Where the Science is Really Settled

CNN’s Chris Cuomo Has Absolutely No Idea Where Babies Come From
Both patronizing and wrong, Cuomo perfectly demonstrates how bad the media are at covering abortion.

By Mollie Hemingway
AUGUST 10, 2015

Chris Cuomo is a broadcast journalist, currently anchoring at CNN. He previously was the ABC News chief law and justice correspondent, and co-anchor for ABC’s 20/20. He’s also the brother of the current governor of New York and the son of a previous governor of New York.

Oh, and he has no idea where babies come from.


He interviewed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) the day after the first GOP presidential primary debate last week. And Cuomo came out hard in support of abortion. That’s not particularly noteworthy in the current media environment, where journalists openly advocate for abortion.

But it is worth noting that he did it in a mind-numbingly idiotic manner.

Chris Cuomo Does Not Understand Politics. At All

First he tried to play gotcha by replaying a clip where Fox News’ Megyn Kelly wondered how Rubio justified ending lives just because they began “violently through no fault of the baby.” He had responded that he didn’t believe such terminations of lives were justified. A-ha! says Cuomo:

CUOMO: All right. The first situation, as you know now, 2013, you were on that bill 1617 that did have a carve-out for rape and incest. So, it seems that you had your own record wrong. Is that something you want to correct this morning?

Apparently Cuomo, who, again, is a major journalist, has never heard of politicians working to pass any piece of legislation other than pieces of legislation that could only be passed in the perfect dream world of the legislator. Rubio explained, calmly, that all pro-life politicians and groups, including the Catholic Conference of Bishops, support such pieces of legislation, because if passed they help protect some unborn children.

The arrogance, by the way, of not understanding how politics works and posing the question, “Is that something you want to correct this morning?” is too much, no? By the way, S. 1617—the “If You Like Your Health Care Plan, You Can Keep It Act“—was introduced in 2013 and was cosponsored by Rubio, but doesn’t mention abortion, rape, or incest. So Cuomo must have been confused about the legislation under discussion.

Also worth noting is that Rubio tried to help Cuomo understand this basic political process by noting that he supports a 20-week abortion ban but that such support does not mean he is in favor of abortions at 19 weeks.

Cuomo said he didn’t think that was a fitting analogy. He also claimed to understand Rubio’s argument but insist that some imagined inconsistency was still problematic. Rubio remained shockingly calm.

We’re not even close to the stupidest part of the interview. Before we get there, let’s note that when Rubio said he believed all human life is valuable and deserving of protection of the law, Cuomo responded

CUOMO: It’s interesting that draw distinctions about the old and the new in certain regards. But on this one, you say it’s timeless because as you know, our cultural mores in this country, certainly the opinions of women are not in step with what you’re saying right now. You’re comfortable with that?

The opinions of women are not pro-life? I know this is a common trope pulled out by radical abortion extremists such as Planned Parenthood, but in fact one’s sex does not explain one’s view on abortion. Men and women in America’s newsrooms might be uniform in their support of abortion, but the actual country is about as divided as can be. And depending on the questions you ask and the polling samples, the majority position swings back and forth. A recent Gallup poll showed 50 percent of Americans saying they were pro-choice—the first time it had been that high in seven years—but three years ago women were more likely to self-affiliate as pro-life than pro-choice.

It’s beyond time for the media to stop carrying water for the abortion industry by claiming that legalized killing of unborn children is something women all favor. We don’t. And we’re sick of the media spreading falsehoods that claim otherwise.

Besides, if we’re talking about unpopular abortion views, how about CNN start harassing abortion extremists about how their support for killing late-term unborn children is a view huge majorities of Americans oppose?

OK, here’s where the interview really gets good though. You can watch some of it here:

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/politics/2015/08/07/marco-rubio-abortion-faith-cuomo-newday.cnn.html

CUOMO: I know, but you’re deciding when it is human life…

RUBIO: No, science has decided when it is human life.

CUOMO: Science has not decided it’s at conception.

RUBIO: No, let me correct you. Science has—absolutely it has.

CUOMO: Not at conception.


Did Chris Cuomo go to the Philip Bump school of obstetrics?

Let me explain. This is not the first time that Marco Rubio has had to explain the most basic science to our mainstream media. And I hope he does it again, because it’s absolutely hilarious to watch our media attempt to claim that “science” (invocation of which is best understood as an incantation of a beloved deity) hasn’t issued its ruling on the matter.

Over a year ago, Rubio said:

The science is settled, it’s not even a consensus, it is a unanimity, that human life begins at conception. So I hope the next time that someone wags their finger about science, they’ll ask one of these leaders on the left: ‘Do you agree with the consensus of scientists that say that human life begins at conception?’ I’d like to see someone ask that question.

The Washington Post‘s Philip Bump wrote a piece headlined, “Marco Rubio demanded people look at the science on abortion. So we did.” Except they didn’t.

Bump wrote a smug piece about how a pro-abortion doctors group says pregnancybegins when the human embryo implants in the lining of a woman’s uterus. He thought that this (recently changed) definition of pregnancy meant that implantation was when human life began, instead of when it actually begins, which is at conception.

If you are in any way confused about this process, here’s a very helpful and easy to understand animated video about it:

The video begins:

Fertilization is the epic story of a single sperm facing incredible odds to unite with an egg and form a new human life.

It is the story of all of us.

Emphasis mine. The animation explains the process of how a single sperm attaches to the egg cell membrane and how their outer membranes fuse. You can watch for the details, but note this from late in the video:

At this moment, a unique genetic code arises, instantly determining gender, hair color, eye color and hundreds of other characteristics.

This new single cell, the zygote, is the beginning of a new human being.

Here are many more examples of what “science” has to say about the fairly simple and obvious fact that human life begins at conception.

So I have this friend who is simultaneously very bad with directions but also adamant that she knows where she’s going. Thankfully this trait works out to be somehow charming. But on Cuomo, the combination of having no idea what he’s talking about and arrogance about same isn’t nearly so cute. Here’s a sample:

CUOMO: This is not my argument. This is a presented argument of science. It having a DNA map. So does a plant. It’s about when it becomes a human being. I’m not saying what I think in answer to that question. That’s not my position. But don’t you think, if you want to be a leader of the future, that’s a question that deserves an answers that is definitive beyond your faith, when does life begin. None of you are calling for any type at panel—

RUBIO: At conception. At conception.

CUOMO: That’s your faith. That’s your faith. That’s not science.

RUBIO: No, it isn’t. That’s science.

CUOMO: It is not definitive science.

RUBIO: Absolutely it is.

CUOMO: I will have scientists on this show all morning—

RUBIO: It absolutely is.

CUOMO: From all walks of life who will say, we cannot say it is definitely human life at conception.

In fact, no. All scientists know that life begins at conception. It’s so bleeding obvious and basic that it’s sort of like saying “things begin at the beginning!” No scientist will argue that human life does not begin when, well, it begins. Which is at conception.

Also, you’ll have to read the full transcript and make up your own mind, but I think Cuomo was kind of trying to argue that while something begins at conception, we don’t even know if it will or won’t be human as opposed to something else.

Chris Cuomo Has Vocational Confusion

Cuomo hilariously, if completely unconvincingly, tried to say that his lengthy and oddly focused rant against scientific basics (albeit while invoking science) was not a reflection of his own views (heh). He mentioned that he self-identifies as a Catholic, something also mentioned by abortion radicals such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

But the job of a mainstream journalist is not to lecture a politician, particularly if said lecture is riddled with scientific inaccuracies. It’s also not to give concern-trolling campaign advice, as he does here:

CUOMO: I’m saying, if you’re going to be a leader of the future, this is something that deserves an answer that goes beyond faith. That’s all I’m saying as a suggestion, not as an answer—not as a suggestion to the answer to the question.

Let’s leave apart the fact that Rubio repeatedly and accurately conveyed scientific arguments, as opposed to made a case from religion. Why is a CNN anchor giving a politician suggestions, based in completely and utter ignorance of science, anyway?

Listen, we all get that the media are all in on Team Abortion. It’s beyond obvious. But that they have to massacre science in the service of that campaign is certainly telling.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter at@mzhemingway

Planned Parenthood and the barbarity of America

Planned Parenthood and the barbarity of America

By George F. Will Opinion writer July 31

Executives of Planned Parenthood’s federally subsidized meat markets — your tax dollars at work — lack the courage of their convictions. They should drop the pretense of conducting a complex moral calculus about the organs they harvest from the babies they kill.

First came the video showing a salad-nibbling, wine-sipping Planned Parenthood official explaining how “I’m going to basically crush below, I’m going to crush above” whatever organ (“heart, lung, liver”) is being harvested. Then the president of a Planned Parenthood chapter explainedthe happy side of harvesting: “For a lot of the women participating in the fetal tissue donation program, they’re having a procedure that may be a very difficult decision for them and this is a way for them to feel that something positive is coming from . . . a very difficult time.”
George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977. He is also a contributor to FOX News’ daytime and primetime programming.View Archive
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“Having a procedure” — stopping the beating of a human heart — can indeed be a difficult decision for the woman involved. But it never is difficult for Planned Parenthood’s abortionists administering the “procedure.” The abortion industry’s premise is: At no point in the gestation of a human infant does this living being have a trace of personhood that must be respected. Never does it have a moral standing superior to a tumor or a hamburger in the mother’s stomach.

In 1973, the Supreme Court, simultaneously frivolous and arrogant, discovered constitutional significance in the fact that the number nine is divisible by three. It decreed that the status of pre-born human life changes with pregnancy’s trimesters. (What would abortion law be if the number of months of gestation were a prime number — seven or 11?) The court followed this preposterous assertion with faux humility, insisting it could not say when life begins. Then, swerving back to breathtaking vanity, it declared when “meaningful” life begins — “viability,” when the fetus is “potentially able” to survive outside the womb.

When life begins is a scientific, not a philosophic or theological, question: Life begins when the chromosomes of the sperm fuse with those of the ovum, forming a distinctive DNA complex that controls the new organism’s growth. This growth process continues unless a natural accident interrupts it or it is ended by the sort of deliberate violence Planned Parenthood sells.

Another video shows the craftsmanship of Planned Parenthood’s abortionists — tiny limbs and hands from dismembered babies. To the craftsmen, however, these fragments are considered mere organic stuff. People who proclaim themselves both pro-choice and appalled by the videos are flinching from the logic of their extremism.

Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood’s president, apologizes for the “tone”of her operatives’ chatter about crushing babies. But the tone flows from Planned Parenthood’s premise: Why be solemn about meat?

Even partial-birth abortion is — must be — a sacrament in the Church of “Choice.” This sect knows that its entire edifice depends on not yielding an inch on its insistence that what an abortion kills never possesses a scintilla of moral significance.

In partial-birth abortion, a near-term baby is pulled by the legs almost out of the birth canal, until the base of the skull is exposed so the abortionist can suck out its contents. During Senate debates on this procedure, three Democrats were asked: Suppose a baby’s head slips out of the birth canal — the baby is born — before the abortionist can kill it. Does the baby then have a right to live? Two of the Democrats refused to answer. The third said the baby acquires a right to life when it leaves the hospital.

The nonnegotiable tenet in today’s Democratic Party catechism is not opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline or support for a $15 minimum wage. These are evanescent fevers. As the decades roll by, the single unshakable commitment is opposition to any restriction on the right to inflict violence on pre-born babies. So today there is a limitless right to kill, and distribute fragments of, babies that intrauterine medicine can increasingly treat as patients.

We are wallowing in this moral swamp because the Supreme Court accelerated the desensitization of the nation by using words and categories about abortion the way infants use knives and forks — with gusto, but sloppily. Because Planned Parenthood’s snout is deep in the federal trough, decent taxpayers find themselves complicit in the organization’s vileness. What kind of a government disdains the deepest convictions of citizens by forcing them to finance what they see in videos — Planned Parenthood operatives chattering about bloody human fragments? “Taxes,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., “are what we pay for civilized society.” Today they finance barbarism.

The price of fetal parts

The price of fetal parts




By Charles Krauthammer 

Opinion writer July 23


“Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”

— Barack Obama, address to Planned Parenthood, April 26, 2013
Charles Krauthammer writes a weekly political column that runs on Fridays. View Archive

Planned Parenthood’s reaction to the release of a clandestinely recorded conversation about the sale of fetal body parts was highly revealing. After protesting that it did nothing illegal, it apologized for the “tone” of one of its senior directors.

Her remarks lacked compassion, admitted Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. As if Dr. Deborah Nucatola’s cold and casual discussion over salad and wine of how the fetal body can be crushed with forceps in a way that leaves valuable organs intact for sale is some kind of personal idiosyncrasy. On the contrary, it’s precisely the kind of psychic numbing that occurs when dealing daily with industrial scale destruction of the growing, thriving, recognizably human fetus.

Planned Parenthood president responds to video(2:19)
Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, apologized for remarks captured on video that show Deborah Nucatola, an executive of the organization, casually discussing abortion techniques aimed at preserving the internal organs of fetuses for use in research. Richards defended the organization’s tissue donation program, which she said is purely voluntary for the women and does not yield a profit for Planned Parenthood. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

This was again demonstrated by the release this week of a second video showing another official sporting that same tone, casual and even jocular, while haggling over the price of an embryonic liver. “If it’s still low, then we can bump it up,” she joked, “I want a Lamborghini.”

Abortion critics have long warned that the problem is not only the obvious — what abortion does to the fetus — but also what it does to us. It’s the same kind of desensitization that has occurred in the Netherlands with another mass exercise in life termination: assisted suicide. It began as a way to prevent the suffering of the terminally ill. It has now become so widespread and wanton that one-fifth of all Dutch assisted-suicide patients are euthanized without their explicit consent.

The Planned Parenthood revelations will have an effect. Perhaps not on government funding, given the Democratic Party’s unwavering support and the president wishing it divine guidance. Planned Parenthood might escape legal jeopardy as well, given the loophole in the law banning the sale of fetal parts that permits compensation for expenses (shipping and handling, as it were).

But these revelations will have an effect on public perceptions. Just as ultrasound altered feelings about abortion by showing the image, the movement, the vibrant living-ness of the developing infant in utero, so too, I suspect, will these Planned Parenthood revelations, by throwing open the door to the backroom of the clinic where that being is destroyed.

It’s an ugly scene. The issue is less the sale of body parts than how they are obtained. The nightmare for abortion advocates is a spreading consciousness of how exactly a healthy fetus is turned into a mass of marketable organs, how, in the words of a senior Planned Parenthood official, one might use “a less crunchy technique” — crush the head, spare the organs — “to get more whole specimens.”

The effect on the public is a two-step change in sensibilities. First, when ultrasound reveals how human the living fetus appears. Next, when people learn, as in these inadvertent admissions, what killing the fetus involves.

Remember. The advent of ultrasound has coincided with a remarkable phenomenon: Of all the major social issues, abortion is the only one that has not moved toward increasing liberalization. While the legalization of drugs, the redefinition of marriage and other assertions of individual autonomy have advanced, some with astonishing rapidity, abortion attitudes have remained largely static. The country remains evenly split.

Key moments from the undercover recording with Planned Parenthood executive(7:56)
The anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress posted a long version of the conversation between a Planned Parenthood executive and undercover actors on YouTube along with an shorter version that has been shared widely. These are excerpts of the longer version. (CenterforMedicalProgress.org)

What will be the reaction to these Planned Parenthood revelations? Right now, to try to deprive it of taxpayer money. Citizens repelled by its activities should not be made complicit in them. But why not shift the focus from the facilitator to the procedure itself?

The House has already passed a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks. That’s far more fruitful than trying to ban it entirely because, apart from the obvious constitutional issue, there is no national consensus about the moral status of the early embryo. There’s more agreement on the moral status of the later-term fetus. Indeed, about two-thirds of Americans would ban abortion after the first trimester.

There is more division about the first trimester because one’s views of the early embryo are largely a matter of belief, often religious belief. One’s view of the later-term fetus, however, is more a matter of what might be called sympathetic identification — seeing the image of a recognizable human infant and, now, hearing from the experts exactly what it takes to “terminate” its existence.

The role of democratic politics is to turn such moral sensibilities into law. This is a moment to press relentlessly for a national ban on late-term abortions.