Opinion

CHERRY HILL, NJ, May 13, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A rational person must assume that pro-life volunteers are lying through their teeth when they produce video footage of abortionists agreeing on camera to engage in illegal activity, but a paid and coached actress is telling the truth when she unveils heavily edited film of her allegedly “positive abortion experience.” At least, that's the unspoken assumption behind the media's reaction to Emily Letts' YouTube video of her abortion.

Letts found the fame that eluded her as an actress after the mainstream media gave uncritical saturation coverage to the video of “her own abortion,” which she uploaded to YouTube. A LifeSiteNews.com reader pointed out that, strictly speaking, it is not a video of her abortion; it's a video of her child's abortion.

Or at least, it purports to be. As anyone who has seen the video knows, it does not show the abortion procedure, the doctor, nor anything below her waist – a fact I noted in my initial coverage of the video. [1] The clip she posted is only three minutes long, and most of that shows her giggling, making faces, or saying “I just want to share my story” in tones of aching sincerity that can only be produced by the totally disingenuous. We have only the word of Emily Letts that this is, in fact, a film of an actual abortion.

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Contrast the reception she has gotten to that of Live Action, the undercover investigative group founded by Lila Rose. Every time Live Action releases a video, Big Abortion and its media allies insist the video was “heavily edited” and demand the group release the unedited footage – which, to its credit, Live Action has.

But when a professional actress and abortion industry employee releases a video that shows 60 seconds of a medical procedure, which in no way depicts that medical procedure, I’d expect a modicum of scrutiny.

My doubts increased after Letts admitted her employers at the Cherry Hill Women’s Center “wanted to sit down and talk about the real consequences of this. There are a lot of politics involved.” Letts has since not missed an opportunity to spout the abortion industry's talking points in the most superlative terms. Not only did she have no regrets, she said, “I feel super great about having an abortion.” [2]

Call me cynical or jaded, but when an abortion industry that is based on lies hires a professional actress to tell her “honest, genuine story” after extensively discussing the political ramifications of her message and she emerges doing PR on steroids, it engenders an iota of skepticism in me – albeit a skepticism absent from almost everyone else who has covered this story to date. The only writer to question the video's authenticity after my first report was Kristen Iglesias at Clash Daily. Others are now beginning to raise questions.

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Is it possible Letts' over-the-top heartlessness was a form of misdirection of the sort found in magic, professional wrestling, or…politics?

Letts seemed befuddled when asked that very question on BBC Radio. Letts was flabbergasted when a BBC caller said her abortion was inauthentic, leading Letts to give the pro-life critic a bizarre and rambling answer. “I don't know what to say to that,” she eventually stammered before launching into a defensive recounting of the fact that she had eaten a salad for breakfast and that her digestive system works. (“I fart. I poop.”)

But the closest she came to a denial was saying, “This is my genuine, honest story.” That word, so carefully chosen, holds a variety of meanings. It can mean a family anecdote, such as “the story about how Uncle Jim proposed to Aunt Sally.” Or it can be a story in the sense of, “Once upon a time….”

There is one way for you to prove the truth of your “story,” Emily: Live up to the same standard your industry applies to Live Action. Release the full footage of the abortion itself.

Please blur your reproductive anatomy, but show the doctor plying his trade. Please show the cannula, the humming noise of the suction machine swirling inside you (and your baby), and the tube leading to a jar of blood in which float the tissue and body parts of your child, the one you felt so thrilled about creating. Prove to us that the procedure occurred at all. After giving viewers the full story, a complete depiction of the barbarity of the procedure, they can decide if they truly believe your abortion was a net “positive.”

Otherwise, drop out of the public discussion of your “abortion.” Go back and wait for the director to call you for the sequel to Hallow's Eve.

And in either case, please take a class on how to ad lib dialogue. The last time I heard anyone over the age of 11 utter the phrase “super-great,” it was Bob Saget on Full House. Is that who you want as a role model for your acting career?

ENDNOTES:

1. “Although the video purports to depict an abortion, neither the abortionist nor the baby are shown at any time, with the camera remaining focused exclusively on Letts throughout.”

2. For instance, she told Philadelphia Magazine, “When people think about abortion, they think about people waving signs, death threats, doctors dying.” (Actually, most people think about hopeless women, sleazy doctors, filthy “clinics,” and babies dying.) She said she was not using contraception because she didn't want to put “hormones in my body.” (See? People who oppose contraception are responsible for my abortion!) She wanted to get an IUD years ago, “but it was like $600.” (Oh, the population control lobby's favorite contraceptive is “free” under the HHS mandate now? Thanks, ObamaCare!) As an abortion counselor she always, always, always tells women about all their options, including keeping the baby and adoption, and has even sent women home because she thought they weren't ready. And she certainly has no regrets about her abortion. Her message is, in the words of one parody video, that “abortions are like going to a petting zoo.”

Cross-posted at TheRightsWriter.com.