Throwing the Baby Out With the Bath Water

Are Republican efforts to strip funding for Planned Parenthood over selling baby parts despite the many other services they provide to women the equivalent of throwing the baby out with the bath water? Wait...probably a bad metaphor.

This is just one of the many problems facing the public relations people at Planned Parenthood. How do you respond to videos that show your people...doing their jobs? This assignment has fallen to the "Crisis communications" firm of SKDKnickerbocker, whose first move was to scrub their own website of any tie to Planned Parenthood. Their second move was to send a memo to members of the media, urging them to blackball any future videos. 

Everybody loves sausage, but nobody wants to see how the sausage is made. Therein lies Planned Parenthood's problem. Millions of Americans support abortion, the right of a woman and only a woman to choose, but not very many people want to take the time to hack their way through the moral and ethical implications of the procedure. Even fewer care to consider the thorny issue of when life begins, the ethical high wire act of partial birth abortion, or the semantic gyrations required to call a full term baby in the womb mere tissue, when six inches later it becomes a living soul.

So whenever something happens that forces us to confront this issue, something like these videos, abortion defenders find themselves on treacherous ground and wind up saying the most ridiculous things. For example, Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, upon release of the first video apologized for the "tone" of the staff member caught talking casually about the skillful crunching of skulls in between mouthfuls of salad and sips of wine. Ms. Richards claimed that the staffer's remarks "do not reflect the compassionate care which is our top priority." But, compassionate care to whom? Certainly not the baby. Abortionists have gone to great pains since Roe v. Wade to scrub away any emotional language when discussing the object of abortion. They have steadfastly refused to grant even an ounce of humanity to the thing growing inside the womb...mere tissue. So, what was there to apologize for? The staffer was merely speaking of dismembering a tissue mass with no more moral authority than a gall bladder. What on earth was wrong with her "tone"?

If I was SKDKnickerbocker, I would advise PP to attack the messenger and knock off the apologizing. The best defense is always a good offense. Then maybe come up with a catchy marketing slogan...Planned Parenthood...To make an omelette, you've got to break a few eggs!