The Republican strategy against Planned Parenthood is not a secret. Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah stated it plainly in an interview for Fox News in September: "Planned Parenthood is the new ACORN."
Let's review. ACORN was the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, an agglomerate of community organizations working with the poor on issues like housing, health care, and voter registration. ACORN also lobbied for political reforms that were noxious to conservatives, and this prompted frequent criticism and legal threats, as when the McCain-Palin campaign accused ACORN of fraudulent voter registrations.
ACORN's undoing came after a young right-wing activist named James O'Keefe covertly filmed himself visiting several ACORN offices posing as a pimp, seeking advice on evading taxes and accessing health care for prostitutes who were in the country illegally. He used vague questions and deceptive editing (including misleading footage of his own costume) to suggest ACORN as an organization was aiding and abetting criminal activity. O'Keefe's hit job was pounced upon by partisan media organizations. The sensational story led to splashy Congressional hearings and legislation to cut off federal funding for local ACORN programs. A GAO audit and a legal investigation ultimately exonerated ACORN as an organization, and the release of unedited footage during litigation exposed O'Keefe's deception, but it was too late. Due to bad publicity, loss of revenue, and a costly legal defense, ACORN collapsed. In November 2010 it shut down permanently.
Immediately after ACORN fell, a group called Live Action attempted the same pimp-and-prostitute scam on Planned Parenthood. In this case, as with ACORN, individual employees were caught giving some questionable advice, but the implication that the organizations were abetting criminal activity simply did not stick.
This summer and fall, the latest effort at "acorning" Planned Parenthood has made more progress. A group that opposes legal abortion, the Center for Medical Progress, presented carefully edited hidden-camera footage of conversations with Planned Parenthood officers and actors posing as biotech executives. The actors lure these officials into discussing fees for fetal tissue samples sometimes acquired after abortion procedures for use in scientific research. The edited video charges Planned Parenthood with selling fetal body parts for profit, whereas the unedited video shows these officers discussing modest fees to recover procedural costs and explicitly disavowing any interest in profiting from abortion procedures.
Researchers unaffiliated with Planned Parenthood have testified that the fees involved are adequate to recover costs and do not represent profiteering. The alleged trafficking in body parts is fiction. Reason and fact, sadly, do not prevail, nor have they stopped presidential candidates from grabbing headlines with false allegations against Planned Parenthood. Congress has convened highly publicized hearings that continue at this writing. So far, the affair has been high on mendacity and low on truth, an expensive use of lawmakers' time that has failed to expose any actual wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood.
Sadly, our congressman here in New Mexico's second district, Steve Pearce, has continued to point to the CMP videos even after they have been discredited, and falsely claims the videos show staff "picking over dismembered arms and legs, hearts, kidneys and livers that can be sold," footage Carly Fiorina also claims to have seen yet no one can produce.
We should welcome an honest, principled discourse about abortion. The decision about funding Planned Parenthood should be based on an accurate portrayal of Planned Parenthood's services for low-income families. Sadly, our congressman is seizing on falsehoods to slander an organization's reputation and choke off its revenue, leaving poor families further underserved, as was done successfully to ACORN.
Such lies are a disgrace to our district.
Algernon D'Ammassa is "Desert Sage." Write to him at DesertSageMail@gmail.com.