Is Planned Parenthood a Terrorist Organization?

[johnny karate]

They had $30 of private discretionary funds that they used for abortion. What's the irregularity?

You tell me. If the money wasn't specifically earmarked for non-abortion services, why is it a problem if they use it for abortion services?

 

[RandFan]

They had $30 of private discretionary funds that they used for abortion. What's the irregularity?

More of a percentage of total revenue was used for abortion than would be allowed.

Let's look at your example.

Before public funding:
$10 = 33.5%
$20 = 66.5%

After public funding.
$30 = 60%
$20 = 40%

 

[JamesDillon]

1. Irrelevant. PP could have an excess of abortion funds to offset any shortfall.
2. Money need not be earmarked for abortions to be used for abortions (an important point you are not acknowledging).
3. It is possible that PP receives far more than 3% of money earmarked for abortion. Thus money earmarked for abortion could be said to be used to fund non-abortion services.
4. Money need not be earmarked for abortions to be used for abortions (it is their money for crying in the dark).
5. I concede the potential, however, "could be" is not "is". It could be that they perform less abortions due to public funding.

So long as you cannot declare impossible that PP uses less earmarked funds for abortion, for abortion then you simply do not know. It is a theoretical possibility that if PP stopped accepting public funds they could do more abortions. So long as that is true, and it is, then all you have are aspersions.

Have I not been clear all along that I'm talking about PP's potential for funding more abortions, not making an empirical claim that it would in fact do so? We got to this point last night and I think this is where the interesting disagreement really lies. I don't think we actually disagree about the math or the implications. In my view, an opponent of abortion is perfectly justified in opposing anything that increases the resources with which PP potentially could fund more abortions if it chose to do so. You disagree about that, but I don't see why.

I think the terrorist charity analogy works perfectly here, as I said in my post about vaccines vs. bombs last night. If you think bombs are bad, it isn't unreasonable to oppose taking an action that increases the pool of resources that an organization could choose to spend on either vaccines or bombs (or some combination). If you think abortion is bad, you could equally reasonably oppose actions that increase PP's pool of discretionary resources. The same logic applies to any organization that performs both "good" and "bad" activities.

ETA: It's also really important to underscore the point that no "aspersions" are being cast here at all. No judge is going to read a citation to Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project and think, "Aha! Planned Parenthood is a terrorist organization!" They're going to read it and think, "Oh, I see how the Supreme Court's point about the fungibility of money applies by analogy to this case." That's precisely what legal reasoning consists of; no judge or lawyer ever would assume that a citation to a case in in a legal brief (which are full of citations to cases) is intended to equate the moral status of a party in the instant case to the moral status of a party in the cited case, at least where that equation is not made explicit.

(PS How am I "not acknowledging" that money need not be earmarked for abortions to be used for abortions? That's exactly the point I've been making all along about the general fund!)

You tell me. If the money wasn't specifically earmarked for non-abortion services, why is it a problem if they use it for abortion services?

Because Texas doesn't want more money to be available for abortions, whether that money comes from public coffers or otherwise. That isn't a position that I or a lot of us necessarily agree with, but if you take it as given, the AG's logic follows.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

You tell me. If the money wasn't specifically earmarked for non-abortion services, why is it a problem if they use it for abortion services?

This, a thousand times this. Is it icky or something, thinking that someone isn't dying due to a pregnancy gone wrong?

 

[godless dave]

Then the article is intellectually dishonest a second time, when they say that the eight Planned Parenthoods taking part in the women's health initiative don't perform abortion procedures. This is technically true, as the abortions are a separate company. Two seconds of cruising their web site, however, shows that they do provide information on abortions and refer you to the other branch of PP should you want one.

How is that dishonest? Refering someone to a clinic that performs abortions is not the same thing as performing abortion procedures. My doctor doesn't perform rhinoplasties, but she will refer patients to doctors who do.

 

[RandFan]

Have I not been clear all along that I'm talking about PP's potential for funding more abortions, not making an empirical claim that it would in fact do so?

Have I not said countless times that "could" != "does"?

We got to this point last night and I think this is where the interesting disagreement really lies. I don't think we actually disagree about the math or the implications. In my view, an opponent of abortion is perfectly justified in opposing anything that increases the resources with which PP potentially could fund more abortions if it chose to do so. You disagree about that, but I don't see why.

My criticism is aimed directly at the AG. Planned Parenthood provides health services to many poor women (see the Komen fiasco). Using inflammatory rhetoric has great potential to harm people for no good reason.

I think the terrorist charity analogy works perfectly here, as I said in my post about vaccines vs. bombs last night. If you think bombs are bad, it isn't unreasonable to oppose taking an action that increases the pool of resources that an organization could choose to spend on either vaccines or bombs (or some combination). If you think abortion is bad, you could equally reasonably oppose actions that increase PP's pool of discretionary resources. The same logic applies to any organization that performs both "good" and "bad" activities.

Funding roads and other public resources increase bad activities. Welcome to the real world.

• There are strict guidelines for public funding.
• PP must keep detailed records for their operations.
• So long as PP is following the law then the AG ought not make inflamatory statements that could harm people.

ETA: It's also really important to underscore the point that no "aspersions" are being cast here at all. No judge is going to read a citation to Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project and think, "Aha! Planned Parenthood is a terrorist organization!" They're going to read it and think, "Oh, I see how the Supreme Court's point about the fungibility of money applies by analogy to this case." That's precisely what legal reasoning consists of; no judge or lawyer ever would assume that a citation to a case in in a legal brief (which are full of citations to cases) is intended to equate the moral status of a party in the instant case to the moral status of a party in the cited case, at least where that equation is not made explicit.

Public sentiment is important to Planned Parenthood. They simply want to help people. Public figures and others who accuse them of doing "bad" with public funds without evidence of "bad" are acting unethically. The GOP wants to defend Planned Parenthood. That would harm people for no good reason. It is within the rights of the GOP to do so. It's unethical for the AG to cast aspersions without evidence of wrong doing.

Because Texas doesn't want more money to be available for abortions...

• It is against the law to use public funds for abortions.
• Planned Parenthood keeps detailed records of the money they spend.
• Planned Parenthood provides health services to many poor people.
• If the AG wants to audit PP then fine. But If he doesn't have evidence that Planned Parenthood is doing something wrong then it is unethical for him to cast aspersions on PP by using inflammatory rhetoric.

 

[JamesDillon]

Have I not said countless times that "could" != "does"?

My criticism is aimed directly at the AG. Planned Parenthood provides health services to many poor women (see the Komen fiasco). Using inflammatory rhetoric has great potential to harm people for no good reason.

Funding roads and other public resources increase bad activities. Welcome to the real world.

• There are strict guidelines for public funding.
• PP must keep detailed records for their operations.
• So long as PP is following the law then the AG ought not make inflamatory statements that could harm people.

I've just got nothing else to say on this. You're making the same points over and over to which I've already replied. It seems to me you've already conceded that state donations increase the potential for abortion funding by freeing up general-use funds that would otherwise have to be committed to non-abortion services, so I don't understand what that list is supposed to show. I suppose we're just not understanding each other here.

Public sentiment is important to Planned Parenthood. They simply want to help people. Public figures and others who accuse them of doing "bad" with public funds without evidence of "bad" are acting unethically. The GOP wants to defend Planned Parenthood. That would harm people for no good reason. It is within the rights of the GOP to do so. It's unethical for the AG to cast aspersions without evidence of wrong doing.

So your position is that moral opposition to abortion is itself unethical? Nonsense. I personally lack any such moral opposition but you're implying here that anyone who disagrees with your position is not just wrong, but evil. And you're not really responding to my point that no such aspersions were cast in the AG's brief.

• It is against the law to use public funds for abortions.
• Planned Parenthood keeps detailed records of the money they spend.
• Planned Parenthood provides health services to many poor people.
• If the AG wants to audit PP then fine. But If he doesn't have evidence that Planned Parenthood is doing something wrong then it is unethical cast aspersions on the with inflammatory rhetoric.

None of which is relevant to the points I've been making, which you seemed to acknowledge in your prior post, and now you're just falling back on all this ground we've covered over and over.

PS-- Clever selective quotation there re: your first bullet point. The part of my sentence that you omitted reads "whether that money comes from public coffers or otherwise."

 

[RandFan]

I've just got nothing else to say on this. You're making the same points over and over to which I've already replied. It seems to me you've already conceded that state donations increase the potential for abortion funding by freeing up general-use funds that would otherwise have to be committed to non-abortion services, so I don't understand what that list is supposed to show. I suppose we're just not understanding each other here.

Have you conceded that funds earmarked for abortion could be greater than monies spent for abortion?

So your position is that moral opposition to abortion is itself unethical?

Straw man. I have no such position My position is that absent probable cause of wrong doing it is unethical of the AG to cast aspersions.

...you're implying here that anyone who disagrees with your position is not just wrong, but evil.

Straw man. I'm stating plainly that the AG is acting in an unethical manner given that he has no evidence of wrong doing.

And you're not really responding to my point that no such aspersions were cast in the AG's brief.

• PP broke no laws.
• There is no evidence that they use public funds for abortions.
• To raise the specter that public money is being used for abortions without evidence is unethical.

None of which is relevant to the points I've been making, which you seemed to acknowledge in your prior post, and now you're just falling back on all this ground we've covered over and over.

It takes two to tango James. Have the cajones to admit that you are making the same points over and over and you are failing to address my main point (see below).

It is a theoretical possibility that if PP stopped accepting public funds they could do more abortions.

Now, that is either a true premise or it is not. Will you address it?

 

[mumblethrax]

What is it that people think an audit would reveal? What's being described here is earmarked funding liberating discretionary funding, which is then used as discretionary funding. There's no wrongdoing in that.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Once again - nothing that has been quoted qualifies as "inflammatory rhetoric".

I'd love to read the brief, but from the snippets the article quoted it's pretty clear that the brief was citing relevant Supreme Court precedent to make an analagous argument. Which is exactly what the government claims it did.

It's a great example of quote mining and sensationalist journalism to make something out of nothing.

 

[RandFan]

Once again - nothing that has been quoted qualifies as "inflammatory rhetoric".

Once again, comparing Planned Parenthood to terrorism is inflammatory and unnecessary. It doesn't matter what the stated purpose of the comparison is.

 

[JamesDillon]

Have you conceded that funds earmarked for abortion could be greater than monies spent for abortion?

I don't know if that's true or not, actually. Like I said before, using funds earmarked for abortion for non-abortion purposes would seem an illegal misappropriation to the same extent that using non-abortion funds for abortion would. But why is this important?

ETA: Is this just a point about budget surplus-- i.e., that an earmarked donation might not translate 1-to-1 into greater expenditure of discretionary funds because it may be the case that PP has more money in its accounts than its required to meet its current budget? Sure, that's true, but seems a bit trivial. My example earlier was a bit simplified in assuming an exact correspondence between assets and budget commitments, but I think the general point holds even if that assumption is relaxed: earmarked donations for non-abortion services give PP greater leeway to apply its general fund to whatever it wants to do. Maybe not every penny of that additional discretionary funding gets spent, but so what?

Straw man. I have no such position My position is that absent probable cause of wrong doing it is unethical of the AG to cast aspersions.

Straw man. I'm stating plainly the AG is acting in an unethical manner given that he has no evidence of wrong doing.

• PP broke no laws.
• There is no evidence that they use public funds for abortions.
• To raise the specter that public money is being used for abortions without evidence is unethical.

It takes two to tango James. Have the cajones to admit that you are making the same points which fail to establish that PP has done anything wrong. You have failed to acknowledge a number of my arguments while demanding I respond to you.

I'm going to address these two together because I think they both get at an ambiguity that maybe we haven't covered yet. If by "wrong doing" you mean "breaking the law by misappropriating public funds to cover abortion services," of course that isn't established. It isn't even claimed. But it's absolutely the case that Planned Parenthood does perform some abortions with its general funds, and that in itself is a bad thing from the perspective of the state of Texas. I don't understand how this isn't clear: Texas doesn't like abortion. Texas doesn't want to contribute public funds in a way that increases the pool of resources that could be used to pay for abortions. Texas is not claiming that its donation would be illegally misappropriated, but it is claiming that its donation would free up other funds that are not subject to earmark restrictions, thereby increasing PP's potential to fund more abortions. So what's unethical about any of that?

Let's remember where we started: Whether the analogy in the AG's brief to Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project was or was not a fair analogy. I say it was perfectly fair. The Court's reasoning in that case had little to do with the fact that terrorism is illegal per se, but rather with the fact that terrorism is bad and we don't want to facilitate it. From the perspective of the state of Texas, abortion is bad, and Texas doesn't want to facilitate it. The analogy to HLP in the AG's brief is therefore a perfectly reasonable one. And, again, no court is going to read a citation to HLP as an implication that PP is a terrorist organization. That's just not how legal reasoning works.

Now, that is either a true premise or it is not. Will you address it?

I don't know, maybe. What's the point you're trying to make here?

Once again, comparing Planned Parenthood to terrorism is inflammatory and unnecessary. It doesn't matter what the stated purpose of the comparison is.

Once again, citing a case that happens to be about terrorism in a legal brief is not a "comparison" at all. It is simply an analogy of a discrete legal issue that's present in the instant case to a decision on an analogous point in a prior case, which is the core of how the common law system works.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Once again, comparing Planned Parenthood to terrorism is inflammatory and unnecessary.

Once again, nobody did that.

With this level of quote mining and sensationalism, one of these days somebody is going to cite Korematsu for precedent and then get accused of wanting to intern Japanese Americans.

 

[johnny karate]

Because Texas doesn't want more money to be available for abortions, whether that money comes from public coffers or otherwise. That isn't a position that I or a lot of us necessarily agree with, but if you take it as given, the AG's logic follows.

No, it doesn't. At all. That "logic" was regarding public funding for abortion services, and how Planned Parenthood apparently operates from some big slush fund that makes it impossible to know what money is being spent where.

That Texas doesn't want more money to be used towards abortions is probably true - and most likely the underpinning of their fallacious argument - but completely irrelevant to what they actually did argue.

 

[RandFan]

Once again, nobody did that.

The fiscal activities of PP were likened to the fiscal activities of terrorist organizations. It was an unnecessary and gratuitous comparison. Even if it was innocent, it was monumentally idiotic and could serve no good purpose but to draw parallels between the two. It would be like comparing Bush's administrative activities to those of fascists (which many did BTW). That there are similarities doesn't justify the use of the example. It is far more likely to inflame people's passions than it is to inform.

More importantly, it doesn't provide any useful information at all. Abortion is legal. There are strict guidelines for using public funds. PP keeps detailed records. If the AG thinks he has probable cause then order an audit.

 

[AvalonXQ]

The fiscal activities of PP were likened to the fiscal activities of terrorist organizations.

No, they weren't.

 

[RandFan]

No, they weren't.

Yes, they were. Both have cross purposes and fungible monies. That's a comparison about finances.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Yes, they were.

No, they weren't. Cite the comparison, directly.

Without quote-mining, if you please.

 

[RandFan]

No, they weren't. Cite the comparison, directly.

Without quote-mining, if you please.

The AG cited a brief that dealt with terrorists. The point being that humanitarian organizations can have cross purposes and the fungibility of money makes it possible for people who provide funds for humanitarian purposes to actually fund terrorism. Did the AG truly think that the facts of the brief were a secret?

At the end of the day the AG has no evidence of wrong doing. Abortion is legal and PP must abide by laws governing public funds. The brief is not applicable and therefore unnecessarily inflammatory (even if it was innocent which I seriously doubt).

 

[JamesDillon]

Other Cases "Comparing" Things to Terrorism, by RandFan's/HuffPo's Logic

• New Jersey Physicians, Inc. v. Obama, 757 F.Supp.2d 502 (D.N.J. 2010)

Also, in Pierce, failure to comply with the statute resulted in a misdemeanor, giving the plaintiff's claim for standing more credence because the threat of criminal penalties is sufficient for standing in a pre-enforcement challenge to the statute. Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, ––– U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 2705, 2717, 177 L.Ed.2d 355 (2010) (holding that “[p]laintiffs face a ‘credible threat of prosecution’ and ‘should not be required to await and undergo a criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking relief.’ ”)

OMG, the court compared the New Jersey Physicians association to a terrorist organization!

• American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois v. Alvarez, 2010 WL 4386868 (N.D. Ill. 2010)

Unlike Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, ---U.S. ----, 130 S.Ct. 2705, 2717, 177 L.Ed.2d 355 (2010), litigation that was pending for 12 years at the time of the decision on standing, the State's Attorney has neither prosecuted numerous individuals under the Act, nor suggested that it would (or would not) prosecute the ACLU.

OMG, the court compared the ACLU to a terrorist organization!

• National Organization for Marriage v. McKee, 723 F.Supp.2d 245 (D.Me. 2010)

"Moreover, in some cases a person who faces cognizable injury can also raise a First Amendment challenge to a law that would restrict the speech of others. [FN citation:] See Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, --- U.S. ----, 130 S.Ct. 2705, 2719, 177 L.Ed.2d 355 (2010)."

OMG, the court compared the National Organization for Marriage to a terrorist organization!

• Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'n, 131 S.Ct. 2729 (2011) (Breyer, J., dissenting)

The majority's claim that the California statute, if upheld, would create a “new categor[y] of unprotected speech,” ante, at 2734, 2735, is overstated. No one here argues that depictions of violence, even extreme violence, automatically fall outside the First Amendment's protective scope as, for example, do obscenity and *2763 depictions of child pornography. We properly speak of categories of expression that lack protection when, like “child pornography,” the category is broad, when it applies automatically, and when the State can prohibit everyone, including adults, from obtaining access to the material within it. But where, as here, careful analysis must precede a narrower judicial conclusion (say, denying protection to a shout of “fire” in a crowded theater, or to an effort to teach a terrorist group how to peacefully petition the United Nations), we do not normally describe the result as creating a “new category of unprotected speech.” See Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed. 470 (1919); Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 2705, 177 L.Ed.2d 355 (2010).

OMG, the Court compared the Entertainment Merchants Association to a terrorist organization!

I could go on, but I hope the point is clear. Lawyers and courts cite cases for legal propositions. In doing so, they make no claim, implicit or otherwise, that a party in one case is morally equivalent to a party in a previous decision. It just isn't relevant, and it's a naive, at best, misreading of a legal document to take the Texas AG to be making that claim here.