The latest Republican dog and pony show, aka the Planned Parenthood hearing, took place on September 29th in the House Committee On Oversight and Government Reform. It was Planned Parenthood’s national president, Cecile Richards, vs. Utah congressman and committee chair, Jason Chaffetz, and his Republican colleagues. By most accounts, the Republicans did not come out of the hearing looking good.
Fox News tried desperately to help Republicans spin the videos produced by the Center For Medical Progress (CMP) as being accurate and unaltered. They reported that an outside group hired by CMP said that the full videos had not been changed. That may sell among low information voters, but anybody who has been paying attention knows that no one is claiming that the full videos were doctored. It was the shorter, edited videos that have been the issue since day one.
RELATED: New Poll Makes It Clear What Americans Think About Defunding Planned Parenthood
Facing evidence that CMP deliberately distorted the edited versions of the videos, as well as the transcripts they provided to accompany them, Republicans and their allies seem to be attempting to confuse the public by putting forth the narrative that the videos were unaltered.
Democrats on the House committee are fighting back, with a brief video released on YouTube called “The FACTS vs. FICTION on Planned Parenthood.”
This video shows examples of 10 instances in which Planned Parenthood’s Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, clearly stated that the organization does not profit from tissue donations.
Republicans have opened up a hornets’ nest with this one. Media reaction has been overwhelmingly critical of the hearing, including a fact check from Yahoo Health that pointed out four major falsehoods in GOP attacks. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that Americans support government funding of Planned Parenthood by a 65-29 percent margin. A Quinnipiac poll found that almost 70 percent of Americans oppose a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding.
It is often fun to watch Republicans paint themselves into a corner over things like this, all to appease the ever shrinking group of rabid, out of touch with reality voters known as “the GOP base.” However, in the case of Planned Parenthood (like Obamacare before it), these zealots are playing with people’s health — and that’s not funny at all.
Here’s the Democrats’ video, via YouTube:
Featured image via Vigyazo.blog.hu
