All of the Ways Last Night's GOP Debate Was Dangerously Wrong About Science
PoliticsFor every elected official who carefully educates themselves on the facts and research prior to making an informed decision, there are a dozen more who have no problem shooting their mouths off on talking points they do not understand. As we learned last night in the second Republican presidential primary debate, many of the frontrunners for the Republican Presidential candidate belong firmly in the latter group. Let’s review.
On abortion
Last night, candidates focused on attacking Planned Parenthood, an organization that offers life-saving cancer screening, STD and HIV testing, contraception, and, yes, abortion, to millions of Americans each year.
Carly Fiorina managed to slip in her personal perspective on abortion, looking at the camera with mournful eyes and imploring viewers, “As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch 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.”
This was the point in the evening when I started muttering to my empty living room. “Is that really what she thinks happens during an abortion? Because that is not what happens during an abortion,” I informed my coffee table. The coffee table was unmoved. So, apparently, were CNN’s debate moderators.
Fiorina took a huge leap of faith here that no one has actually watched the video she described. In reality, the (heavily edited) recording consists of Planned Parenthood employees discussing the voluntary and completely legal donation of fetal parts. There is no kicking, crying fetus on the table. There is no mad scientist cackling and demanding we keep it alive for brain harvesting purposes. Dr. Frankenstein is a fictional character and The Walking Dead’s zombies are characters in a graphic novel. Neither works for Planned Parenthood.
Donated fetal tissue is responsible for many critical advancements in medicine, including vaccines and treatment for degenerative diseases. In fact, the current rules for legal donation of fetal tissue for research were developed in part by the Fetal Tissue Transplantation Panel, established by the much beloved Ronald Reagan. No fetus is “kept alive” for this donation post-delivery. No fetus is terminated for the express purposes of being donated. No brains are harvested from living babies.
For the record, the CDC estimates that 92% of abortions in the United States are performed within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with 65.9% occurring in the first eight weeks. Abortions at this stage are either medical (induced with a combination of oral or vaginal medications) or surgical. The earliest age of viability (when a fetus can survive outside of the mother, in this case with an incredible amount of medical intervention and a high risk of later complications) is 22 weeks. Living, viable, kicking, crying babies are not birthed and then cruelly murdered for the purpose of dastardly scientific experiments.
Carly Fiorina is either a deliberately manipulative liar or an uninformed bonehead. In either case, she has no place in the discussion of reproductive health or abortion rights, possession of a uterus notwithstanding.
On Vaccines
Ben Carson was given the easiest question of the night, hands down: “A backlash against vaccines was blamed for a measles outbreak here in California. Dr. Carson, Donald Trump has publicly and repeatedly linked vaccines, childhood vaccines, to autism, which, as you know, the medical community adamantly disputes. You’re a pediatric neurosurgeon. Should Mr. Trump stop saying this?”