The abortion story gets stranger with each passing day. Many ask why the Mainstream Media seem more interested in a tale of lion poaching in Africa than in baby part sales in America. But even that misses the point. If abortion itself does not outrage you, why should baby parts sales outrage you?

The latest abortion stories

As above, the Mainstream Media devoted nearly all its column inches, minutes, and so on to a poaching incident in Africa. (An American dentist seems to have taken a lion under highly dubious circumstances.) Fox News Channel at least has given more hours to the Planned Parenthood baby parts sales story. And for good reason. The Center for Medical Progress, two days ago, released a video showing scenes, not at a restaurant, but at an abortion mill. In it, one Holly O’Donnell, who used to work in a Planned Parenthood abortion mill, talks about the training she got. She has a license to draw blood for testing. Imagine her shock when the clinic director told her to dissect a baby taken through an abortion. She actually fainted on the strength of it.

How the Planned Parenthood site looked as of 30 July 2015 at 5:43 p.m. EDT. Screencap by CNAV.

Planned Parenthood tried everything to stop people from seeing that video. They tried to beg, plead, then scare the press into not talking about it at all. Then officials of Stem Express, a real buyer of baby parts, went to court (specifically the Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Los Angeles). That court enjoined the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any more footage of three officials of Stem Express eating lunch at any restaurant. (Will the court enjoin CMP permanently? The court scheduled a hearing in a month. Normally in California, both parties to a conversation must consent to the recording of it. But that applies to private telephonic conversations or conversations in someone’s home or in the “back room” of a business. That cannot apply to a public venue, like a restaurant.)

Maybe Planned Parenthood should have asked the court to enjoin CMP more broadly, instead of leaving it up to Stem Express to ask the court to enjoin CMP from embarrassing that firm alone. Because this morning, CMP released another video. They concentrated on Planned Parenthood, not Stem Express. That video showed two things. First, a doctor talks about how to skirt the law against trafficking in human organs and tissues. Second (and this should make one shudder the more), voices on the video speak of “delivery before procedure” and harvesting tissue from the baby in that event. Readers, we are now talking about vivisection.

At least one candidate for President, having experience as a prosecutor, thinks someone should investigate Planned Parenthood for crimes. Governor Chris Christie (R-N.J.) explained this to Breitbart.com today. “If I were a U.S. Attorney, would that be something worthy of inquiry? Sure,” he said. (Aside: Governor Christie did serve as United States Attorney for the New Jersey District for seven years before he ran for governor. Ask yourselves: why did he never prosecute or even investigate abortion mills while he so served? Why did he not give wider support to Lila Rose and others, who exposed cover-ups of statutory rape and other such incidentals?)

More than that, several large companies have given to Planned Parenthood for years. Now, one after another have suspended their giving and employee-gift-matching. Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Exxon-Mobil. And today, American Express. What took them so long? Didn’t they know where abortion would lead?

Maybe in answer, Planned Parenthood changed their Web site to suggest they are suffering from some kind of “hack,” probably a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Their current home page describes their site as “under maintenance.” But it still offers three helpful links. Helpful to them, anyway. To follow the changes they will likely make, use the Wayback Machine.

The real abortion story

All this misses the real point of the story. Does Planned Parenthood sell baby parts? Yes. The Center for Medical Progress offers clear and convincing evidence. But people still defend Planned Parenthood. They take a clear attitude, and even make this case: the body parts would go into the garbage, anyway. So why not offer them to those who can use them to save the lives of those already born? All we ask is reimbursement for giving people space to collect the parts.

Lay aside doctors wanting to jack up the price so they can buy pricey sporty cars and pretend to be Grand Prix racers. Recall Actor José Ferrer, as William Knowland, M.D., in Medical Story, a 1975 made-for-TV movie. An intern embarrasses him before his fellow attendings at the death-and-complications conference. (He took out the womb of a woman too thin to stand the stress. He said the womb was infected through and through. She had no such infection. And he knew it. She died of an Addisonian crisis afterward.) In response, the chief of surgery invites all the attendings to his house to decide what to do with, or to, Dr. Knowland. So great is the shame on the department that it must formally reprimand him. And he throws this question in their faces: “How many of you can say you never ordered an extra test or two to boost your fees?!?”

So as I say, lay aside the doctor saying, “I want a Lamborghini.” Because the defenders make a good case. Do you accept abortion as a valid option for a woman who finds herself pregnant, doesn’t want her husband to know, and “it’s none of your business”? Then what do you care about what happens to the body parts afterward?

Sarah Palin also missed the case she should make against abortion. Bill O’Reilly asked her at least three times, “Do you suggest the people at Planned Parenthood deliberately locate in minority neighborhoods to lure them in just to abort minority babies?” She should have said, “Yes!” Because Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood to do just that. Instead she described Planned Parenthood as a sleazy business, locating anywhere they can find a gullible population so they can make a profit.

Profit depends on what the one making it, really wants to do. Margaret Sanger wanted to wipe out the black race, and other “inferior races.” To do that she set up abortion mills where they lived. She organized them as a chain, and called that chain Planned Parenthood. She would find the sale of the body parts merely another sideline, nothing worse.

Today L. Brent Bozell III (And That’s The Way It Is(n’t)) accuses the Mainstream Media of blocking stories of “atrocities” comparable to the Nazi era. The most atrocious thing that goes on in a Planned Parenthood clinic, is abortion. Everything else, as Anthony Hopkins would no doubt tell you, is incidental.

First principles. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?

And what is the nature of abortion? Murder.

So don’t expect, as some commentators think they can, that even those who consider abortion a valid choice, would shudder at Planned Parenthood selling body parts. Don’t even expect them to shudder at vivisection. After all, someone has already condemned that baby to die. Does how it dies, really matter?

Update:

An earlier version of this article said Planned Parenthood, not Stem Express, had gone to court seeking to enjoin CMP from releasing more videos. In fact, Stem Express sought to enjoin CMP from embarrassing their own executives.