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Carson Campaign Press Release - Op-Ed by Ben Carson: We Must Value Human Life

July 28, 2015

The recent revelations regarding a video showing a Planned Parenthood staff discussion of the alleged sale of tissue from aborted fetuses should be deemed abhorrent by anyone with a conscience.

A second undercover video has emerged showing Planned Parenthood''s medical directors council president Dr. Mary Gatter, haggling over payments and offering to use a "less crunchy technique" for intact fetal tissue specimens. Planned Parenthood''s president, Cecile Richards, defended the organization, saying that it broke no laws. But that is not enough.

It would be instructive for people to know more about the origins of this organization and its founder, Margaret Sanger. This woman was a proponent of eugenics, which promotes the notion that there are superior individuals and inferior individuals, and that society is helped when the superior ones proliferate while inferior ones are reduced.

She was quoted advocating "a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring."

Perhaps the horrendous videos will let us reflect as a society about what we have been doing over the last several decades with precious human life.

We have allowed the proponents of a woman's choice movement to convince us that killing valuable human babies is not a big deal and certainly is better than infringing upon the convenience of a woman. We have established the setting where many women think the baby inside of them would negatively impact their lifestyle. These women believe their babies need to be eliminated rather than guarded and cherished.

We've distorted things to the point where people believe that anyone who opposes mothers killing their babies is waging a war on women. How can we be so foolish to believe such a thing? One must be able to recognize the depravity to which we have sunken as a society when valuing a baby's life is frowned upon.

The brain of a little baby develops at a rate of hundreds of millions of neurons every single day by the time it is 6 to 8 weeks old. The baby is rapidly becoming a very complex organism. It is much more sophisticated than many of the creatures that we go to great lengths to preserve in our environment.

Through the wonders of ultrasonography and endoscopy, we have been able to recognize the human features at an early stage that characterize these priceless beings and belie the myth that they are nothing more than meaningless clumps of cells. In my view, this is propaganda that has been perpetuated by organizations like Planned Parenthood and others who desire to promote the abominable practice of abortion on demand.

My entire professional career as a pediatric neurosurgeon was dedicated to saving the lives of children and promoting their long-term welfare, as I took the Hippocratic Oath to "First, do no harm." Protecting innocent life is a duty consistent with that solemn oath. Destroying or butchering them is particularly offensive to someone like myself who has operated on babies while they were still in utero. All human life is precious and should be preserved and protected with the utmost respect and care.

When we reach a point where we are so callous that we kill innocent little babies, what else won't we do? Is there a limit to our barbarism? Human history is replete with examples of what happens when we devalue human life. Here in the United States of America, we have a history of compassion and kindness that characterizes a model citizen. It is time to reclaim our heritage and reject the purveyors of selfishness and callousness.

Congress should defund Planned Parenthood and consider having the IRS revoke its status as a 501(c)(3) organization. I believe deeply, as it is written in the Declaration of Independence, that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. First and foremost among these unalienable rights is life, and we created a government in order to protect it -- not fund its destruction.

We must do everything in our power to advance a culture of life. Let's once again be proud of ourselves rather than making excuses for our behavior.

Ben Carson, Carson Campaign Press Release - Op-Ed by Ben Carson: We Must Value Human Life Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/312715

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