In response, we submitted the following letter to the editor, which has not been published by the Dispatch. Since it was not published in the print or online-only versions, we thought it appropriate to share here.
Dear editor,
Tuesday, the daily briefing highlighted a video released by Majority Ohio where intentionally clumsy editing “showed” prominent prolife voices “endorsing” Planned Parenthood. Majority Ohio representatives were quoted, saying: “The video was edited with the same attention to detail and devotion to accuracy as recent videos released by the Center for Medical Progress.”
I must have missed where Majority Ohio or the Dispatch linked to the unedited rally comments or transcript.
The abortion industry and affiliated groups have taken offense with the Center for Medical Progress’s (CMP) videos for ample reason. Even abortion advocates like Camille Paglia have found the videos, and their lack of mainstream media coverage, reprehensible. Rather than defend the indefensible, abortion advocates are hoping to distract the public and attack prolife voices, and regrettably the Dispatch provided them a forum.
The public should decide if the CMP cutting hours of footage into compilations consisting primarily of full sentences and 30-plus second clips, concurrently released with the unabridged versions, is “the same” as Majority Ohio’s splicing one and two word segments, identifying those words they find valuable, and then packaging those words to support their purposes. I suggest that the similarity is not in CMP’s editing, but when its videos show Planned Parenthood staff sifting through disemboweled fetal remains to pick out the parts most valuable to corporate America.
More importantly, the public should see the just-released seventh CMP video, where a former StemExpress employee embedded in a PP Clinic gives an unedited and detailed description of the day she was told to cut into the face of an unborn child whose heart was still beating to retrieve its brain, a clear violation of California and federal law. This is a serious allegation that deserves serious coverage, not distraction and infantile partisan mockery.