Using Trickery to End Abortion?

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frindro

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Online I found a pro-life website that had a person phone Planned Parenthood and pretend to offer a donation, but specifically to kill a black baby for racist reasons. The four abortion mills that were phoned expressed no problem with this.

In a sense this is a great victory for the pro-life side since it has been publicly revealed that Planned Parenthood retains its eugenics/racist heritage and we can use this against them in public debate.

My question is: Can lying or other forms of trickery be used to further the pro-life cause?

Obviously, we shouldn’t lie about scientific facts (which are on our side anyway), but can we use such tactics to undermine the pro-abortion establishment?
 
Even if it is true (I really doubt people are still that racist), even four clinics are not representative of all of those who are pro choice.
 
frindro said:
Online I found a pro-life website that had a person phone Planned Parenthood and pretend to offer a donation, but specifically to kill a black baby for racist reasons. The four abortion mills that were phoned expressed no problem with this.

In a sense this is a great victory for the pro-life side since it has been publicly revealed that Planned Parenthood retains its eugenics/racist heritage and we can use this against them in public debate.

My question is: Can lying or other forms of trickery be used to further the pro-life cause?

Obviously, we shouldn’t lie about scientific facts (which are on our side anyway), but can we use such tactics to undermine the pro-abortion establishment?
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I would imagine they would take the money and just think to themselves “that person is crazy.” I bet each of those 4 planned parenthood even had black people working there.
 
hellopeople said:
I would imagine they would take the money and just think to themselves “that person is crazy.” I bet each of those 4 planned parenthood even had black people working there.
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This, if someone offers a business money they’ll take it.
 
My question isn’t about whether or not Planned Parenthood are racist, but rather or not it is ethical to lie for the sake of good.
 
CCC 2489 is the closest I have found in the CCC discussing the matter, but it seems to deal with not revealing the truth rather than actively lying.
 
I think that there have also been cases in which a pro-life person pretending to be a pregnant underage girl calls to schedule an abortion while telling the clinic that she was impregnated by an older man. Such cases would be either statutory rape or abuse of a minor. The intent was to see if the clinic would ensure that these crimes were properly reported, which is the law. In the cases I read about, the clinic worker told the girl to just keep quiet about the age of her partner.

Most abortion clinics just want to get the patient in the door, because abortion is a profit making business.
 
frindro said:
My question isn’t about whether or not Planned Parenthood are racist, but rather or not it is ethical to lie for the sake of good.
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I’d say yes if your lie doesn’t hurt anyone.If you want an extreme case, imagine being a truck driver in Nazi Germany, you have an opportunity to lie to the Nazis and say you’re delivering supplies and rescue some Jews from a concentration camp.

Messing around with Planned Parenthood employees can have the effect of destroying their lives though, in which case it’s not a “white lie” anymore.
 
flyingfish said:
I’d say yes if your lie doesn’t hurt anyone.If you want an extreme case, imagine being a truck driver in Nazi Germany, you have an opportunity to lie to the Nazis and say you’re delivering supplies and rescue some Jews from a concentration camp.

Messing around with Planned Parenthood employees can have the effect of destroying their lives though, in which case it’s not a “white lie” anymore.
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I would think that working for PP is already a life destroying experience, even for its employees.
 
JimG said:
I would think that working for PP is already a life destroying experience, even for its employees.
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Abortion is not the only thing planned parenthood does, and I bet the people who answer the phones don’t have anything to do with abortion. The kind of people who work answering phones are probably relatively poor people who need a job to support their families.
 
flyingfish said:
Abortion is not the only thing planned parenthood does, and I bet the people who answer the phones don’t have anything to do with abortion. The kind of people who work answering phones are probably relatively poor people who need a job to support their families.
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I don’t doubt that they need jobs. It’s just that working for a business which makes big profits from the killing of unborn children has got to be soul deadening in itself. It would be sort of like being the secretary for a mafia hit man who also runs legitimate businesses.
 
JimG said:
I don’t doubt that they need jobs. It’s just that working for a business which makes big profits from the killing of unborn children has got to be soul deadening in itself. It would be sort of like being the secretary for a mafia hit man who also runs legitimate businesses.
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Even if you see it that way, do you think you can justify lying to the secretary in a way that can ruin her life to do some damage to the hit man?
 
frindro said:
Online I found a pro-life website that had a person phone Planned Parenthood and pretend to offer a donation, but specifically to kill a black baby for racist reasons.
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This tells me a lot about the moral calibre of that pro-life agency.😦
 
No offense, but an unsupported, “I found an online web site that claims it is prolife and engaged in a lie to try to ‘trick’ abortion agencies” means what?

A. There is no proof that the poster actually saw any such web site. (no offense to the OP, but anybody can ‘say’ anything, and that doesn’t necessarily mean what they say happened.)
B. Anybody can ‘make’ a web site and make any claim they choose. Doesn’t mean that the claim is truthful or ever happened.
C. Anybody can claim to be an ‘advocate’, and they can even make dubious or immoral choices as an individual, but that doesn’t mean that the group they claim to advocate for does those immoral things OR that it would sanction such things.

Now when I see American Life League, the USCCB and the Vatican all come out and say, “We charge and adjure all Catholics on pain of mortal sin to lie to abortion facilities in an attempt to make them look like racists so that it might convince people to shut the facilities down for racism since they won’t shut them down otherwise”. . . then I’ll believe that this is ‘authentic’ prolife teaching. . .

And I’ll also become Jewish, because if the above ever happens it would mean that Christianity itself was a fraud. For if the Church would thus ‘change’ its teaching (which has been that ‘one may never do evil even if by doing so a ‘good’ may result’), then it isn’t really what it claims to be. And since I do believe in God. . .if Christianity were to be shown as false, the faith that would remain would be Judaism.
 
flyingfish said:
Even if you see it that way, do you think you can justify lying to the secretary in a way that can ruin her life to do some damage to the hit man?
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I don’t think that anybody was trying to ruin a secretary’s life. The point was apparently to see if the abortion clinic was willing to report sexual abuse and statutory rape to the authorities rather than hide it. It sounds like the equivalent of a police sting operation.
 
I think you would need to be careful about that. Lying is a sin and it is also a principle of Catholic and Christian moral theology generally you aren’t allowed to do something evil in order to achieve an apparent or actual good. Much of the church’s arguments in support of the absolute ban on contraceptive use for example, are based on this reasoning (i.e. it is not permissible to do something that is intrinsically evil to bring about a good end, i.e. family planning in a responsible manner).

I also think using deceit to further a moral cause which is highly contentious would tend to discredit the church and its anti-abortion activities. It would at least be scandalous to the reputation of the church because it would demonstrate to people of good-will who haven’t necessarily made up their mind on the issue believers are willing to do anything to achieve their fanatical end, which is ending abortion. If the church is complicit in its members lying or possibly engaging in emotional manipulation and fraud towards the public or people considering an abortion, I think that would do a lot to damage its moral credibility, as the Church holds itself out to be a moral exemplar (in fact infallible on moral matters), yet its members engage in activity everyone would recognise as wrong to further the aim.

I think it would be better to use honesty and rationality as well as compassion rather than deceit to try and win the abortion debate, especially by showing people who are considering abortion compassion rather than self-righteous judgement. I am sure many who had an abortion would not have gone through with the decision if they were shown a decent, respectful, supportive and alternative perspective which while encouraging them to take the pregnancy to term, would ease the burden by promising support.
 
JimG said:
I don’t think that anybody was trying to ruin a secretary’s life. The point was apparently to see if the abortion clinic was willing to report sexual abuse and statutory rape to the authorities rather than hide it. It sounds like the equivalent of a police sting operation.
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It can have those kinds of consequences though. Planned Parenthood would try to cover itself, say those were the actions of a rogue employee who doesn’t represent the views of the organization and fire her.

Also those kinds of things can generate media attention, and the poor secretary can find herself unemployable, and she may have a family to support.
 
I believe the OP and others may be referring to undercover investigations (carried out by pro-lifers) at Planned Parenthood such as those shown at this site:

liveaction.org/
 
frindro said:
Online I found a pro-life website that had a person phone Planned Parenthood and pretend to offer a donation, but specifically to kill a black baby for racist reasons. The four abortion mills that were phoned expressed no problem with this.
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LindaSK said:
Could you give a link to the website, please?
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frindro,

We’re still waiting for that link.
 
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