Have you ever wondered what it might be like if all of the internet’s clickbait articles magically became all that their often misleading headlines purported them to be? If “You’ll Never Believe What Happens Next…” was really as shocking, awe-inspiring, or revelatory as you momentarily imagine while mousing over to the link?
With each one of these Planned Parenthood videos, social conservatives (and informed Americans of any conscience) have to wonder no more. Perhaps it’s not as jolting to those who have long harbored suspicions about just what repugnant activities might go on behind the walls of abortion clinics. But the content of each video is garish, barbaric, and powerfully disturbing nonetheless.
Will the Abortion Videos Catalyze Change?
It’s not that we live in a world of naivety, where no one could conceive of these practices — even the dissection and parceling out of organs from “intact fetal cadavers,“ revealed in the most recent video. Rather, it’s just that whether it’s actually legal or they’re operating in gray areas, it’s unacceptable that these grotesque endeavors are even taking place. What’s worse is that Planned Parenthood and its apologists are relentlessly trying to hide behind the legal technicalities and the fact that the videos were edited (although, for the record, they have consistently been released in full).
Abortion has long been a concept with a currency that is carried in its ambiguity and obscurity. We say the word and we use phrases like “pro-choice” and “a woman’s right to choose,” but we largely avoid the actual consequences of the act itself. We dance around the idea that it’s a baby or a human life, preferring instead the semantics of labeling the extracted science experiment a “fetus.” And we tell ourselves that this is right and just, even intrinsic in the very concept of womanhood itself.
A common refrain I’ve heard from family and friends recently is how perceptions will change about abortion now that what really goes on is being brought to light. But the mainstream media’s bias and blackout of the coverage aside, I’d actually have to steadfastly disagree.
The Left’s Hypocritical Relativism
You see, what these videos (and what the barbs against them) reveal is one cornerstone of what it means to be a Leftist: constant moral and ethical contradiction. Have you ever been treated to some long lecture by one of your college-aged friends about the horrors of human trafficking and how “by doing nothing, you’re contributing to it?” They aren’t wrong, mind you, and that’s one place where we can all agree.
However, the contents of these videos amount to human trafficking. There are no convoluted defenses that would pass muster to argue that – this is so far removed from cells or DNA in a Petri dish. Yet the silence is palpable, defeaning even. It’s almost as though you’re watching a sort of Orwellian dystopia be brought to life, where only some deserve freedom, and the rest do not.
Look further to the transgender community, where figures like Caitlyn Jenner have come to the fore to proudly stand in a battle against basic science and biology. Feminists have spent decades, a century even, telling us that the definition of a woman is not fundamentally different from that of a man in any significant way. And if you suggest the opposite, you’ll get sanctimonious rants and hot takes like this one, wherein Ellen DeGeneres berates Bic for its line of pens marketed for women. (But only if you’re cis-gendered!)
In the wake of Jenner’s transition, feminist Elinor Burkett wrote a strong piece essentially calling out the naked sexism of Jenner and the transgender movement at-large. Take 30 seconds to listen to Caitlyn talk about herself and tell me it doesn’t sound just as superficial as any other description of women that a person who had lived 65-plus years identifying as a man would come up with.
Yet somehow, Burkett was the villain and Jenner was allowed to parade around in dresses and makeup while conforming to age-old, narrow definitions of how a woman should look and act. You’re encouraged not to “assign a gender“ to your young, impressionable children, but when they assign themselves one, the deluge of stereotypes is something to be celebrated. Actually, it’s “courageous!”
Lastly, consider how we view the Muslim world. It’s a place that brutally oppresses women day in and day out, and hands out the death sentence to any and all open homosexuals. Indeed, anyone other than a straight Islamic male is a second-class citizen at best, and a government-sponsored murder victim at worst.
Yet when Ayaan Hirsi Ali – a victim of this culture — has speaking engagements, she’s protested, sometimes so effectively that her speeches are canceled. And when Charlie Hebdo’s staff is murdered for it’s raunchy Mohammed cartoons, we have to make mention of their “inflammatory“ nature, implying that their blasphemous behavior made them responsible for their own deaths.
It’s Time to Take a Side in the Fight for Truth
What these all have in common is the presence of objective truth and contradiction: The Left opposes human trafficking, except when it’s Planned Parenthood’s. They condemn sexism, except when it’s fomented by a transgendered person. They decry homophobia and suppression of free speech, except when the bigotry and oppression are being propagated by the Arab World.
We stand in bewilderment at the idea that they could see these things for themselves and fight for their continuation, but it’s we who are mistaken if we believe the ignorance wasn’t willful up until this point. The Left is built on a pillar of mendacity—perpetually fighting a war against the objective and empirical nature of the truth—because when everything is a relative, there’s no harm in going against your own precedents.
It’s lauded hypocrisy gussied up as nuance, nonsense substituted for reason, and a mess of lies meant to distract you from an unending struggle against the truth.
