The 7 Most Outrageous Screw Ups In The Planned Parenthood Scandal

Since the Center for Medical Progress released the first undercover video exposing Planned Parenthood’s dealing in aborted fetuses in July, a series of missteps have plagued CMP’s rollout, media coverage of the videos, and Planned Parenthood’s response to the scandal.

The story has been distorted from the start, from CMP’s insistence Planned Parenthood “profited” from the practice, to the media’s uncritical acceptance of Planned Parenthood’s claim the videos are “highly edited,” and it’s only gotten worse.

Here’s a look at some of the most significant mistakes determined by The Daily Caller News Foundation in the course of its coverage and investigation of the story.

It’s not about profit

CMP alleged from the start Planned Parenthood was illegally profiting from the sale of aborted fetuses. If the allegations are proven true, Planned Parenthood could be stuck with massive fines, and some of its staff could go to prison.

But while some of the videos seem to support the felony allegations, they don’t prove Planned Parenthood is profiting from the sale of aborted fetuses. And the law the allegations hinge upon is so squishy, one medical ethicist concluded: “It appears to be legal, no matter how much you charge.” (RELATED: Planned Parenthood Allegations Turn On Squishy McConnell-Backed Law)

CMP’s focus on legal allegations that are nearly impossible to prove is an overreach that opened the door to attacks on its credibility, and allowed the conversation to turn from the content of the videos to the legal definition of profit. What’s most shocking about the video is not whether Planned Parenthood violated an ill-defined law.

Experts on both sides of the aisle were quick to highlight the disturbing nature of a Planned Parenthood doctor munching on a salad in a restaurant while describing the best way to crush a fetus in the womb, pausing to sip some wine, and then continuing in detail about how its most valuable parts can be harvested.

Remarking on his colleague’s reluctance to report on the video content, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argued the disgust the videos invoke is informed by the fact that it’s precisely a fetus’s humanity that makes its parts valuable. They look away, he wrote: “Because dwelling on that content gets you uncomfortably close to Selzer’s tipping point — that moment when you start pondering the possibility that an institution at the heart of respectable liberal society is dedicated to a practice that deserves to be called barbarism.”

More