I covered this on Twitter already, but it felt necessary to bring it back here: Planned Parenthood is now on its third or fourth day of damage control, following the release of a video depicting their top doc talking casually about crushing up aborted fetuses to preserve their organs for “donation” over what looks like a nice Chianti. Yesterday the chain of women’s clinics trotted out their president, Cecile Richards, for an actual apology (sort of) and some damage control.

(Spoiler alert: if you typically expect Richards to peel away her mask and reveal a reptilian visage, as I do, it doesn’t happen in this video, sorry.) 

According to Richards, Planned Parenthood has done nothing wrong, but it definitely seems that way thanks to an “heavily edited video” that appeared on the web, suddenly and without provocation. She definitely doesn’t think Planned Parenthood has done anything wrong, but she’s very sorry – not for the casual way in which they treat the “products of conception,” but for the sociopathic tone her underling used to describe a horrific process.

The tone.

Weird, huh? 

The tone.

Think about that a second. Planned Parenthood doesn’t consider what they do to be anything more than a routine surgery to remove a “blob of tissue” from the inside of a woman’s uterus. If it’s literally nothing — not a living, feeling human being — why does she care so much about the tone? Dr. Nucatola is speaking about the procedure as if it were being performed on a non-functional limb, or an abstract specimen being preserved for experimentation. She’s not using any sort of new tone that Planned Parenthood doesn’t already regularly employ. Speaking about the “products of conception” with a detached, emotionless tone is purposeful, across the board. If Planned Parenthood admits that they have any connection — that what they do is any different from removing yet another unwanted mass anywhere else in the body — they’ve lost the argument that what they do does not involve any special consideration.

So, Cecile Richards, does an apology for the tone you trot out nearly every day mean that you’re concerned people will start to see through the facade?

I’m sure she’ll disagree, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun here. After all, she’s now on record — on video — saying a bunch of things she thinks are true, from the idea that the video was “selectively edited” (oddly enough, I’ve seen the 2.5 hour video, and they’re still chatting about crushing up fetuses for use as spare parts), to the idea that Planned Parenthood doesn’t directly profit from the fetal organ trade. We don’t actually know that, and as I pointed out in my article a couple of days ago, there are a lot of questions that remain here, including about the reimbursement process, which sees patients receive between $30 and $100 for each abortion they receive, when the tissue is donated. After all, if the “donor” is being paid, is it really a “donation”?

Center for Medical Progress has already said that this video is the result of a three-year investigation, and represents only the first in a series of discoveries. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone when I say I can’t wait to see what comes next.