"An Obvious Moral Horror"

Sometimes the clarifying lens of the law helps to sharpen the analysis. Sometimes the fog of the law obscures.

So it is with the attention given to the disturbing uncover video of Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood's Senior Director of Medical Services, swilling wine and eating salad as she dispassionately spoke about obliterating the skull and destroying the lower extremities of unborn babies while carefully preserving the internal organs for medical research. 

 The mainstream news media quickly shifted the question to whether the legal line had been crossed from non-profit use of abortion remains for research to selling human body parts for profit. Those who had released the video were accused of editing it to make it appear that Ms. Nucatola was setting prices for profit rather than simply recovering the expenses of distributing the tissues (which is not illegal).

While the legality of Planned Parenthood's activities under current statutes is not unimportant, to focus on that point is truly to miss the what is most important. The gut-wrenching power of the video — what makes this revelation such an important event in the history of abortion in the United States — lies in its depiction of the callous attitudes of the abortion industry. Here the words of Planned Parenthood's leader of medical services speak for themselves:

“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver. So I’m not gonna crush that part. I’m going to basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”

Not willing to be so distracted, Heather Wilhelm sums it up well:

“Abortion, when you’re forced to acknowledge the reality of it, is an obvious moral horror. It involves killing little humans, many with lungs and hearts—not just ’clumps’ of ’tissue’—and it happens every day.”

Seldom does a single event occur that can so dramatically move public opinion by shining the light into darkness. The pro-life movement must ensure that, even as the news media loses interest, this video is replayed again and again for every audience.