Katie Couric, the Yahoo Global News anchor, recently interviewed an official from a Queens, New York Planned Parenthood facility. The video, “What an Abortion Treatment Room Really Looks Like,” was posted online and it was quite interesting. But it did not deserve a letter grade of A, B, C, D, or F; rather, it merited an I, for Incomplete.
Three rooms were featured in the video: the waiting, treatment, and recovery room. They were spanking clean. The staff was professional, though for some reason the doctor spoke in vague terms. For example, she spoke about the “procedure,” but never explained exactly what it is. Merriam-Webster defines a “procedure” as “a particular way of accomplishing something or of acting.” It would be helpful if the viewer knew what the doctor was seeking to accomplish. Similarly, we learned that the “procedure” ended with a “termination.” But termination implies a beginning. What was it that began, and how did it begin?
The story deserved an Incomplete grade because it inexplicably ended by showing the recovery room. We never learned the fate of that which was terminated. By way of analogy, if a reporter did a story on “What a Funeral Parlor Room Really Looks Like,” and ended with the body being shown in a casket, it would beg the question, “What happens to the body next?” That would require Part II; it would focus on the gravesite.
We need a Part II to the abortion story. We need to see what happens to that which was terminated. To be specific, what does Planned Parenthood do with the terminated remains? Or to be blunt, “What happens to the body next?”
