Essential Higher Learning PODCAST: 1/2017 - Post #1579

[DEAD7]

 

[88m3]

 

[DEAD7]

 

[Serious]

dead hoped offline real quick, he wasn't taking no chances....

 

[88m3]

 

[CHL]

The sexist, hateful troll digga said he has morals

 

[CHL]

Planned Parenthood is profiting off the illegal sale of “body parts.” It’s the lie that started it all and which conservative media hopes to make true by constant repetition. It’s also 100% false. The Center for Medical Progress has released four videos so far and not one contains a shred of evidence proving the sale of fetal tissue. Every video documents evidence that fetal tissue from abortions are being donated to medical research — which is perfectly legal. The money being discussed is reimbursement for the costs and transportation, and nothing more. The accusation that Planned Parenthood is profiting off abortion or contraception is silly. Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization.

Wing-nut conspiracy theorists have done it again: The truth about the Planned Parenthood hoax revealed

Probes into alleged for-profit organ harvesting have turned up exactly nothing. So why won't the right take a hint?

If you’ve been keeping score at home, you’ll have noticed that not one but two states, including a red state with a paleoconservative governor, have in the past several days exonerated Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing in the so-called secret-video sting that has conservatives calling on Congress to defund the non-profit organization. The appropriate response to this news is, “Of course! Because Planned Parenthood is absolutely not selling fetus parts via some sort of grisly underground marketplace.” For many, especially on the right, no amount of fact-checking will ever be enough. But for the sake of the public record, let’s review those exonerating reports again here.

Last week, Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey became the latest in what’s sure to be a long list of state attorneys general to conclude the same thing. Specifically, Healy concluded,

“Over the past week, my office has conducted a thorough review and found that Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts’ health care centers are fully compliant with state and federal laws regarding the disposition of fetal tissue. Although donation of fetal tissue is permissible under state and federal law, PPLM does not have a tissue donation program. There is no evidence that PPLM is involved in any way in the buying or selling of tissue. As such, our review is complete.”

Sure, Massachusetts is a leftward-leaning state, but Indiana is very much not. Back on July 16, Gov. Mike Pence, R-Ind., launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood following the release of what was obviously a doctored and misleading video. The probe focused on facilities in Indianapolis, Bloomington and Merrillville, and this past week the Indiana Department of Health reported it was “unable to find any non-compliance with state regulations. Therefore, no deficiencies were cited.”

Because of course.

But it’s good to know that small government conservatives — conservatives who routinely frown upon wasteful government spending — have successfully prompted frivolous investigations in 12 states, including deeply red ones, all based on obviously fraudulent videos. All in all, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Kansas, Missouri, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana are in the process of or have concluded completely unnecessary investigations. Meanwhile, at the federal level, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is conducting its own inquest.

Perhaps, if it were being ideologically consistent, Fox News Channel might conduct an investigation to determine the combined price tag for all of these baseless inquiries. Given how Planned Parenthood clearly isn’t doing what these videos claim, the GOP might as well launch investigations into Keyboard Cat to determine whether it’s really playing that annoying song. That’s exactly how farcical this has become.

Indeed, the rapid descent of modern conservatism into a netherworld of conspiracy theories and hocus-pocus gimmickry is nearly complete. This is a political demographic that includes people who think the California drought is God’s punishment for abortion and that same-sex marriage created Hurricane Sandy, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that too many conservatives completely accept the veracity of an explicitly falsified video. (Meanwhile, the 97 percent scientific consensus on the climate crisis is a hoax.) This willingness to believe in ridiculousness while rejecting objective reality is growing increasingly self-satirical.

Objective reality includes the following facts:

• Planned Parenthood is not selling fetus parts for profit or otherwise.

• Only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities involve abortions.

• Per the Hyde Amendment, no federal funds can be used for abortions. And there’s no evidence that Planned Parenthood has done so.

• Consequently, de-funding Planned Parenthood would put into jeopardy its ability to save lives and, germane to this issue, prevent abortions. The Washington Post editorial board concluded:

Wing-nut conspiracy theorists have done it again: The truth about the Planned Parenthood hoax revealed




@LeyeT these are the people you are siding with on this issue. I thought you were better than that?





Also, look at this. Despicable, right?

Fetal Tissue Gives Hope for One of the Worst Diseases

Planned Parenthood is right to supply it.

For five years, I watched my best friend die of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a terrible disease that causes one’s muscles to waste away. First he struggled to walk, then to speak, then to breathe. One tube pushed air into his lungs; another pushed nutrients into his stomach. Toward the end, he could only move his eyes. ALS does not affect the brain; through it all, he remained perfectly aware of his slow-motion torture. After years of suffering, he died of respiratory failure, his body skeletal and ravaged, his mind alert to his suffocation until the last moments of life.

There is currently no cure for ALS. There will be some day. And that cure may very well be derived from stem cells taken from aborted fetuses.

I can’t help but remember that fact when I watch the videos, taken by undercover anti-abortion activists, of Planned Parenthood technicians discussing how to preserve fetal tissue to be donated for research. The graphic images of aborted fetuses are meant to disgust me, to convince me that abortion is a barbaric act of killing. But I don’t see death in these videos. I see hope.

ALS kills people by causing their motor neurons to degenerate. These neurons go from the brain to the spinal cord, then travel from the spinal cord to muscles throughout the body. When they degenerate, you lose the ability to control voluntary muscle movement. Eating, talking, swallowing, breathing: All of these functions rely, to some extent, on healthy motor neurons. When you can no longer move a muscle, it atrophies. Eventually, your respiratory muscles can no longer contract, and you suffocate.

Stem cells hold terrific promise for the treatment—and, eventually, the defeat—of ALS. The most useful stem cells are found in fertilized embryos and fetuses, where they haven’t yet developed into specialized cells. (Scientists can also reprogram adult cells to act like embryonic stem cells, but these reprogrammed cells, while useful for research, have not been shown to be therapeutically safe.)

The first Food and Drug Administration–approved clinical trials to treat ALS with fetal stem cells are already underway. Any treatment derived from fetal tissue is many years away at best, but the early research has been a success. Stem cells injected into ALS patients’ spinal cords have survived for years and have caused few side effects. The cells seem to protect diseased motor neurons, stimulating their survival. With motor neurons restored to health, muscle atrophy slows or ceases. The experimental treatment slowed or reversed the progression of the disease in several patients in a small Phase I clinical trial.

One patient, whose muscles had degenerated to the point that he couldn’t walk without a cane, abandoned his cane months after the trial began. He later participated in a 2.5-mile walkathon. That was in 2011. He remains alive and well today. The treatment also effectively halted disease progression in the other five patients still in the early stages of ALS. It was a stunning leap forward in ALS treatment. A Phase 2 trial, with new patients, further demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of the therapy; symptoms improved in seven of 15 patients.

One of the many discoveries researchers made in preparing for the first trial was that fetal stem cells seemed to be the best stem cells for ALS treatment. After extensive animal testing, researchers found that embryonic stem cells sometimes turned into cancer cells. Fetal stem cells, on the other hand, are older—and thus on their way to an identity. For their trial, researchers used stem cells that were beginning to develop into nerve cells. They didn’t develop into cancer. Instead, they seemed to support dying neurons and restore motor function.

I know about this trial because my friend applied to participate in it. He was turned down: His was deemed too atrophied to be helped. He died shortly after the trial began.
This research might have been advanced enough to include him if Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush hadn’t banned federal funding for research on fetal tissue from abortions. (The research progressed once Bill Clinton reversed the ban.) More recently, fetal stem cell research has been less controversial than embryonic stem cell research. That may be because fetal stem cells are taken from fetuses that have no more potential for life. Embryonic stem cell research, which generally requires the destruction of the embryo that could theoretically be implanted and develop, has lately drawn much more debate and political attention. Now activists have shifted the attention back to fetal tissue donations, which allows them to show gruesome images of aborted fetuses—a time-worn and very effective anti-abortion strategy.

Although I have no patience for those who claim, incorrectly, that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue, I sympathize with those who feel distress or moral outrage at the sight of an aborted fetus. Still, to my mind, a woman’s decision to donate her aborted fetus to medical research—and Planned Parenthood’s willingness to transfer the fetal material—is deeply commendable. No woman is eager to have an unwanted pregnancy, but if she decides to terminate it, Planned Parenthood can help turn her misfortune into a mitzvah. That is not an act of killing. It is an act of altruism.

What the Planned Parenthood Videos Leave Out: Fetal Tissue Can Treat Terrible Diseases

 

[OsO]

Wing-nut conspiracy theorists have done it again: The truth about the Planned Parenthood hoax revealed




@LeyeT these are the people you are siding with on this issue. I thought you were better than that?





Also, look at this. Despicable, right?


What the Planned Parenthood Videos Leave Out: Fetal Tissue Can Treat Terrible Diseases

Breh your listening skills are as bad as 88s.

My entire point was to stay objective when weighing all the evidence. I wasn't "taking" either side. And your article from Salon.com () can certainly be a part of that conversation but I'm sorry it's not the definitive authority. So I will continue to remain neutral until I see more information from more sources.

I also said this could be a conflict of interest, depending on how much money is involved in the "reimbursement for the costs and transportation, and nothing more," which is still true.

In terms of the underlying issue, which is whether or not to cut funding for planned parenthood, I would need to look closer at their operations, their outcomes, and their history. Which I don't plan on doing anytime soon.

Now please do better than your predecessors and address what I'm actually saying instead of what you THINK i'm saying.

 

[CHL]

Just to reiterate again, 3% of what they do is abortions. Alot of the rest, as has been stated, helps provide healthcare, especially for low income women.

 

[OsO]

Just to reiterate again, 3% of what they do is abortions. Alot of the rest, as has been stated, helps provide healthcare, especially for low income women.

Who told you that? Planned Parenthood?

Lol I'm just joking breh... I honestly don't know enough about PP in 2015 to make a definitive judgment on their funding or their effectiveness. They are definitely a part of the beast though so I would have to look at them through a microscope from 12 different angles minimum.

 

[CHL]

Who told you that? Planned Parenthood?

Lol I'm just joking breh... I honestly don't know enough about PP in 2015 to make a definitive judgment on their funding or their effectiveness. They are definitely a part of the beast though so I would have to look at them through a microscope from 12 different angles minimum.

You're making all kinds of assumptions contrary to the evidence as you tell me not to trust them and not to assume they're correct

This isn't some nefarious conspiracy, nor is PP or their activites shrouded in secrecy.

I think this is really about your positon on abortion. You're against it, aren't you?

 

[OsO]

You're making all kinds of assumptions contrary to the evidence as you tell me not to trust them and not to assume they're correct

This isn't some nefarious conspiracy, nor is PP or their activites shrouded in secrecy.

I think this is really about your positon on abortion. You're against it, aren't you?

I'm not for or against abortion. I think it's a complicated issue and a case-by-case basis. But if I had to choose a side I would be pro-choice.

But please, enlighten me as to what assumptions I am making

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

I'm not for or against abortion. I think it's a complicated issue and a case-by-case basis. But if I had to choose a side I would be pro-choice.

But please, enlighten me as to what assumptions I am making

A case by case basis for who to decide? You?

 

[DEAD7]

Sounds like a certain aussie needs to make the podcast

 

[DEAD7]

• Planned Parenthood is not selling fetus parts for profit or otherwise.



The donations though