Rachel Ford is a programmer, and since 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't provide enough opportunity to bask in screen glare, she writes in her spare time. She was raised a very fundamentalist Christian, but eventually "saw the light." Rachel's personal blog is Rachel's Hobbit Hole, where she discusses everything from Tolkien to state politics.
By now, it’s pretty clear that the debunked Planned Parenthood “baby parts” sting videos were not part of an honest exposé, but rather heavily manipulated propaganda designed to evoke the desired reaction against Planned Parenthood. The edited and misleading parts have already been established. In a sermon from September, Troy Newman described his and other activists’ goals for the videos. Newman is a long time abortion foe (“pro-life” seems too bizarre a term for someone who wants abortion doctors executed). He’s both president of anti-abortion group “Operation Rescue” and a board member for the “Center for Medical Progress” group that released the videos. (He’s also a Ted Cruz supporter; I still haven’t figured out who gets the worse end of that deal.) The goal of those videos, in Newman’s own words, was simple: to destroy Planned Parenthood. Read more
With questionable claims, ranging from the invented (Muslims celebrated 9/11 in New Jersey) to the downright bizarre (pyramid grain storage, anyone?) seeming to hint at an end to the extended fifteen minutes of fame of GOP luminaries Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson, conservatives seem to be eying Ted Cruz for his turn. Read more
Following last Friday’s deadly shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood by a pro-life Christian worried about “baby parts,” conservatives have been desperate to shift focus away from their dangerous anti-abortion rhetoric, and how it might help create these terrorists. Desperate enough to suggest the shooting was the work of a transgender liberal killer. Desperate enough to suggest that being called on lying about organ harvesting from live babies is just “demonizing the messenger”. One of the more grotesque efforts, however, comes compliments of Colorado State Representative JoAnn Windholz, who took to Facebook to explain how such violence really is, ultimately, Planned Parenthood’s fault. Read more
It’s time we acknowledge — and time for conservatives to acknowledge — that the radical rhetoric of the pro-life movement isn’t just hyperbolic; it isn’t just dishonest; it isn’t just fanatical; it’s dangerous. When presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina misleadingly says she “watch[ed] a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain’,” that’s dangerous. When politicians like Mike Huckabee suggest that abortion is worse than the Holocaust, that’s dangerous. When people like Ben Carson equate abortion to slavery, that’s dangerous. Why? Because some people take those lies, those exaggerations, that extraordinary rhetoric seriously. Read more
