Big Science, Big Media Go on Offense for Abortion

How did it come to this? Illegal and immoral activity is revealed, and Big Science not only justifies it; it attacks the messengers.

Congress barely missed a first chance to defund Planned Parenthood (PP) after the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released its tenth video showing top PP executives caught in the act (9/20/15). They admitted to selling baby body parts to scientific researchers, haggling over the price, and altering abortion procedures to get the best specimens — all illegal under federal law. The PP officers on camera warned the prospective buyers to keep these activities secret so as not to arouse government watchdogs. PP gets over $500 million in taxpayer funds per year.

So how does Big Science react? Big Media, too? Any outrage? Yes, but only against those who revealed the crimes. Major scientific institutions rushed to defend the harvesting of baby body parts for “research.”

The preemie.  Before looking at their reactions, look at this photo of a baby reported by Medical Xpress. Weighing only 1.5 pounds, the tiny infant was born prematurely on a cruise ship and given all the help needed to keep it alive till the ship reached port and could be taken to a hospital. The article did not say how many months old it was in the womb, only that it was due in December and was born September 4th. The child will most likely survive and enjoy life with all the rights and privileges granted by the Bill of Rights. No one referred to the child as a fetus or lump of tissue; the word “baby” was used 10 times in the article. Thousands of other babies of similar gestation, however, are ripped limb from limb by PP and sold to the highest bidder, the CMP videos reveal.

Free advertising:  Medical Xpress could have reported on the Values Voter Summit, where David Daleiden, organizer of the CMP sting operation, spoke about the need to defend all human life. Instead, it shouted in bold headlines, “‘Shout Your Abortion’ campaign explodes on social media,” providing free advertising for the movement. The lead picture shows angry women with placards reading, “Keep Abortion Legal.” One supporter of the campaign is quoted:

“I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood last year and it was a great experience,” Bonow, who lives in Seattle, told AFP. “Not only am I not ashamed, but I know I’m incredibly lucky to have access to this choice and we need to keep it that way.“

The article does mention those fighting to defund PP, who consider abortion murder, but that material is below the headline and the opening photo.

Fear tactics: New Scientist could have reported about the atrocities at PP, but instead wrote a bold headline saying, “Fight over Planned Parenthood could shut down the US government,” undoubtedly aware that Republicans usually get the blame for unpopular stalemates on funding issues. A large picture of pro-abortion protestors with hot pink placards is right below the headline: “I stand with Planned Parenthood,” and “‘My’ health is not a ‘political issue.'”

The baby’s health, though is a Constitutional issue. At the Values Voter Summit Friday, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (former governor of Arkansas) pointed to scientific findings that show an unborn baby is a person. As a person—regardless of what the Supreme Court thinks—a baby is entitled to all the due-process protections of the 5th and 14th amendments.

Scientists: keep those baby parts coming: Medical Xpress also took the side of “researchers” who oppose a ban on fetal tissue research in Wisconsin. “Proposed legislation in Wisconsin will have a devastating impact on the ability of researchers to create lifesaving treatments for patients,” the dean of the U of Wisconsin Robert Golden said, claiming to speak for all scientists. They seem to have forgotten the Nuremburg Trials. “Golden read a letter drafted by the Association of American Medical Colleges, signed by a growing number of top biomedical research institutions and health systems across the country—including Harvard, Yale and Johns Hopkins—opposing the legislation,” the article says, justifying research on “tissue available following federally protected abortions.” Emotional stories are used as props to justify the need for such fetal tissue research, ignoring the question of whether a baby must die for an adult to get treatment.

Celebrating the abortion pill birthday: A piece by Marie McCullough of the Philadelphia Inquirer celebrating the 15th birthday of the abortion bill mifepristone was republished by Medical Xpress. McCullough acknowledges a “debate” over its use and legal disputes about it, but she is surprisingly blase about a medication that flushes a fertilized human being out of its first incubator: the womb. She mentions those who believe in “abortion rights” but says nothing about the controversies about religious rights, such as those of The Little Sisters of the Poor, Catholic nuns who refuse the federal government’s mandate that they offer abortifascient drugs as part of their health care plans.

None of the above articles denies that Planned Parenthood commits the acts portrayed in the videos. How can they? PP admits that these are their employees saying these things. Their response has been to claim that abortion is legal (so was slavery), or that it’s just a small part of their business (as if murder is OK as long as it’s not your main business).

Big Science Braggadocio

Two other news items don’t address abortion, but illustrate Big Science’s narcissism. Science Magazine bragged about its symposium arranged by the AAAS to brief religion writers in the media about science topics. Some of the topics overlap heavily with ethics, such as the use of the new CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool (see 6/05/15; incidentally, a simpler, more accurate version was just announced by Nature News). While the symposium was billed as a dialogue, it’s pretty clear the instruction went one way: from the science experts to the religion reporters. Anti-creationist Robert Pennock provides a taste of the world view taught to the reporters: “We can really shape ourselves,” Pennock said. “I think we’re going to have to make choices not just about whether to use things as weapons, but what kind of people we will be. Absent from that statement is any conception of responsibility to a Creator.

The other article on Scientific American starts well. Social scientist Piercarlo Valdesolo openly admits that his field is highly dominated by liberals. “How do we fix the liberal slant in social psychology?” he asks in the headline. He shares polling evidence that 85% of scientists in the field identify as liberals, and admits that this is unhealthy for science. It causes problems of discrimination; it affects the scientists’ judgment; it’s just not fair. He knows it tends to reinforce “confirmation bias” in a group. So how should this imbalance be fixed? He considers advice from a recent book arguing for more diversity (e.g., hiring more conservatives). This would lead to more healthy debate, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that good for science to have alternative hypotheses battle it out? The expected “yes” doesn’t come, because Valdesolo ends up voting for the status quo. He just encourages his liberal colleagues to meditate on being less biased. “Let’s improve the validity of our science by trying to reduce error, not by introducing new kinds of it.” We all know what he means by “new kinds of error,” now, don’t we?

There are good individual scientists, but Big Science (the institutions and their advocates) is a leftist cabal (10/14/10). There are good individual reporters, but Big Media institutions are Big Science’s partners in crime. Except in alternative media like CEH, one never finds a reporter taking a scientist to task for proposing something stupid, wrong, or immoral. So stop treating the AAAS, Nature, the NAS, the AP and the superstructure supporting them as a self-correcting, tried-and-true, objective system of knowledge generation and dissemination. They are groups of powerful leftists whose number one priority is the promotion of themselves and the perpetuation of their power.

How do you deal with these institutions that actively defend evil? You shame them. You speak out strongly. You reject their framing of the issues, and you refuse to take their bluffing as the last word. You keep the pressure on. You plaster them with undeniable facts and logic they cannot ignore. You don’t compromise with evil, even when they give in a little and try to “dialogue” with you (meaning, try to get you to shut up). Sometimes you have to be tough on your “friends,” too. On Friday, Republican house majority leader John Boehner resigned, largely because of pressure from conservatives in his own party who were angry at his repeated capitulations to the Democrat administration and his inability to get things done on key conservative issues. Reporters acknowledge that conservative voters are exceedingly angry at “establishment” leaders and are demanding action. No excuses! That pressure had its effect. It’s what will be required to end Planned Parenthood’s reign of terror.

If you read the above articles carefully, you can tell that the abortion promoters are well aware of their critics, and it worries them. They downplay their critics and their influence. They call them names. They keep dishing out their standard talking points, but their words are slowly losing their appeal. It takes persistence and pressure to have an influence. That’s how Wilberforce got slavery ended. He didn’t compromise, and he kept up the pressure for years until he prevailed. Pro-slavery powers used all their weapons against him; they used fear tactics (“the economy will collapse without slavery”); they demeaned slaves as non-persons; they questioned Wilberforce’s motives. Pro-abortionists use the same playbook, arguing that babies must be butchered for “science” to help find life-saving treatments. The hypocrisy of that should be apparent. Wilberforce kept on. That’s what it will take to put today’s baby butchers out of business. Some day, if pro-lifers prevail, the world will wonder how on earth anyone ever justified such an evil practice.

At the Values Voter Summit in Washington on Friday, governor Bobby Jindal described how he dealt with pro-abortion protesters who showed up on his lawn screaming about his defunding of Planned Parenthood in Louisiana. He didn’t try to outshout them. He just took a projector and a big screen, and played the CMP videos over and over. Silenced by the evidence, the protestors quieted down and left. That’s how to work smart! Let the evidence drown out the slogans.

Why is CEH reporting on this issue? Look at our name: Creation-Evolution Headlines. Unborn babies have value and deserve all the rights of persons if they are created beings, made by a Creator in His image. If they are evolved objects of blind material forces, then— well, you see how creation vs evolution shapes one’s perspective on the most intimate, vital matters in the world. Abortion is a bitter fruit of Darwinian thinking. Sometimes we go after the root; other times, the fruit, especially when it is one of the hottest issues in the culture right now.