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What do Hillary Clinton’s PPFA remarks to a New Hampshire newspaper tell us?

Jul 31, 2015

By Dave Andrusko

150731-Hillary-Clinton   As the week draws to an end, here are some thoughts on a “one-on-one” interview pro-abortion Hillary Clinton gave to the New Hampshire Union Leader.

As the leading presidential candidate on the Democrats’ side, Mrs. Clinton’s comments on an assortment of topics are very worth reading.

But as single-issue folks, we look at what she said about the burgeoning Planned Parenthood scandal, the product of incredibly insensitive, callous comments made by Planned Parenthood officials caught on video and another video of an 11.6 week old aborted baby whose remains are being culled for saleable parts.

Note that the interview with Dan Tuohy took place before the Center for Medical Progress released its fourth undercover video. Arguably it is the most disturbing of all.

Heretofore Clinton’s standard response had been that the videos are part of a pattern of “concerted attacks” on PPFA. Etc., etc., etc.

Here’s the operative section from Tuohy’s story:

“I have seen pictures from them and obviously find them disturbing,” the Democratic presidential hopeful said during a sit-down interview Tuesday with the New Hampshire Union Leader.

“Planned Parenthood is answering questions and will continue to answer questions. I think there are two points to make,” Clinton said. “One, Planned Parenthood for more than a century has done a lot of really good work for women: cancer screenings, family planning, all kinds of health services. And this raises not questions about Planned Parenthood so much as it raises questions about the whole process, that is, not just involving Planned Parenthood, but many institutions in our country.”

“And if there’s going to be any kind of congressional inquiry, it should look at everything and not just one (organization),” she said.

Three questions. First, why are the videos “disturbing”? Dead is dead, right? If, as Planned Parenthood insists, they only charge for “services” such as the time it took to carefully extract intact hearts, lungs, and livers, and the goal is to use these “tissues” to find a cure for Alzheimer’s, they should be (as PPFA President Cecile Richards keeps telling us) “applauded.”

Obviously I don’t know what Clinton would say, if pressed. An honest answer is two-fold. There is nothing that has come from the intact organs or tissues of aborted babies that has provided a “cure” and very, very little chance it ever will, for such terrible diseases. That is a classic smokescreen.

But she could no more admit that (it would mean disagreeing with her buddy Cecile Richard) than she could concede what any morally sentient human being would say: this is barbaric, ghoulish, and stomach-turning behavior that no civilized nation should tolerate..

Second, what is “the whole process, that is, not just involving Planned Parenthood, but many institutions in our country”? I am not the least bit inclined to give Mrs. Clinton the benefit of the doubt on any abortion-related question, but it would seem as if she is saying she is open to investigating the whole system by which tissues (and organs) are procured. We’ll see if she adheres to this as PPFA circles the wagons ever tighter.

 

Third, the Los Angeles Times’ Kathleen Hennessey’s story about the interview begins with “Hillary Rodham Clinton offered a less-than-vigorous defense of Planned Parenthood.” Is that a fair conclusion?

Clinton bathed the nation’s largest provider of abortion in the glow of “women’s health”– “cancer screenings, family planning, all kinds of health services.” So before she said anything else Clinton assured anyone reading Tuohy’s story that PPFA is terrific.

That’s the prism through which whatever PPFA has done must be seen. That leaves room (if PPFA defenders find their position untenable) for eventually saying something to the effect “if errors were made….” Unlikely, to be sure, but a smart politician like Clinton always leaves herself wiggle room.

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