What are your thoughts on the latest video from Issues & Justice?

Ever get tired of seeing people write opinion pieces that are nothing more than a self-serving rehash of agenda-driven talking points?

Well today I came across one of those pieces and decided to kindly correct the record and provide some diversity of viewpoint – which is a good thing after all, right?

The piece I am talking about is called “Crocodile Tears” by Sam Davis. You may wonder why I am spending my time responding to a piece that is published on a website that gets only 5,000 unique visitors a month according to leading traffic monitoring website Compete.com. I thought this piece was a good example of how often liberal writers regurgitate group-think and fail to see how opportunistic agenda oozes from everything they do.

Let’s begin…

“‘I certainly don’t believe in shooting abortion providers, but I certainly can see how someone could feel justified in doing something like that.’ Those are the sentiments of one of my fellow religious bigots in 1993 the first time Dr. George Tiller was shot. The statement just masks the real attitude of many of the lunatics fringe of the Religious Right-about 90%-who are thinking and saying privately, “Hurray, someone did our dirty work and we didn’t have to get involved.” To tell the truth, many of you anti-abortion proponents were silently cheering when you heard about Dr. Tiller’s death. You only have to kill 1,800 more abortion providers (or Baby-Killers as you like to brand them) and you’ll reach your goal.”

First, Sam does what I consider to be one of the most despicable things in thinking about others: Assuming the motives and thoughts of others and thinking the worst of people. He doesn’t provide any polling data or any other hard evidence in making his assessments. He just wants his readers to blindly trust him and believe that those anti-abortion people are really secretly happy. He can’t of course claim that they are publicly happy (every legitimate pro-life group in the country has condemned the killings)as that has not been evidenced.

“Dr. Tiller was one of only three providers of late-term abortions in the U.S.”

That is factually incorrect. If you look at CDC data, you will see that many states across the US did late term abortions. There are many providers in the US that do abortions after 20 weeks. Check outl: http://wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=99924 Unfortunately, the AP didn’t face check very well when put out this false information that many people like you are continuing to spread.

“He saved the lives of hundreds of women by doing late-term abortions”

I support abortion-choice in cases where the life of the mother is in the balance. That said, most of Dr. Tiller’s cases were not like that. In fact, the partial birth abortion procedures that he performed (before they were banned under President Bush) were never necessary to save the life of a mother. Partial birth abortion provides no medical benefit to the mother. It is just like a real birth except the child is killed while its head is still in the vagina.

“His death is just the latest episode in a long string of violence and intimidation by the Religious Right.”

George Tiller’s tragic death is just the first abortionist killed in the 21st century. Violence against abortion providers has actually declined greatly according to data  kept by the National Abortion Federation. Looking at crime statistics, people who consider themselves religious and conservative as actually some of the most peaceable people in the country. Also left out of this article is the fact that the accused killed of George Tiller has no formal connection to any pro-life group and according to people close to him he suffered from an untreated mental illness.

“Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue and the Rush Limbaugh of the anti-abortion crowd”

Actually Randall Terry has very little standing in the pro-life movement. As someone who is pro-life, I don’t look to Randall Terry for any leadership. The real leaders of the pro-life movement are groups like National Right to Life, American United for Life, Priests for Life, and the 50 state right to life organization. Any informed observer would know that. He doesn’t even run an organization to my knowledge.  Why is is this author elevating Mr. Terry? It appears Mr. Davis is trying to use Mr. Terry to make a pre-conceived point. When he did not see evidence for his point in the leading pro-life circles, he decided to elevate Mr. Terry to fit the bill.

“Limbaugh continually spouts a tirade of racist and over the top comments that reflect the real agenda of the Republican Right”

I find it offensive once against that Mr. Davis would accuse Mr. Limbaugh of racism without providing any evidence. It is like saying someone is a child molester and then just leaving it at that. Furthermore, Mr. David tries to smear all people who are Republicans as racists by his sentence construction.  This stereotype is false, deceptive, and doesn’t promote understanding or progression in our national discussion.

“They refer clients to adoption agencies.”

Yes, Planned Parenthood does refer clients to adoption agencies. The sad truth is how rarely that happens. According to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, they performed 60 abortions for every adoption referral they did. You can see where their focus is. 4,912 adoption referrals vs. 305,310 abortions.

“Pregnancy terminations are a very small portion of their practice and the counseling they provide before and after the procedure is highly professional.”

Abortions are a very significant portion of their business. They are the largest abortion provider in the United States. They killed and removed 305,310 human embryos and fetuses according to their latest annual report. Conservatively that equates to over $115,000,000 in revenue.

Also, Planned Parenthood’s counseling has been found to be suspect:

#1: Planned Parenthood Employee Fired After Hiding Alleged Sexual Abuse of 13yo Girl

#2: Sexual Abuse of 13-Year-Old is No Problem to Indianapolis Planned Parenthood

#3: Shhh! Sex Abuse Coverup is OK with Tucson Planned

#4: Sex Abuse Cover-up at Phoenix Planned Parenthood

#5: Allegedly impregnated 14yo told by Planned Parenthood to lie about older man

“I don’t know when life begins and neither do they, but I suspect we Progressive have a lot more concern about quality of life than most on the Right do”

First we see an assumption in the statement that knowing when human life begins is unknowable. Consider what Alan Guttmacher, M.D., former president of Planned Parenthood wrote in his book Life in the Making:

We of today know that man is born of sexual union; that he starts life as an embryo within the body of the female; and that the embryo is formed from the fusion of two single cells, the ovum and the sperm. This all seems so simple and evident to us that it is difficult to picture a time when it was not part of the common knowledge.

Planned Parenthood’s research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, is named after him. We know when human life beings…at fertilization. Mr. Davis may want to read this or this to study up on the science.

Republicans really need to hang onto as many abortion providers as possible because without abortion as an issue, they lose a major portion of their platform.

This snide partisan statement dishonestly assumes that Republicans have no other major positions – which was not the case the last time I read the GOP party platform. Why should Republican’s care what this liberal Democrat thinks they should do to win?  He clearly doesn’t have their best interest at heart.

Take away the gay marriage issue (which is really a straw man) and they have a one-legged stool.

Now the topic is gay marriage? What a rambling piece. Is this about abortion and George Tiller or about bashing to Republican Party? If this was about the later then why didn’t the piece start with that theme? So unfocused.

If Republicans really want to end abortion, they won’t pick people like Rick Perry and John Cornyn, as well as many of our state legislators. But, you see they don’t, because without the abortion issue, Republicans don’t have a leg to stand on.

Once again, the lecturing of Republicans continues. Why would any Republican want to take advise from some liberal who just got done bashing them? Instead of making an intelligent case based on facts, as I believe op-eds should do, we get unsupported opinion in the form of conspiratorial liberal lecture about who Republicans should elect.