Planned Parenthood- Some thoughts

Hello everyone,

I've been following the presidential election a great deal and keep drifting back to a theme that seems pretty central, which is the issue of de-funding Planned Parenthood, and given the themes of our class, seems pretty timely.

Why is it that this is such a hot-button issue at this time? Obviously debates from the left and right have abounded over the past several decades before and after Roe v. Wade regarding what constitutes a life and the legal and biological status of an embryo or fetus. What I am interested in more today is the issue of the videos which seem to keep surfacing in major news outlets almost every day. These videos allegedly show very inflammatory footage of PP officials engaging in activities which, depending on whom you ask and what you read, have been doctored in order to put PP in a very awkward position. This has led to immense outcries on the right side of the aisle to defund a potentially corrupt organization.

My question is this: what does it mean to live in a modernized society where technology not only underwrites the basis of our communications, but also one in which this communication is manipulated in order to further an agenda? How do we know if what is reaching us has been researched with proper methods? To what degree can we really trust what we read and hear now? We already see examples of 24-hour news agencies using sound-bytes of stump speeches out of context in order to engender a negative image of the opposition, but what happens when things are deliberately morphed, manipulated, and taken out of context unfairly in order to effect change? What are the legal implications and ramifications of such actions? What happens when people are so strong in their convictions that they hear what they want to, apart from any evidence which may point to falsified evidence or ignoble techniques? How should the public react when unsavory technological practices are utilized in order to achieve what a certain group might think is the best outcome? Over the summer it surfaced that the people who filmed the now infamous videos (which I don't recommend you watch) were using fake IDs and purported to be members of a fake organization in order to gain access to the Planned Parenthood facility, yet marches on Capitol Hill to defund a "corrupt organization" are just as strong as ever. How do we reconcile our notions of political preference, unbiased journalism, and respectful disagreement when such an event has inspired such vitriol on both sides?