Her tone sounds more like an amateur debater who hasn’t yet learned the art of argumentation; instead, she’s a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, whose hyperbolic accusations indict her for her emotional outburst instead of thoughtful facts.
Robin Abcarian, a longtime Times reporter, uses her platform at the paper to announce that the recent grand jury indictment against is actually a move of “poetic justice,” and she says the videos, which exposed the acts of Planned Parenthood profiting off the sake of body parts, were “malicious as they were untrue.” She writes:
Asked to investigate Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, a branch of one of the country’s most important healthcare providers for women, the grand jury found no wrongdoing on the part of the group, whose staffers were secretly videotaped talking about the cost of procuring fetal tissue for research. Instead, the grand jury handed down indictments against two of the antiabortion zealots involved in the “sting.”
If that’s not poetic justice, nothing is.
Anyone with an ounce of sense or knowledge would not have believed the preposterous claims against Planned Parenthood. Its destruction/delegitimizing/defunding is the Holy Grail of the American antiabortion movement.
In her attempt to denounce the videos exposing the body parts sales, Abcarian says that the videos were supposed to be a “some sort of ‘bombshell,'” made by “antiabortion crusaders.” Abcarian insists she knows the actual truth when she says:
I watched and rewatched the video. I read the transcript. Although Nucatola’s conversation may have been unsavory — who wants to talk about fetal body parts over salad? — I never believed for a moment that she was describing anything illegal or unethical.
She never believed; therefore, it must not be true. The logic of this statement wouldn’t survive a fifth grade response to a persuasive essay prompt. Belief is not the definition of truth. Planned Parenthood executives described over and over, not only in the one video she comments on, but the multiple other videos, how they altered abortion procedures to get the right liver or thymus–or brain or spinal cord. They talked to CMP reporters about the profits they made and the ways to circumvent federal laws. But Abcarian “believes” there was nothing illegal or unethical; therefore, even though she doesn’t work with Planned Parenthood, nor was she present in any of these meetings, she must somehow have a psychic insight to some invented “truth” she likes.
But even if illegal or unethical activity took place, apparently Abcarian would find it worthy because of the perceived good that comes from harvesting dead baby parts. She asserts:
As I have noted previously, there will always be abortions in this country. As a result, there will always be aborted fetal parts. Without fetal cells, we probably wouldn’t have vaccines for German measles, chicken pox and polio.
She neglects to mention that there have been multiple vaccines created that do not use fetal cells, though some are not available in the US, and the ones that are parents have to ask for and pay for themselves because they are not accepted as standard. But they are accepted as effective. There isn’t a reason an innocent child has to die to justify another living. But she thinks it does. She notes that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, after the indictment, “The state of Texas will continue to protect life, and I will continue to support legislation prohibiting the sale or transfer of fetal tissue.” And that makes Abcarian sad as she says:
That’s too bad since so much good has come of fetal tissue research.
One again, her comments show that she believes as long as good comes out of bad, the bad is okay. Killing preborn babies is bad, and so is harvesting and selling them in pieces. There isn’t good in that no matter how much Abcarian wants to twist the truth to fit her beliefs.
But Abcarian isn’t really about credible evidence and facts; she’s about accusing independently verified, credible videos of not being credible. One again, she thinks people should take her word for it because she said so:
Later videos, released with great fanfare and accepted as gospel by antiabortion politicians around the country, suffered from the same problem. Just not credible.
She provides no evidence of her accusation, but goes on to say:
I’m thankful that a group of citizens with common sense were able to see what was clear to people who support the ability of women to rule their own reproductive fates: Planned Parenthood has done no wrong.
It’s ironic, however, that in that Houston hearing there was a prosecutor with the district attorney’s office who also sits on the board of Planned Parenthood–the very Planned Parenthood against whom the accusations were made. What a coincidence! President of Live Action, Lila Rose, commented:
The district attorney’s office was asked months ago about recusing itself from this case because one of its prosecutors serves as a board member of the Planned Parenthood affiliate involved in the case. It is unacceptable that the office did not recuse itself to eliminate any and all questions of potential bias. A special prosecutor should be appointed now to review this entire investigation.
But Abcarian doesn’t see that truth any clearer than her other constructed “truth.” Instead she says, “It’s the scheming antiabortion types who have crossed legal and ethical boundaries. They’re the ones who should go to jail.” Because she said so, apparently.
Perhaps the most ironic line from Abcarian comes toward the end of her accusing piece when she says:
Among Texas abortion foes, hope springs eternal. The Republican governor still thinks he has a case against Planned Parenthood, proving he is immune to logic and facts.
It’s not Gov. Abbott or pro-lifers who are the ones immune to logic and facts, however. But Abcarian is too enmeshed in her own falsities to see truth because she doesn’t feel like believing it because it offends her. Unfortunately for her, that bubbled view of reality will be shattered. Truth isn’t defined by what we want to believe but by what is actually real. This is a lesson Abcarian needs to learn before her next computer-aided launch of accusations.
