Gordon Campbell on Carly Fiorina and the anti-abortion scam
So Carly Fiorina – hitherto best known as the CEO who drove Hewlett-Packard to the brink of ruin - was the big winner in the second Republican candidates debate yesterday. One of her big debate moments – played
unedited and without comment on RNZ this morning – came when she urged listeners to view a video that allegedly shows
the Planned Parenthood organization discussing how to profit from the organ harvesting of aborted fetuses.
The video that Fiorina was endorsing in prime time is actually a hoax, not a genuine expose of some nefarious Abortion
Industrial Complex. You can find a rebuttal here. The Salon article has useful links to other exposés of the hoax here as well. This debunking article by Media Matters is also useful.
Basically, the heavily edited video purports to show Planned Parenthood’s Dr Deborah Nucatola engaged in a discussion of
organ harvesting for profit. In fact, she is talking about the perfectly legal, non profit, and routine practice of
organ donation by consent for medical research, and the re-imbursement for preparing and transporting the stem tissue
involved. Here’s the press statement by Planned Parenthood:
“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical
breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no
different. At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we
do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does — with full, appropriate consent from patients and
under the highest ethical and legal standards. There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient
or for Planned Parenthood. In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research
centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.
“A well funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and services has promoted a
heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation
programs that support lifesaving scientific research. Similar false accusations have been put forth by opponents of
abortion services for decades. These groups have been widely discredited and their claims fall apart on closer
examination, just as they do in this case.”
This site also has useful information on the legal constraints on the sale of fetal tissue, as well as a discussion of some of the grey areas – which are mainly to do with the validation of the transportation
costs involved :
Much of the controversy stems from a lack of widespread public knowledge of who buys and sells fetal tissue, what it is
used for, and what the law allows regarding its purchase and sale. Scientists have been using such material in medical
research for decades to study (and possibly develop cures for) a number of diseases and medical ailments, but commercial
fetal tissue transactions take place in something of a legal gray zone: agencies may sell fetal tissue that has been
“donated” for that purpose (through abortion), but they may not profit from it. According to federal law they may only
charge for the processing and shipping involved in transferring the material from donor to purchaser, but the law
doesn’t regulate how much they may charge.
Give the paltry amounts that Nucotala is shown mentioning on the video – “$30 to $100 per specimen” it is clear she is
talking only about the re-imbursement for the transportation costs, and not any level of profiteering from organ harvesting.
Moreover, the brochure that features in the video that does purport in one line to promote a profit potential, is not a
Planned Parenthood document – as the video claims - but is from Stem Express, a firm that processes and transports the
stem tissue to medical researchers around the world.
OK… so the video is a fraudulent effort. Yet touting it was one of the main reasons the pundits are now saying that
Fiorina’s debate performance was based on substance, not generalities or metaphors. Should we be surprised that Fiorina
has peddled this anti-abortion scam in prime time – while projecting herself as the feisty pro-woman candidate? Not
really. As the New York Times has reported, Fiorina has deliberately fudged and distorted her disastrous tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard as well.
Donald Trump, at least, managed to get the Hewlett-Packard flaw in her CV dead right.
Hop Along, Again
I’ve been banging on about Hop Along’s Painted Shut album for months now. Tracks like “Waitress” “Horseshoes Crabs” and the pulsating “Sister Cities” are all fine examples
of Frances Quinlan’s ability to blend her old freak folk inclinations with her new Breeders-like ferocity. “Waitress”
“Powerful Man” and “Texas Funeral” all illustrate one of Quinlan’s other gifts: namely, her ability to write detailed
lyrics about very specific events, but which have general application.
On ‘Texas Funeral’ she’s urging a friend to bail with her from a poisonous small town and head off somewhere –
California, where else? – solely in the expectation that things will be different, not better. The urgency with which
she confronts him (Aren’t you sick of the word inheritance? Keep your melting stars!) and the martial beat behind her
own attempts to re-assure herself ( None of this is ever gonna happen to me) is balanced by the tenderness of what they
could share : “We have a great wanting in common….” Great song, and lyrics aside there’s an interestingly gnarled guitar
solo in there, too.