The undercover video, organized by the group Live Action, of which Lila Rose is president, and posted on Michelle Malkin's blog, purports to catch Planned Parenthood employees in a variety of lies. Below, we break down some of Live Action's claims.

Claim 1: Planned Parenthood lied about the distinction between a fetus and a baby.

Abby Johnson, the Planned Parenthood director-turned-anti-abortion activist, says, "Planned Parenthood really tries to instill in their employees and the women that are coming in for abortions that this is not a baby." Obviously, the fetus/baby distinction is a key part of the abortion debate. A Planned Parenthood doctor does appear to muddy the waters a bit when he says on camera that a fetus becomes a baby "when you're like seven months pregnant or so. Six, seven months pregnant." This does indeed sound arbitrary and confusing. Another Planned Parenthood employee gives a better response:

A fetus is what's in the uterus right now. That's not a baby. A baby is what's born at forty weeks.

No matter what you believe about abortion, "fetus" is the correct medical term for the developmental stage between embryo and birth. If anti-abortion activists don't want to use it, that's up to them — but it's not a lie.

Claim 2: Planned Parenthood misled women about the risks of abortion.

The video shows the Planned Parenthood doctor telling his patient that an abortion at around ten weeks is "very, very safe. Safer than having a baby, actually." Michelle Malkin calls this "abortion-first 'counseling' by a "ghoulish abortionist." Here's the most recent data: in 2002, the CDC recorded 9 deaths out of 845,573 abortions. That's a little over 1 in 100,000. Also in 2002, the CDC recorded 8.9 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births. So, at least in 2002, carrying a child to term was about 9 times more dangerous than having an abortion. Of course, we might be able to reduce maternal mortality if we implemented the "Demcare" Michelle Malkin hates so much. But for now, the idea that abortion is safer than having a baby isn't "abortion-first" rhetoric — it's the truth.

Claim 3: Abortion is an industry designed to help organizations like Planned Parenthood make money.

In the video, Abby Johnson says Planned Parenthood is "really trying to increase their abortion numbers because that is the most lucrative part of their business." This claim is common — back in 2008, an ad for Republican Senate contender Steve Pearce called Planned Parenthood "a billion-dollar abortion business." Here's what FactCheck.org has to say about that:

That's misleading. Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit organization with gross revenues of nearly a billion dollars, but abortions account for a small fraction of the services it provides – 3 percent in 2006, according to the group's annual report.

It's important to reiterate that Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit, so nobody's getting rich off the abortions it provides. And especially in the wake of Dr. Tiller's murder, you'd have to be crazy to become an abortion provider for the money. The occupation isn't particularly lucrative, especially given the constant risk of social stigma, property damage, psychological trauma from dealing with protesters, and even death. But of course, Lila Rose and Michelle Malkin aren't interested in portraying the difficulties faced by those who continue to offer women reproductive choices despite mounting obstacles. They're interested in demonizing those people — even if they have to stretch the truth to do it.

Predators Of Planned Parenthood, Pt. 99,997 [Michelle Malkin]

Kelly writes,

[N]ow there's this new spate of advice talking about how lying is bad for a relationship. That is my line in the sand. Marriages cannot exist without dishonesty. [...] I am not suggesting that all lying is good. Adultery, "sexting" with your college boyfriend, saying you're in a meeting when you're at the racetrack, or telling your spouse that your parents are dead when they live in Boca are not acceptable lies. I'm talking about fibs. Things like "You look like you lost more weight" or "You're right-that person from work is a dummy" or "I love spending time with your friends."

I'm not sure there's really a crusade afoot to end white lies in marriage, but Kelly's piece is kind of apt even if not strictly necessary. She writes, "spouses are always trying to trick you into admitting something they think you secretly believe." I've never been married, but I have forced boyfriends into some pretty stereotypical "you hate this skirt, don't you?" discussions — some of which might have gone better if the guy in question had just lied. And I've told lies less white than, "I love spending time with your friends." Below are a sampling of some things I and the rest of the Jezebel staff have lied to a significant other about (anonymous of course):

— having feelings for an ex
— being mad
— being jealous
— liking jazz
— disliking his friends
— "when i'm out, what time i will be home"
— "how few guys I've been with"
— whether "this guy i met at a party" is actually "this guy i slept with a couple of times"
— replacing "my ex boyfriend" with "this kid I knew at school" or "I knew someone once who..."
— "how old I was when I lost my virginity"
— smoking pot
— past abortions
— cheating
— liking cheap beer, especially Pabst Blue Ribbon
— spending money on clothes
— picking at zits
— picking at his zits
— liking South Park
— having an orgasm

Kelly closes her piece with the claim that "you do need lies to take the place of the hormonal rush you got when you first met. That hormonal rush may get you into a relationship, but it's the little lies that keep you there." Lying to keep things exciting sounds a little sad, but it's probably not so bad to tell small lies to keep the peace when you're no longer so gooey that you forgive each other for everything. Some of my lies, though, have been meant to camouflage emotions I wasn't "supposed" to have (mostly anger), and those emotions have usually ended up coming out in other ways. I'm still not sure when, if ever, it's healthy for me to lie and say "I'm fine." But I'll probably always tell a few white lies in relationships, and I expect anyone I'm with will too. Maybe I even hope so — innocent skirts have gone to Goodwill because certain people just had to tell the truth.

Married, With Lies [Newsweek]

Kelly argues that men should always tell these three lies to women, as a means to make them feel comfortable during early flirting sessions. In coming across a "new friend," Kelly insists that the relationship begin with a bucketful of lies; namely, that the man tell her she's super thin, super young looking, and worth sleeping with. Charming! Let's break it down, shall we?

1. I always want a guy to tell me I look skinny.
Now, yes, I know I sound like a real anti-feminist, saying this. But it pleases me to no end when people - male and female - say things like, "My god, you're tiny!" Or, "Wow, what are you these days, a size two?" I know societal pressures have done some bad things to my body image (and to our collective body image); I won't deny that. But I do love to feel petite.

Kelly lays this rule down after being completely horrified that a "new friend" described her body as "athletic." "Athletic!?!? He consciously chose NOT to say thin," she writes, "Instead, he said athletic. Which means muscular. Which means thick. Which is as good as saying fat!" Uh, no. That's not what it means. That's what you're perceiving it to mean, and pushing a rule like, "tell me I'm skinny" only serves to push the notion that women should be skinny, as opposed to say, athletic (and shock! You can be both!), and that there's something inherently bad about having a body type that doesn't rival Kate Moss'. Also, if you need some dude to validate your existence by telling you he thinks you're skinny, there's probably better things you could be working on than pushing men to lie on your behalf, like, say, not basing your self-worth on a clothing size?

2. I always want to hear I look shockingly young.
New Friend just made things worse after the "athletic body" debacle by trying to guess my age - and he got it right on the nose. Fishing for a compliment, I said, "Ah, too bad, I actually look as old as I am, huh?" He replied, "You're incredibly well-preserved for someone your age." Oh, dear. Well-preserved?! I felt like a canned sardine. Couldn't he - just to be nice - have told me I looked like I'd just gotten back from shopping for my prom dress? Couldn't he have told me my skin looked as soft and smooth as a baby's bottom? Couldn't he, at the very least, have said, "Wow, you must be getting Botox, because you look terrific!"?

Oh no! He guessed your actual biological age and didn't think you were a high school junior who snuck into the bar with a fake ID! Shakira, shakira! What has the world come to?! Maybe instead of being horrified with the guy for not complimenting you by insinuating that you've shot botulism into your forehead, you should be comfortable enough in your own skin to say, "Yes! I am 28! Good guess, Miss Cleo! Let's get another drink." Pushing the idea that we all have to look 16 isn't just a "little white lie"—it's a big, nasty, horrible lie that women have to deal with on a daily basis. You're not helping the problem by trying to convince men to act stunned that you're actually old enough to drive.

3. I also don't mind it when guys say, "Now you - you I'd sleep with!"
Luckily, New Friend turned things around a few minutes later. He was describing some woman in his office who drove him nuts because she thought she was the cat's meow; she'd dissed one of New Friend's male coworkers who'd asked her out. "And this woman, she's empirically attractive, I guess," New Friend said. "But she totally lacks charisma! I'd never sleep with her - and I can't imagine too many men who would." Then, gratuitously, he turned to me, and almost out of the corner of his mouth, he said, "But you? You I'd sleep with in a second. You've got the je ne c'est quoi." Now, sure, it's a little embarrassing, a little crude, when a guy says something like this. But I like to think it's also his awkward, dorky way of flirting. Of trying to say, as directly as he can without downright asking for it, that he thinks you're hot. Call me crazy, but I find it kind of endearing.

Right? Objectification is so cute, ladies. Isn't it just adorable when a man you barely know insults another woman and then turns around to tell you that he thinks you're worthy of his penis? I know it makes me feel really good inside. Let's all hope that the douchebags of the world will see this article and know that it makes us "feel good" when they determine our worth based on our "fuckability factor." Who knew that the women of the world were all waiting for Tucker Max to sweep them off their feet?

The irony of Kelly's article is that she wants men to tell these "little white lies" so that she, in turn, can lie to herself. She seems to be stuck on the idea that a woman is only good enough if a man tells her so; his "lies" of telling her that she's thin enough, young enough, and worthy of sex, she argues, should be held up as gifts from one gender to the other. But all these "little white lies" really do is perpetuate the same stupid beauty mag rules that have been thrown at us for ages: get thinner, look younger, and make a man want you, and happiness will be yours. Kelly may be pushing men to join into this lie festival, but the truth is, she's really just going along with the same lies women have been told for years.

3 Little White Lies Men Should Always Tell [MSN]

#liesgirlstell surfaced earlier today, perhaps as an offshoot of the also-popular and also-icky topics #3wordsaftersex and #3breakupwords. The "lies" seem to fall into three basic categories.

— Scary

It's not the lies themselves that are scary here, it's the mentality of someone who assumes — or behaves as though — these are lies. Like this one:

I_SEYMORE_CAKE #liesgirlstell i dont give head

Even if this is a lie, and she has, in fact, "given head" to other guys, aren't you obligated to take her at her word here? Call us bonerkillers, but we think a woman's statement of what she will and won't do in bed should be taken as gospel. After all, just because she's done something once doesn't mean she'll consent to do it again, or with every partner.

sabret00the RT @ThreeWaysIn: #liesgirlstell I don't want to try anal sex

Um, how did you find out this was a lie? By assuming no meant yes? Creepy.

— Insulting

The insulting category paints women as lying bitches who are out to trap men. To whit:

itsjay_yadigg #liesgirlstell im pregnant

Or, in longer form:

ShivFrost RT itsjay_yadigg #liesgirlstell I'm pregnant .... preach it jay...only suckers get fooled...i wanna see the test turn positive infront me

"I'm pregnant" isn't a liegirlstell — it's a liebadpeopletell. And trust us, ShivFrost, most women are as afraid of getting unintentionally pregnant as you apparently are of being lied to about it.

causticbob #liesgirlstell I'm on the pill

Don't believe her, causticbob? Use a condom!

— White

Many of the liesgirlstell on the list are white lies, meant to make guys feel better about their — usually sexual — deficiencies.

MicaDsGirl #liesgirlstell its not too small

First of all, women say this truthfully all the time. And second, is MicaDsGirl really advocating that women laugh uproariously every time we see a member that's not up to our standards? Or that men second-guess every compliment about their penises? What good does it do to add more insecurity to the world?

causticbob #liesgirlstell I love the way you taste

Again, quite possibly true. And even if not, why look a gift horse in the, um, mouth?

Nicki_Diamond #liesgirlstell "No! I don't think your mom is overbearing"

This is a classic white lie, one intended to keep the peace and avoid insulting a partner's loved one. Obviously honesty in relationships is important, but so is diplomacy. If women uttered every single uncharitable thought they were thinking, they wouldn't have any friends, let alone boyfriends. And the same, of course, is true of men. Probably the smartest tweet on #liesgirlstell is this one:

sarahinrainbows #liesgirlstell - the same bloody lies that boys tell; this is the 21st century,! What's with all the misogyny, and girls joining in too!

While women may not tell exactly the same lies men tell (men can't say they're on the pill — yet!), the sad truth is that people of both genders lie to each other from time to time. We lie to make people feel better and we lie to cover up our bad behavior. Anyone who thinks lies are solely the province of women is not only a misogynist but a poor student of human nature. Current.com cites a twitterer who says, "the topics #liesguystell and #liesboystell exist but funnily enough neither are as popular as #liesgirlstell." We're not sure it's all that funny, and maybe the relative unpopularity of #liesguystell is just an example of men getting a pass while women get criticized, but one thing's for sure — both sexes tell lies, and no one Twitter tag could ever list them all.

#liesgirlstell [Twitter]
#liesguystell [Twitter]
#liesboystell [Twitter]
Twitter Outs All Lies Girls Tell [Current.com]

I mean, I know we can be sort of mean. First there was mean old "Charleee", asking you about the Bush Doctrine as though you were supposed to know that it was the single largest repudiation of post-nuclear American foreign policy and basically said we'd nuke whomever we felt like, fuck-you-very-much. And then that meanie CBS reporter snuck in a question about the major economic bailout the government had just undertaken and you felt like you had to answer it even though you hadn't yet been told what talking points to parrot yet, it was so off-putting. But, then Sean Hannity rolled over and let you scratch his belly and a little behind his ears, so I thought we were cool now.

Well, and, yes, I know that Keith Olbermann is being a total dick to you, what with donating $100 to charity of every lie that you tell, like it's your fault or something that the campaign staff won't revise the speeches you're giving to take the lies out, but he's not on the road following your campaign. And I'm sure Andrew Sullivan's list of the 12 different lies you've told had to sting, but he's just a blogger and that's not like a real reporter or producer who's going to be standing in a room with you and the President of Afghanistan for less than a minute.

So, it's good that you relented and let that CNN producer witness you talking with Karzai about his son for a whole 40 seconds earlier today. That'll totally show people you're not scared of the press and that you know how to have substantive discussions of U.S. foreign policy with important world leaders, Bush Doctrine questions be damned! I mean, it was really important that the photographer and the TV crew get footage of you talking and having serious conversations with him and Colombian President Uribe even if the entire press corps were utter dicks about insisting that their coverage of you be more than pictures of you looking Vice Presidential! And it was really well done that you got Karzai's handlers to pretend to be the ones objecting to anyone doing anything other than taking pictures — that was a master-stroke, as was your staff's insistence that it was all just one big misunderstanding when they explicitly said that no one that writes anything for a living would be allowed in the room. The press will totally buy that!

Anyway, so, like, buck up, girl! We're really not that bad! You can totally talk to reporters. You hunt moose! You shoot at wolves from airplanes! What's the worst you can do, really? I mean, John McCain's already out threatening Spain and trying to fire people he can't fire and shit. What are you going to do, start a war with Russia? Oh, yeah, right. Well, just stick to talking about your family and how you didn't really want the Bridge to Nowhere and how mean everyone is to you. That's cool. I'm sure you can work that into the answer to just about any question you're asked when you finally let someone ask you a question.

Yours,
Megan

Palin Press Relationship Gets Testy [Politico]
Palin Says She's Ready To Step In As President [Breitbart]
The Palin Protection Continues [Politico]
Sarah Palin On Bush Doctrine: Homina, Homina, Homina [TPM Election Central]
Palin “Disappointed” In “Understandable” AIG Bailout [CBS News]
Excerpts from Palin’s Hannity Interview — Part I [Time]
Olbermann Gives $100 To Charity For Every Palin Lie, $3700 This Week Alone [Huffington Post]
The Twelve Lies Of Sarah Palin [Andrew Sullivan]
Palin Bars, Then Admits Reporters To Meetings [MSNBC]
Palin In The City [NY Times]
McCain Will Not Commit To Meeting Spanish PM [AFP]
McCain Says He Would Fire SEC Chairman [AP]
Palin Hawkish on Russia [Politico]
Did Palin Really Fight The “Bridge To Nowhere”? [The New Republic]
Palin Accuses 'Obama/Biden Democrats' Of Attacking Her Family, But Campaign Can't Name One [Huffington Post]