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| Planned Parenthood “sting” as pointless as usual |
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by Emily Bridges, Director, Public Information Services The activist group LiveAction, working with anti-abortion activist Lila Rose, is pretty pleased with its series of “stings” on Planned Parenthood. What they "uncover" seems to be that Planned Parenthood provides abortions, which I thought anti-abortion activists were already well aware of, but which always seems shocking to them.
Our girls are at risk, “especially in China,” the video is careful to note – preparing the viewer to make assumptions about the race of the woman asking for the abortion: race-baiting being another of the anti-abortion movement’s favorite tricks. And it’s no coincidence: yesterday the video is released; today Congress votes on legislation which would ban abortion based on the sex of a fetus, which threatens doctors with up to five years in prison if they perform such an abortion. (Read Aimee Thorne-Thomsen's blog on this legislation) It’s by dividing and conquering – by getting us to judge other women’s abortions – that they chip away at abortion rights, passing restrictions for young people, bans after a certain point in the pregnancy, bans on certain reasons for the abortion. They invite us to distance ourselves from the abortions we personally don’t approve of, and shame us as monsters if we respond by saying we support all women’s right to decide if and when to end a pregnancy. But we must always remember that their goal isn’t to prevent sex-selective abortions or 20 week abortions or “frivolous” abortions. It’s to ban all abortions. LiveAction’s videos are a sideshow, but with this week’s legislation and hundreds of bills pending in state legislatures, we can’t afford to just roll our eyes at anti-abortion tactics or keep quiet when the conversation would be unpleasant. We can’t afford to give them any ground at all – we must stand in solidarity with all women and activists and demand the right to safe and legal abortion. |
