stretched “facts” to make a bit funnier, taking on this particular topic after what the public has been shown over the last several weeks takes a certain level of depravity, or sheer ignorance. I can only speculate, but from what we know of those on the pro-abortion side of the Planned Parenthood debate, many simply won’t watch the videos. On the other hand, they’ve likely read or at least heard about the statements put out by the organizations director, Cecile Richards, and have decided to fall in line with their ideological brethren without further inquiry.
But, where the hold harmless sentiment ends is where these actors and FunnyOrDie decided to take something more heinous and macabre than what most of us ever could have imagined and chose to mock and ridicule the slaughter and exploitation of innocence. Not to mention the blatant disregard for the purported raison d’être of pro-abortion advocates, “Women’s Health.”
FunnyOrDie has a wide audience that is made up of the same people who go to The Daily Show for their news.
Like it or not, we know how much of a pull sites like these have on shifting the perceptions about cultural and political issues, particularly when serious news channels and mainstream news websites are barely covering the C.M.P videos at all. The question from the very beginning of these videos being released has been now that we know, what are we going to do about it?
People like Holly O’Donnell and those with The Center for Medical Progress have proved that they’re able and willing to do what they can.
What will the rest of us on the pro-life side do?
Unfortunately, as Planned Parenthood is still partially funded with federal dollars and abortion on demand with few exceptions is still legal, that remains to be seen.