There is Nothing to See Here. Please Disperse.*

Planned Parenthood has just launched a targeted media campaign against four Republican Senators up for reelection in 2016 who voted to defunding the embattled organization. The ads, which cost six figures, leave those of us who keep hearing how Planned Parenthood is actually “pro-women” wondering how it could possibly have that kind of money for attack ads. In fact, it is acting much more like a political action committee—which it is, operating under the name Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Inc. PAC—than grassroots clinics simply helping women.

It is no secret that Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party are the double helix of political partisanship. The DNC makes sure that Planned Parenthood is flush with cash and then Planned Parenthood returns the favor by supporting Democratic candidates. (And the mainstream press certainly gives them a helping hand.)

Also last week, Hillary Clinton added her own jabs to the fight by comparing pro-lifers with terrorist groups:

Extreme views about women? We expect that from some of the terrorist groups. We expect that from people who don’t want to live in the modern world. But it’s a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States.

Clinton, who has conceded that the content of the Center for Medical Progress videos “is disturbing,” has since shored up her support for Planned Parenthood, trying to connect those who are pro-life to those who wantonly kill innocents through brutal beheadings. Somehow, she failed to connect the real and obvious dots, perhaps mixing them up with previous talking points?

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party came out in a blog post against crisis pregnancy centers, stating, “Crisis pregnancy centers aren’t exactly known as providers of trusted, quality healthcare.” Crisis pregnancy centers? Really? These are organizations that operate on heart and soul, often on a shoestring budget, manned by volunteers who do whatever it takes to help a pregnant woman and her child—be it shelter, employment, education, medical care, childcare, clothing, legal assistance. You name it. These clinics aren’t just about healthcare—they cover it all, particularly those things that motivate women to have abortions in the first place: lack of resources.

The blog continues:

Instead of providing compassionate care and accurate information about the right to choose, they’re known for trying to shame and blame women for their reproductive choices, all while making inaccurate assertions about abortion, even claiming it can lead to cancer, and infertility.

Several major studies have shown a link between abortion and breast cancer. For example, a 2013 study from China, a country that has decades of data because of its one child policy (without the acrimonious debate over abortion), has shown a significant link between abortion and breast cancer. These studies, though not new, are clearly not going to help the Planned Parenthood business model by deterring clients. And yet, we are supposed to believe that they care about women’s health. Crisis pregnancy centers, meanwhile, who are not receiving millions in federal money are free to follow the science wherever it leads because their business doesn’t depend on hiding it.

Finally, in a congressional report just issued, Planned Parenthood explained that the experts they hired “found that undercover videos of its officials were heavily altered by anti-abortion activists.” The alterations included things like missing bathroom breaks. Oh, phew, that settles it (at least according to the AP and others). But isn’t having Planned Parenthood issue a report, put together by their experts, a bit like having Iran report on its own nuclear program? (The Center for Medical Progress has responded to the report, saying it “is a pseudoscientific production by Fusion GPS, a political opposition-research company that has no forensic certifications.”)

The only defense anyone has come up with against the Center For Medical Progress videos has been to say that they are edited. But the extended versions, albeit without some bathroom breaks, contains huge swaths of conversations and aren’t spliced and diced to change the content of the dialogue. In no way does the “editing” change the fact that the videos are clearly revealing troubling behavior on the part of a supposedly pro-woman organization.

Experts say there are many telltale signs when someone is lying. One of the most clear is when the liar becomes defensive and angrily attacks others to deflect away from their own prevarication. Terrorists? Crisis Pregnancy Centers? Heavy editing? Hmmmm. Ladies, I think your slip is showing.

*With apologies to Leslie Nielsen: