For many people in the United States, legal abortion will never be palatable. But the callous disregard of aborted babies and the sales of their body parts by employees of federal government-supported Planned Parenthood, as revealed in a recent series of hidden-camera videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, is a step beyond for most people.
Americans, according to surveys, are almost evenly divided on the issue of abortion, even while abortions in the United States have been falling since 1990.
But the release of the five videos - and the promise of more - has put the spotlight on the practice - unknown to most people - of the donation or legal selling of tissue or body parts of aborted fetuses to tissue procurement companies by Planned Parenthood, which receives more than $548 million in federal funding and is the nation's largest abortion provider (357,653 procedures in 2013 alone).
By now, most people who have any interest in the issue, for or against, are aware of some of what has been discussed in the videos: the use of partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts, the negotiable prices for various body parts, the financial motive for the organization, the payment per distracted organ and the sale of intact fetuses.
Indeed, the use of words like "crunchy" and "crush" in discussing abortions over lunch in one of the videos makes us feel like losing our own.
While Planned Parenthood's practices to date may be legal, the videos portray clinical officials who seem willing to bend the rules, look away and give little thought to a formerly beating heart as anything more than merchandise.
While the sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000, the law is shot through with loopholes to allow such sales.
What has been most reprehensible since the first video was released last month is the defense Planned Parenthood and supportive politicians have made.
The initial, though ridiculous, claim by the family planning organization was that the video was edited. Of course it was edited. Media outlets routinely edit video and audio footage for time constraints and to offer the public the relevant material that has been recorded. Unlike most video published by media outlets, however, the unedited videos are available on the Center for Medical Progress website.
Since then, Planned Parenthood has said it makes no money off the tissue/parts and charges only for the extraction of what is desired and its shipping costs, that it extracts tissue only from patients who give their permission and that abortions are only a small part (12 percent of patients) of what the organization does.
Planned Parenthood executives should reveal more. What's stopping them from explaining in detail all of their practices, how many body parts and which parts are sold, and precisely how much money exchanges hands? Exactly who are the buyers?
Planned Parenthood won't do that, of course, because the whole subject is an affront to our sensibilities. There is no sugarcoating the slicing up of aborted fetal tissue, even if it goes to research.
The outrage over the videos spurred Congress, which had tried and failed before to cut off funding for the organization, to try again. But despite an IBD/TIPP poll that showed 58 percent of adults favored cutting off federal funds (with 38 percent opposed), the United States Senate could not muster enough votes to do so.
President Obama, who supported partial-birth abortion in the Illinois Senate, has had little to say on the Planned Parenthood controversy, though the White House promised a veto if Congress had passed a bill cutting off Planned Parenthood funds. That wasn't much of a surprise, though, since Planned Parenthood leaders have made 39 visits to the White House since 2009, according to a CNS news report.
However, press secretary Josh Earnest fell back on the initial defense in defending the indefensible in a news briefing, terming the videos "fraudulent" and "heavily edited." He made things worse by saying he was making his claims "based on the public comments" by the organization, which he said had a "high ethical standard."
Meanwhile, 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton called the videos "disturbing," then reversed her course to support Planned Parenthood.
As mentioned earlier, the number of abortions in the U.S. has been dropping for two and a half decades. One reason for that, though not the only one, is the changed hearts of women, who no longer feel they can destroy a life they are carrying. Perhaps the release of the videos can have the same effect, both on abortion and on permission that was ostensibly given for the sale of fetal tissue or tiny body parts for research, profit or both.
The videos already have - and will probably continue to - prompt investigations into Planned Parenthood agencies across the country. The agency's edited and unedited video content warrants a serious look into the organization's practices and procedures regarding this horrific practice.
Human decency deserves no less.