Glenn Grothman: wrong for using press releases instead of the telephone.

Hi everyone,

Glenn loves these press releases. Here's the latest:

Grothman Asks UW Researchers Hard Questions About Harvesting Body Parts from Aborted Babies

-- except, of course, he didn't.

The "press release" is another bait-and-switch. The scary headline is the bait.

Here's the switch: Glenn doesn't seem to have asked any "UW Researchers" anything at all. His "press release" merely says that the UW should distance itself from any involvement with second trimester abortions -- even though there are laws preventing public money from being spent on abortions (aren't there?).

But wait a sec, what was that about "organ harvesting" from aborted fetuses??? Glenn continues by citing a press release from The Alliance Defense Fund, one of those deep pocket Christian fundamentalist fronts, claiming that "UW researchers may be using body parts from these babies for research."

I'm sorry, "may"?

A lot of late term abortions are performed for medical rather than contraceptive reasons. When that happens it would be irresponsible not to examine tissue from the fetus to see what caused the trouble. A few slides of tissue to help understand the illness, and prevent abortions in the future, is not the same as 'harvesting organs.'

Unless, of course, you need the headline.

So, let's review: Glen's headline misleads about the content of the press release, then cites another press release that may or may not be true, that includes the claim his headline claims he's making.

Right.

What's particularly weird about this is that Glenn, back when he was in the Assembly, before the TABOR-hero makeover, was always terrifically good about phoning people to ask questions. He even used to call me.

It would be helpful to know if he'd actually spoken to someone at UW about this or if he'd bothered to ask an aid to check the exhaustive UW System ethics procedures that speak to these kinds of questions.

So, looks like any hope for post-partisan change from Senator Grothman is going to be a bridge to nowhere.

hiho
Mp