Fake Clinics, Fake Comments
Now, before I go off and start accusing somebody of fostering a "terrible deception" without cause, let me just say that I'm not saying that Dawn "Amanda's favorite Anti-Feminist" Eden is a duplicitous hypocrite. Just that it would be awwwfully ironic if she were.
For those of you who don't read the comments, Dawn (the raving evangelist) left a comment under the name "raving atheist" on my last post (see, the irony starts early).
Now, I don't know much about Dawn, but a quick look at her blog convinces me that while she does in fact rave (not that raving is bad--if you didn't like raving, you wouldn't be reading my blog, now would you?), she is far from an atheist.
So, why would she leave comments under that name?
More curiously, why would she leave comments under that name that were ambiguous enough to be completely misinterpreted:
I hate it when people get so evangelical about a topic that they start spreading lies. I've posted about the terrible deception here and here. Spread the word so that the truth gets out!Let's look at this for a moment: the post to which that comment responds is about a "terrible deception." Without a mention of a second "terrible deception," one would expect a reasonable reader to assume that Dawn was, in fact, referring to the "terrible deception" of which Crisis Pregnancy Centers are accused. Why would you assume that it referred to anything else?
Then we get the buzz word, "evangelical." Now, I grant you that "evangelical" can have any number of connotations, but in the context of religious-based anti-feminism, I think we all (and that includes you, Dawn) know what the reasonable reader is going to assume. She is going to assume that Dawn is referring to Evangelical Christian anti-choice activists, thereby solidifying the impression that she (the reasonable reader) had in the first place, that Dawn is referring to the actions of the Crisis Pregnancy Centers as a "terrible deception."
Finally, in an action directly reminiscent of the appeal that occasioned the post in question (an appeal from Planned Parenthood to, as it were, "get the word out" about a "terrible deception"), Dawn urges us to spread the truth, and shows us helpful sources where we can get information with which to fight the good fight.
And so when we click on her links, do we find what any reasonable reader might expect? No. We find volunteer counselors posing as medical practitioners who feed us emotional half-truths and misleading pamphlets with gory pictures of ..
--Oh, wait a minute. Silly me. I'm confusing Dawn's real, verifiable actions with the "terrible deception" that Planned Parenthood has accused Crisis Pregnancy Centers of carrying out. Not to be confused with the "terrible deception" that Dawn is accusing Planned Parenthood of when they accuse Crisis Pregnancy Centers of doing exactly the type of thing that Dawn just came all the way to my teeny little blog to do.
Confused? Yeah, me too.
But, fortunately, I'm a Former English Major, so I'm experienced in explicating tangles of multi-layered irony. Let's break it down:
- Planned Parenthood accuses Crisis Pregnancy Centers of committing an unethical deception: making people think they are going to provide medical counseling when in fact they are providing arguments that attack the very credibility, ethicality, and legality of the medical counseling (and related procedures).
- I write a post about said accusation from Planned Parenthood against Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
- Dawn Eden, under a deceptive (although apparently regularly used) screen name, posts a comment which bears a (deliberately?) deceptive resemblance to a comment supporting Planned Parenthood in its accusation Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
- Said comment would appear--to a reasonable reader--to direct people to sources of information they can use to deal with the terrible thing that is happening.
- Upon arriving at the source, however, people will instead find arguments that attack the very credibility, ethicality, and legality of the accusation made by Planned Parenthood against Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
- Dawn accuses Planned Parenthood of " terrible deception."
- That supposed "deception" consists of falsely accusing Crisis Pregnancy Centers of deception.
- Yet Dawn commits (intentionally or not--but I'm guessing she knows what she's doing) the exact deception that she insists Crisis Pregnancy Centers are not committing.
posted by RJ @ 8:41 PM
16 comments
links to this post
16 Comments:
The Raving Atheist is Dawn Eden's yappy lap dog who occasionally beats something out on the keyboard with his scratchy paws. He's a dude that thinks abortion should be illegal and punishable by law because the world couldn't turn, wouldn't turn, if *HE* had been aborted.
We need to turn the tables:
http://skorohnomis.blogspot.com/2006/03/pro-sanity.html
For the record, the Raving Atheist is a real person who is not me, and this may easily be proved. He contributed to the atheist documentary "The God Who Wasn't There." I don't believe the documentary would have accepted a contributor who was not, in fact, an atheist. He speaks in the documentary and is quite clearly a man.
Also, he has a long history as a blogger who is very clearly not me, and again, you could have discovered that had you bothered..
If you want to call me names and deride my own blog's entries, that's your prerogative. You don't do yourself any favors by presenting yourself as an accurate source and then printing information that can be easily discovered as false.
For the record, the Raving Atheist is a real person who is not me
My Bad. I was alterted to that by the very first commenter. Mea Culpa.
You don't do yourself any favors by presenting yourself as an accurate source and then printing information that can be easily discovered as false.
Agreed. See preceeding mea culpa [that is, assuming we're talking about Raving, and not about the clinic story itself. I have yet to see anything reselmbling proof that the story is not 100% accurate. I'm not saying that it is (although I have no reason to doubt it), but I'm surprised that the anti-choice blogosphere is running around insisting that it's been "proven" false. Maybe I shouldn't be--after all, a lot of these are the same people who insist that Evolution has been "proven" false].
Also, Dawn, do you--for the record--deny that your orignial post was an attempt to trick people into visiting your blog by making them think that they would be getting more information on the Planned Parenthood story from a pro-choice viewpoint?
Dawn, do you--for the record--deny that your orignial post was an attempt to trick people into visiting your blog by making them think that they would be getting more information on the Planned Parenthood story from a pro-choice viewpoint?
RJ,
Despite your mea culpa, you still seem to have trouble understanding that the original comment was mine, not Dawn's. So she's not in a position to discuss the intention behind the comment. But let's look at it, and maybe I can help you out.
I hate it when people get so evangelical about a topic that they start spreading lies.
I was talking about YOU and your unquestioning willingness to spread of Planned Parenthood's highly suspect propaganda. You repeated their unsourced allegations on your blog without the slightest investigation. Anybody reading my post at The Dawn Patrol and comparing my analysis to yours would have recognized this.
The word "evangelical" doesn't have strictly religious connotations. I'm atheist and get accused of being evangelical all time. There's also a blog called "the Evangelical Atheist.' I don't know what your religious beliefs are, but your original post on this topic was certainly evangelical.
I've posted about the terrible deception here and here. Spread the word so that the truth gets out!
My post was a balanced review of the existing evidence, which suggests that PP has likely engaged in deception. Despite your claim that there's no "Ironclad Truth that PP is lying" (a ridiculous standard of proof to apply when the issue is whether an organization should float a story for national lobbying and fundraising purposes), the links I've provided do support a substantial case for lying. They lead to photographs of the CPC, which raise serious question as to whether any reasonable person could have thought they were in an abortion clinic. They also point to the absence of a police report, which would have been routine had the CPC tricked the cops into making a false arrest.
I think you might have better served your readers if you had reprinted my posts at the Dawn Patrol and done a line-by-line analysis of why Planned Parenthood's version of events is more likely to be accurate than those who are disputing it. You might have also acknowledged that in both posts, I stated that the CPC should be shut down if the story was true. I wasn't defending the organization at any cost, in the way you seem to be defending PP.
Anon,
I've been blogging on a wide range of topics on my own site for nearly five years. People who are interested in my actual position on abortion can read my posts on it here rather than relying on your ad hominem, fact-free characterization of my views.
As to being Ms. Eden's lap-dog, if you read through my blog you'll immediately recognize sharp differences in our approach to religion. I've directly criticized her (see here, for example). Bark Bite seems to agree with Amanda on some topics, but that doesn't make BB her lapdog. Nor does the fact that BB and I share the experience of having Amanda delete our comments for no reason at all make us each other's lapdogs.
Raving:
Sorry about calling you "Dawn" again. It's stuck in my head. No malice intended. Feel free to remind me if I do it again.
I was talking about YOU and your unquestioning willingness to spread of Planned Parenthood's highly suspect propaganda...Anybody reading my post at The Dawn Patrol and comparing my analysis to yours would have recognized this.
Yes-once they got to your site, it would be obvious that you were talking about me (that's the jist of the above post). My suspicion is that you worded your comment in a deliberately ambiguous way so that people who wanted to hear more about the story from a pro-choice viewpoint would go over there, thinking that the evangelical people you were referring to were the CPC workers, not me.
[For my part, when I accuse people of spreading rumors and propaganda, I call them by name and let them know what I think they're doing wrong.]
If you wanted people to have a clear idea of the content of your blog, you could have said something to the effect of "The Planned Parenthood story appears to be a hoax. Click here for more details."
The word "evangelical" doesn't have strictly religious connotations...your original post on this topic was certainly evangelical.
Strictly speaking, true. But in this context, it's hard to imagine people wouldn't assume a religious meaning to the word.
If, in the middle of discussion about reproductive rights--and the obstruction thereof by religiously-motivated activists--one makes disparaging use of the word "evangelical" without any qualifiers, 98% of the readers are going to assume you mean evangelism of the religious type. I think that's pretty obvious, and it makes the post misleading, deliberately or not.
My post was a balanced review of the existing evidence, which suggests that PP has likely engaged in deception.
We will have to agree to disagree on both of those points. We clearly have different standards of what we consider "balanced" and how much evidence you need to accuse someone of lying. [BTW, I make no pretense that this blog is balanced]
the links I've provided do support a substantial case for lying. They lead to photographs of the CPC, which raise serious question as to whether any reasonable person could have thought they were in an abortion clinic. They also point to the absence of a police report, which would have been routine had the CPC tricked the cops into making a false arrest.
I don't think that either of those counts as substantial. The failure to turn up a police report is worth following up on, but again, not enough to accuse someone of lying.
I think you might have better served your readers if you had reprinted my posts at the Dawn Patrol and done a line-by-line analysis of why Planned Parenthood's version of events is more likely to be accurate than those who are disputing it.
I don't really think it needs refuting. I think any of my readers who chose to visit your site will come to their own conclusions. I feel fairly confident I know what those conclusions would be. Anyone want to take me up on that?
I wasn't defending the organization at any cost, in the way you seem to be defending PP.
Neither of my posts defends PP. The first one simply tells the story and gives my take on it. The second is not a defense of PP, but rather a criticism of what I consider to be deceptive commenting--and an appreciation of the fact that the deceptive comment practices the same deceptive tactic that the CPC's are accused of.
I would defend PP if I thought it necessary and justified, but at this point I don't see anything substantial to defend them against.
And since you didn't directly answer the question: Raving, do you--for the record--deny that your orignial post was an attempt to trick people into visiting your blog by making them think that they would be getting more information on the Planned Parenthood story from a pro-choice viewpoint?
BB and I share the experience of having Amanda delete our comments for no reason at all
No. As far as I know, Amanda has never deleted any of my comments. I whined a couple of posts ago because one of my comments didn't show up, but it never crossed my mind that Amanda deleted it. Nor does it seem at all likely now--especially since the second time I posted it, it appeared without a problem, and it's still up on the comment thread. A little investigation would have found that.
I also find it very hard to believe that Amanda would delete anyone's comments for no reason at all. I've seen some pretty abusive and juvenile comments at Pandagon, so I think you'd have to give Amanda a good reason to get deleted. Not that you'd necessarily agree with the reasoning, but it wouldn't be capricious.
[PS-- bark/bite is the name of the blog--I'm RJ.]
do you--for the record--deny that your original post was an attempt to trick people into visiting your blog by making them think that they would be getting more information on the Planned Parenthood story from a pro-choice viewpoint?
Yes, I deny it. I'm 100% certain that had I said instead "go here for evidence that the PP story is a hoax," even MORE people would have clicked on the link to see what the controversy was about. Especially passionate pro-choicers who, like passionate anti-choicers, like to debate. Are you suggesting that pro-choicers would have refused to click on the link because their minds are so closed they won't consider any evidence to the contrary?
I suppose I could have said "I hate it when people LIKE YOU get so evangelical that they start spreading lies." Perhaps your readers need more spoon-feeding than most. Sorry if I caused any trauma to those who took a half-second to click on a link and be exposed to a view they might disagree with.
I resent your implication that the entire abortion debate arises from the attempts of "religiously-motivated" activists to oppose the practice on faith-based grounds. First, I'm an atheist who volunteers at a CPC, and opposes abortion on purely secular grounds. There's an organization called The Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League that shares my view. Second, there are plenty of religious, evangelical pro-choicers (see here), so even if someone was fooled into thinking the term "evangelical" refers to religion they wouldn't necessarily know which side of the abortion debate was being identified. I would also note that the attempt to cast the abortion debate in religious terms was the cynical strategy of the pro-choice movement of the 1960's, who realized it would be easier to excite anti-Catholic sentiment with slogans like "keep your rosaries off my ovaries" than to debate the matter on the merits.
You say you don't see anything substantial to defend PP against. The problem is, they haven't asserted any substantiated facts at all. They've sent out a story in an e-mail and asked people to believe it on faith. I think you might learn something from this pro-choice blogger, who thinks that "Planned Parenthood is a really good organization that provides valuable services" but nevertheless reacted to the email with a post entitled "Planned Parenthood now resorting to lies and propaganda?"
I also find it very hard to believe that Amanda would delete anyone's comments for no reason at all.
Comment banning for mere disagreement with the the pro-choice position isn't unusual. As I document here,I've been banned from Pandagon, Feministe and BushvChoice for nothing more than that.
Perhaps your readers need more spoon-feeding than most. Sorry if I caused any trauma to those who took a half-second to click on a link and be exposed to a view they might disagree with.
Now, there's no reason to be rude.
I resent your implication that the entire abortion debate arises from the attempts of "religiously-motivated" activists to oppose the practice on faith-based grounds.
Not the entire thing, but 98% of the energy comes from the religious aspect. If the religon-based activists packed up and went home tomorrow, there would be no significant anti-choice movement.
Which is one of my main beefs. I'd much, much prefer it if the majority of anti-choice activists were working from secular standpoints. It's like Intelligent Design--if it weren't for the religious activists, ID would simply not exist. That's what makes it so scary to me--it's a whole bunch of people trying to write laws and/or make the government run according to their religious beliefs. I assume that as an atheist, you feel something similar.
even if someone was fooled into thinking the term "evangelical" refers to religion they wouldn't necessarily know which side of the abortion debate was being identified
I didn't say that using the term "evangelical" made it 100% clear who was being referred to--my point was that in this context, the overwhelming majority are going to assume you mean religiously-motivated anti-choice activists. Like if you and I were watching Pro-ID protesters and anti-ID protesters, and I said "Gosh, those darn Evangelicals sure get me het up," I think it's fair to assume that at least 90% of people would assume I meant the pro-ID folks.
The problem is, they haven't asserted any substantiated facts at all. They've sent out a story in an e-mail and asked people to believe it on faith.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. Generally, without evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that people are telling me the truth. Even when I hear outrageous stories from the Christian Right, I tend to assume that the facts are basically accurate, but that they are being told selectively, and with a healthy dose of bias and/or exaggeration. It takes a lot for me to accuse someone of outright lying.
PP is an organization in which I do have a lot of faith. I understand that you don't, but given the lack of compellng evidence, I kinda feel like it's "honest until proven lying."
And then, yeah--if it turns out they're lying, I'm going to be hella pissed at them, and you can bet I'd damn well never pass on one of their press releases without something to back it up. And probably not even then.
But--in the hopes that we can move this in productive direction, I'd like to ask you a question. And this is not intended to be a "gotcha" question of any kind--it's something I wonder about, and I'd like to get a non-religious perspective on.
I'm going to assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that your secular opposition to abortion is somewhere along the lines of "abortion is murder." What I don't understand is why people who are opposed to abortion on rational, non-religious grounds attack organizations like Planned Parenthood, without regard to the fact that they provide so much contraception, sterilization, and sex-ed and thereby prevent Goddess knows how many abortions every year?
I understand that PP is the largest single provider of abortions, but it only makes up 9% of their business--even if you think that's low, and double it, it's less than one-fifth. I think if I were anti-abortion, I'd be thinking something along the lines of "Contraception is an obvious way to prevent abortions. I hate the fact that Planned Parenthood performs so many abortions, but they are also in a position to make a huge impact through sterilization, sex-ed, and contraception. Let's focus on increasing the effectiveness of those efforts, and the abortions will decline automatically."
Does that make sense?
As I document here,I've been banned from Pandagon
I'm afraid I wasn't able to follow the documentation. The link in the comment to which the link on Dawn Patrol leads leads to a 404 error on Pandagon (Geez. Could I be any more convoluted).
At any rate, without seeing the deleted comment, I'd still have to say that I find it hard to believe. Of course, maybe Amanda was in a particularly bad mood that day--it could happen. But it doesn't square with my familiarity with the blog. Maybe she made a special exception in your case ;)
I happened to find this blog post from technorati, and ended up reading this whole "comment war".
Does anybody remember the real issue that brought us here in the first place? Planned Parenthood using deceptive tactics that charge crisis pregnancy centers with being deceptive.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know that has done the necessary research, and found that the email not only sounds like an urban legend, but is in fact not true.
He used the sparse and general information from the original Planned Parenthood email to figure out which crisis pregnancy center shares a parking lot with a Planned Parenthood clinic. He then checked with the Indianapolis police to have them do a record search of any complaints filed by the CPC or against the CPC. None turned up. Also, due to the alleged harassment and intimidation, as well as the litigious nature of Planned Parenthood, he decided to check the Marion County Circuit Court's records for any lawsuits, pending or past, against the CPC - again, none were found. He has since by issuing a press release challenging Planned Parenthood to either give factual details that lend credence to their original email, or have the courage to denounce it as an urban legend, a myth, and a hoax.
Hope this gets everyone back on track to the real issue. Quarreling is useless - let's get back to the matter at hand.
Thank you.
sorry - forgot to close the link
"the email not only sounds like an urban legend, but is in fact not true."
I'm really suprised that you would say this, and then go on to cite a list of circumstantial evidence.
As someone who researches professionally, I wouldn't call that "the necessary research." Having the gall to insist that you've "proven" a major organization to be lying (which anti-choice writers have been doing at least since the day Amanda's article came out) when all you've got is circumstantial evidence really makes you look bad.
If it's so clearly a hoax, and if everyone has figured out which CPC it is, why hasn't someone interviewed the staff there? If you had CPC staff swearing under oath that none of it ever happened, that would be solid evidence (although still not proof).
And no, Planned Parenthood lying is not "the matter at hand." At least on this blog, the CPC's deceptive actions are "the matter at hand"--read my original post.
Look--PP may, in fact, be lying. That's a valid possibility. But the anti-choice activists are either using a embarassingly low standard of proof, or cynically running around telling anyone who will listen that they've proven PP lied when they know they've done no such thing.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: there's a lot of overlap between the anti-choice activists and the people who believe that evolution's been "proven" wrong. From what I'm hearing in this debate, they have the same contempt for legal reasoning that they do for scientific reasoning.
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