Deception, Hypocrisy, Rhetoric, and Hope

Some thoughts have been swirling around in my head these last few days about the undercover videos about Planned Parenthood (PP) that have been recently released. I've watched two of the videos that are out there, and I read (almost all) of one of the transcripts, and most of another transcript for the videos I watched. I also watched part of the third video. The transcripts and videos are all pretty accessible on-line at the website of the organization that made the videos.

Many other people much more eloquent than I have written on this topic, but I wanted to share a couple of things that have struck me, particularly after I read the transcripts to two of the videos.

One thing that struck me was how deceived some of the staff at PP are. I don't mean to say that they are deceiving others, but that some of the staff themselves have been deceived. They have been deceived into believing that the way to help a woman with an unplanned pregnancy is to help her get rid of it. They have been deceived into believing that the work they are doing is truly helping women, and that they are providing compassionate care to women in need. In one of the transcripts, one of the doctors explains that when she was in medical school she was initially studying to become an ob/gyn, and it was during a rotation where she helped treat a woman who eventually died from having had an abortion where she started thinking about how important it was that women be able to have an abortion safely, and not be put at risk of dying from it. So her movement into doing abortions was influenced by her desire to help women. And to her, helping women meant helping them get safe abortions where they would not bleed to death. She was deceived into thinking that helping women get safer abortions was a legitimate way to help the women.

A while back I read "Unplanned", which is the autobiography of Abby Johnson, a woman who used to work for PP, but left after becoming pro-life. One thing that struck me about her story was how, when she started working for PP, she truly believed she was providing a needed service to women, and her goal was to provide care for the women who needed it. She wasn't a "I-want-to-kill-babies-monster", which is how I think we sometimes paint the staff at PP. Instead, she was deceived into thinking that helping a woman terminate her unplanned pregnancy was caring for her. I realize Johnson's story is only her own, but I can't help but wonder if other staff at PP have been similarly deceived.

In a similar vein, it struck me that the women seeking abortions have been similarly deceived into thinking that the only, or the best, solution to the unplanned pregnancy was to terminate it. This should be a clear call to the Church to extend arms of grace to these women and their babies, and to show them love, support, and care and to give them a sense of hope for themselves and their babies.

The hypocrisy that I saw in the videos and transcripts was striking as well. All throughout the videos and transcripts, the words "fetus", "tissue", "specimen" and similar words are used. I think this language is used intentionally because it helps keep the conversation in the realm of the discussion of research and medicine. In one of the videos (which I had to watch peeking through my hands over my eyes, because I could not bear to see what was on the screen) showed a person working at a tray of an aborted baby. The people on camera are talking about the process of "procuring" the tissue and in the course of the conversation reference was made to the aborted baby on the tray with a comment "it's a boy". I gasped when I heard that. These are the same people who, just minutes ago, were referring to the material on that tray as "tissue" and a "specimen". Now, they are calling it a "boy". "Boy" is personhood language. So what is this material on the tray to PP? Is it just medical waste, or is it a person? They cannot have it both ways. It's either a boy or it's not, and they just admitted themselves what it was.

At the end of one of the transcripts - one in which there were two PP staff talking to the undercover people - the folks on camera were making small talk. One of the PP staff mentioned that her daughter was having another baby, and that she was five months along. There were words of congratulations as the grandmother-to-be expressed joy at the coming baby. Again, I could not believe the hypocrisy. Five months pregnant is about 20 weeks, the same gestational age at which some PP clinics perform abortions. This woman is expressing joy over a 20-week unborn baby because to her, that is a baby. This is speculative, but I can't image that this woman thinks of her unborn grandchild as a glob of tissue. Who would express joy over a glob of tissue? I can only image that to her, this is a baby, it is a life, and it is precious. And yet, every day, she condones the killing of babies that are at the exact same gestational age. Can she do this because she has no personal connection to that other baby? Does the glob of tissue only become a baby when it's wanted? Again, you can't have it both ways. It either is a baby, or it's not, and her reaction to her coming grandchild answers the question.

Lastly, the rhetoric. I watched an couple of interviews of leaders in PP and their response to the videos. So much of what they focused on in their interviews was how PP was providing important, necessary, and non-abortive health care services to women. It seemed to me that they were making great attempts to deflect from the fact that they provide abortions, and instead focus on the other health care services they provide. I think they were doing this to try and build sympathy in the minds of the viewers, so that we would believe that PP is truly trying to just help women by providing them with (non-abortive) health care services, and to convince the viewers that we would be wrong to take any action against PP that would prevent a woman's ability to get the (non-abortive) services they offer.  

So what should a Christian's response be to all of this? I can think of a few:
Pray: We should be praying for the women who are facing unplanned pregnancies, that they would have the courage to give their babies life. We also need to pray for the staff at PP, that the scales may be removed from their eyes and they would realize the truth of the evil they are condoning.
Love: I think the Church has an important role to play in loving women who do keep their babies, and loving women who have had abortions in the past. We should be bastion of hope and grace for these women and their children.
Give: Give to your local crisis pregnancy center - whether it's time, money, or a pack of diapers, these centers are on the front line of saving the lives of these babies (and their mothers!) and they need all the support we can give them.
Think: I think we're going to be hearing a lot more from the bazillion presidential candidates regarding this issue, and if federal funding should be pulled from PP (to which I say yes!). The funding issue aside, I think we need to carefully consider a candidate's stance on abortion when deciding who to vote for next fall. I think there can be a lot of gray when it comes to some political issues like the economy, or foreign relations, or domestic policies. But when it comes to the issue of abortion, there is no gray because of the fact that abortion ends a baby's life.
Do More?: Maybe some people will be called to sacrifice even more, and become foster parents or adoptive parents. I can't help but wonder if women would be more prone to giving life to their babies if they were more confident in our society's willingness and ability to care for those children.

At the end of the day, my hope that these videos and transcripts will at least get people to start to think more critically about the issue of life, and unplanned pregnancies, and how we as a society can better care for "the least of these".