{"id":329,"date":"2015-08-01T19:48:37","date_gmt":"2015-08-01T19:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/?p=329"},"modified":"2015-08-01T19:48:37","modified_gmt":"2015-08-01T19:48:37","slug":"selling-body-parts-and-giving-away-our-collective-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/2015\/08\/01\/selling-body-parts-and-giving-away-our-collective-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling Body Parts, and Giving Away Our Collective Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou have the forehead of a prostitute, you refuse to be ashamed\u201d (Jeremiah 3:3). \u00a0Thus says God to his rebellious kingdom. \u00a0The \u201cforehead of a prostitute\u201d is an ancient expression that referred to an inability to blush. \u00a0It bespeaks a loss of shame, a seared conscience, a calloused soul, and a hard heart.<\/p>\n

What is shocking about the recently released Planned Parenthood videos isn\u2019t just the scandal of fetal parts for sale by abortion providers, but the disturbing nonchalance (nay, defiance) with which it is being greeted by many. \u00a0(I\u2019ll pause,\u00a0of course, to\u00a0acknowledge that Republican presidential candidates have made a lot of noise about this).<\/p>\n

A writer named Robin Marty at\u00a0cosmopolitan.com<\/a> opined\u00a0on July 14: \u201cI\u2019ve read the emails. I\u2019ve watched the short-version video. I\u2019ve read the website and the other anti-abortion action groups\u2019 press releases. I\u2019ve even poked through all the primary sources posted so far in the \u201cDocument Vault.\u201d \u00a0Now, frankly, I\u2019m just going to yawn.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A conservative website called Newsbusters<\/a>\u00a0has helpfully counted up the minutes and concluded that \u201cthe broadcast news shows spent more time in one day on Cecil the Lion than they did on the Planned Parenthood videos in two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The media have begun to cover this because they\u00a0aren\u2019t able to cover it up. \u00a0When they\u00a0have taken up the story, it has generally been to sympathize\u00a0with Planned Parenthood. Lester Holt on NBC\u2019s Nightly News intoned that Planned Parenthood is \u201cunder fire\u201d from \u201cactivists\u201d. \u00a0This headline from Reuters<\/a>\u00a0proclaims: \u201cPlanned Parenthood slams secret video as false portrayal of fetus tissue program\u201d. \u00a0The \u201cGrey Lady\u201d leads off an online article\u00a0in\u00a0this way:\u00a0Abortion opponents\u00a0on Tuesday\u00a0renewed their campaign against Planned Parenthood, with immediate impact among Republicans in Congress and the presidential race<\/em>. \u00a0(The\u00a0New York Times online<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The dominant narrative of the media seems to be that this is a \u201cstunt\u201d or \u201cfraud\u201d (as though the Planned Parenthood representatives are scripted actors), perpetrated by a \u201cfar right\u201d (and therefore dismissable) group. (As an aside, I find it odd that we never hear of any \u201cnear right\u201d groups, or of conservatives that aren\u2019t also\u00a0\u201cextremists\u201d).<\/p>\n

Salon.com has screaming headlines like \u201cWhat the Planned Parenthood hoax really proves: Right-wing extremists have no qualms about destroying peoples\u2019 lives\u201d and \u201cThe Planned Parenthood hoax is the GOP\u2019s Trojan horse: How Republicans are hijacking the national conversation\u201d\u00a0(www.salon.com).<\/p>\n

Newsweek (article here<\/a>) implies soothingly\u00a0that one can disregard\u00a0the source of the material, because David Daleidan once wrote an anti-abortion article for the conservative outlet \u201cThe Weekly Standard\u201d, and made reference to \u201cprayer life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Even the Obama White House\u00a0has chimed in: \u00a0 The White House on Thursday waded into the debate, calling the group behind the sting videos \u201cextremists on the right.\u201d \u00a0<\/em>(CNN article<\/a>) \u00a0 Always keen to show that they are thinking for themselves,\u00a0White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. \u201cAnd Planned Parenthood has indicated that\u2019s what has occurred here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I am not going to opine here about the legality of the fetal parts trade\u2013I don\u2019t doubt that in fact it is legal, just as abortion is legal. \u00a0\u201cLegal\u201d doesn\u2019t equal \u201cgood\u201d, of course. \u00a0I\u2019ll accept that Planned Parenthood doesn\u2019t make that much money per body part\u2013as if that has any relevance. \u00a0 Perhaps people\u00a0can even justify\u00a0the fetal body parts market, by representing fetal biomedical research as\u00a0a silver lining of hope in the dark cloud of abortion. \u00a0I furthermore won\u2019t even\u00a0question here the claim that Planned Parenthood may provide many\u00a0good medical services to women that are not related to its abortion provision.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, though, all of this public conversation depressingly reveals the coarsening of our culture. \u00a0Our outspoken ones flash\u00a0with anger that any would dare shine a spotlight on this tragedy, but do not blush with shame that it has even been occurring. It reveals just how far askew\u00a0our moral compass\u00a0has drifted\u00a0in recent decades. \u00a0Our national discourse has become\u00a0an echo chamber of cynicism\u00a0and\u00a0spiritual death.<\/p>\n

We have\u00a0sold baby parts, and bought a prostitute\u2019s forehead in the bargain.<\/body><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou have the forehead of a prostitute, you refuse to be ashamed\u201d (Jeremiah 3:3). \u00a0Thus says God to his rebellious kingdom. \u00a0The \u201cforehead of a prostitute\u201d is an ancient expression that referred to an inability to blush. \u00a0It bespeaks a loss of shame, a seared conscience, a calloused soul, and a hard heart. What is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[198,200,197,196,199],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections-of-the-fall","tag-conscience","tag-david-daleidan","tag-media-bias","tag-planned-parenthood","tag-prostitutes-forehead"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}