I understand where you are coming from.
But instead of criticizing the pro-choice blogs, why don't you do the a little bit of research and prove them wrong?
I have a hard time with you saying, "but it might not be true!!" You could do the exact same research, and quite easily, that you want the pro-choice crowd to do.
Dave, we're doing the research, and we're not finding anything. Planned Parenthood claims that it can't give out any specific information because of concerns about the patient's privacy. Even if true, that doesn't explain why they can't reveal the name of the evil CPC....
The problem with investigating this story is the same as trying to disprove the existence of unicorns. That's why the burden of proof isn't on us to disprove the accusation, but on the pro-choice folks to prove it.
Hi Dave,
I've actually done some research - I know which Planned Parenthood and which CPC the Planned Parenthood Take Action e-mail is discussing. I've even spoke with someone who works for the CPC and says that Planned Parenthood (or the girl/girl's mothers) is completely skewing the situation.
I encouraged them to publicly come out against and speak against these charges but I don't think they'll take my advice.
Good...glad you are doing the research. That did not come across in this post at all. This post was simply an unsubstantiated attack on pro-choice blogs.
I am curious to see what you find, if anything. I would like to know how the situation has been skewed.
Naaman - I am not sure that I agree with you about the burden of proof. If you believe that it is inaccurate, I would say that it would be your job to prove it wrong.
I think the "attack" wasn't unsubstantiated. I was discussing how they'll believe anything Planned Parenthood tells them even when Planned Parenthood provides no evidence.
And that's exactly what the pro-choice bloggers did. Their loathing for CPCs blinds them to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, everything PP says isn't 100% true.
It would be similar to, let's say, if the Family Research Council posted a story on their web site about an abortionist in New York who was raping women and the FRC provided no names, no locations, no evidence and then a bunch of prolife bloggers just parroted exactly what the FRC said without taking anytime to look into the claims.
I understand what you are saying, but I think it would be more valid to say, "this is false, but they pro-choice blogs are saying that it is true."
All you are doing is saying that they blogs are claiming it is true, but it might not be, because you don't trust Planned Parenthood.
Also...if the CPC is saying that it was skewed, that would imply that there is at least some truth to the matter.
Again, I am curious to see what the actual facts are instead of implications based on previous incidents.
I am not sure that I agree with you about the burden of proof. If you believe that it is inaccurate, I would say that it would be your job to prove it wrong.
It's pretty impossible to prove that something didn't happen. Prove that a girl named Susie Smith lives in Minnesota -- okay, you can do that by producing the girl and birth certificate, etc. Prove that she doesn't exist, though -- that's much harder. You can say you can't find her, you can say you can't find documented evidence of her existence, but you can't conclusively prove that there isn't a girl in Minnesota named Susie Smith. Especially if someone calls you and says, "Hey, I know you're looking for this girl, and I just wanted to say that she does exist, because I've seen her." Wouldn't you then say, "Well, okay, can you show her to me?" Because you can't go any further towards proving that she doesn't exist.
That's what JivinJ is doing with regards to the CPC in this story. He can try to find it and find no official documented evidence, only anecdotal evidence, but that's about all he can do.
The burden of proof always lies on the side that alleges that something happened.
It's pretty impossible to prove that something didn't happen.
Yeah, that was my point. If unicorns existed, it would be easy to prove that they did. Find a unicorn, case closed. However, proving that unicorns don't exist ... well, that's nearly impossible. In fact, if you're trying to prove it to people who are TRUE BELIEVERS in unicorns, then it will be impossible. No matter how many times you look for them, they will claim that you looked in the wrong place, or you're not really looking, or there's some other reason why you didn't see a unicorn.
The pro-choice blogs are being hardcore unicorn-believers on this story. They believe it because they want to believe it, not because of any evidence to support it. Therefore, any evidence that we can find to disprove it will be ignored.
Of course, by now the story's been proven to be false. There's only one PP abortion clinic in Indiana that shares a parking lot with a CPC. The CPCs sign looks nothing like a PP sign, and the Indianaopolis police have NO record of any of the events they were supposedly involved in.
Can you say, "Fraud"? I knew that you could.
Actually, all that was shown is that it didn't take place in Indianapolis. The "refutation" assumes there are only three PP locations in Indiana; there are actually 37.
Noumena,
The refutation is based on the fact that there are only 3 PP in Indianapolis who perform abortions. If you took the time to research Planned Parenthood of Indiana's web site you would know this.
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