On Friday's The View, as CNS News's Mark Judge reported, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar went ballistic when GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina stated that Planned Parenthood is "harvesting baby parts through late term abortion." Part of Goldberg's response as she serially talked over Fiorina: "You know that’s not true. Carly, you know no one’s harvesting baby parts." Behar chimed in: "That offends my sensibility to hear you say something like that when you know it’s not true.”
Fiorina was and remains indisputably correct, while Goldberg and Behar are both embarrassingly wrong. Yet an ABC report filed at its web site Friday afternoon by Jordyn Phelps would only characterize Fiorina's assertion of an obvious, widely-known fact as a "claim." Beyond that, Phelps characterized the candidate's citation of Planned Parenthood's announced decision to cease taking compensation for harvested body as merely being (in Fiorina's view) "proof of her point."
Here is how Phelps wrote it up:
Here is the related CNS video (the response which set The View hosts off begins at 0:59):
The fact that Planned Parenthood has harvested fetal body parts was established beyond doubt in videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress released during the past several months.
After the videos' release and until several weeks ago, PP officials acknowledged that it engaged in the practice for compensation, but that it (somehow) did not "profit" from it. On October 13, as seen in an Associated Press report headlined "Planned Parenthood changes fetal-tissue reimbursement policy," the organization announced that, in AP's words, it "will no longer accept any reimbursement to cover the costs of those programs." To reinforce the point to the breathtakingly ignorant Goldberg and Behar, the AP dispatch also reported that "Planned Parenthood says its fetal tissue programs currently take place in only two states" — that is, organ harvesting continues.
Phelps' reference to Fiorina's "claim ... made in the first CNN debate" is to her specific description of the contents of one of CMP's videos. The facts are on Fiorina's side in that dispute, but her debate claim has nothing to do with the fundamental existence or absence of fetal parts harvesting at Planned Parenthood. It's been taking place for years, and continues, though (according to Planned Parenthood) without any form of reimbursement going forward.
Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar should be apologize to Carly Fiorina for accusing her of making false statements when she wasn't, and should lose their jobs if they refuse. Jordyn Phelps's ABC writeup should be revised to reflect the fact that Fiorina's assertion about fetal organ harvesting is a widely-known, drop-dead obvious fact, not a mere "claim" by the candidate.
The chances of either thing happening are somewhere between very slim and absolutely none.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
