It’s been over a week now since Ruth Padawer’s article on so-called “selective reduction” was posted on the New York Times website, and since then it’s elicited a lot of reactions online.
It’s surely one of the most discussed abortion-related stories to have appeared this summer, if not all of 2011.
And yet it’s notable that there is one organization that has yet to say one word — positive, negative, or otherwise — regarding the article:
Planned Parenthood.
What Does PP Say about “Selective Reduction”? Anyone? Anyone?
Planned Parenthood (which, let us remind ourselves, was responsible for 332,278 abortions in 2009 — more than a quarter of abortions nationwide); calls itself “America’s most trusted provider of reproductive health care.”
You would think that as such, Planned Parenthood would have an unspoken obligation to say something in response to such a high-profile 5,000 word article that appeared in, of all places, the New York Times.
And yet “America’s most trusted provider of reproductive health care” has exactly nothing to say in response to the article on either their Facebook or Twitter pages.
What’s more, PP’s main website has no mention of “selective reduction” at all.
Make no mistake: as Albert Mohler trenchantly noted yesterday: “Euphemisms are the refuge of moral cowardice, and no euphemism is so cowardly or so deadly as ‘reduction’ – a word that sounds like math, but really means murder.”
And yet this particular euphemism — which, ironically, is owned by the pro-choice movement — well, the nation’s largest abortion chain doesn’t want to talk about it.
Ignore the Issue and Hope No One Will Ask Questions about It
Does Planned Parenthood support the right of a woman to have a “selective reduction” abortion merely because she has a multiple pregnancy and only wants one baby to be born?
Absolutely, 100%, yes, of course they do. (Just as they 100% support the right of a woman to have an abortion because the baby is the “wrong” sex, or because she doesn’t want to be pregnant during bikini season, or because she doesn’t want stretch marks, or so she can buy a new iPhone, etc.)
But because it doesn’t take much grey matter to understand that The Average Person is galled by the idea of “selective reduction” abortions, Planned Parenthood isn’t going to go out and shout from the rooftops about how strongly they support it.
There is nothing they can say the NYT article or about “selective reduction” generally that could possibly win them points in the court of public opinion. And so that’s what they say: nothing.
Pro-Lifers Aren’t Afraid of the Hard Questions
Herein lies a great distinction between the pro-life and “pro-choice” movements, broadly speaking.
You’ll notice that on the FAQ section of our website we make no bones about tackling the “hard questions” we hear over and over. And so we don’t shy away from explaining why we believe, for instance, that abortion is wrong even in cases of rape or incest, or to protect the mother’s health; or why we believe contraception is a bad idea.
We’re not afraid of the tough questions, and other pro-life organizations aren’t, either.
On the other hand, “pro-choice” organizations tend to be deathly afraid of tackling hard questions, which is why they prefer to ignore them altogether. And in so doing, they deliberately reject the chance to be transparent, open, and honest about what they really believe.
