The debate about Planned Parenthood

Cynthia M. Allen continues her usual pattern of distorting the truth to misinform the ill-informed. (“Abortion is a business and kids are a commodity,” July 17)

Abortion clinics do operate as businesses, because that’s the way they fund their existence, but they are not involved in the buying or selling of children.

Some clinics do supply medical researchers with fetal tissue. The alternative for disposing of the tissue is to incinerate it.

Excised fetal tissue will continue to exist as long as the 14th Amendment protects a woman’s right to abortion before viability. No major effort is underway to alter our Constitution and remove this right.

Given the choice of medical research, which heals bodies and saves lives, most logical people would choose research over incineration of the tissue.

Let’s all hope it’s not our loved ones who are affected by Allen’s opinions.

— Larry Mason, Azle

This is just another story about liberal immorality, where one human atrocity begets another — that is, they kill one baby in the hope its “research” might save another? The compassion escapes me.

— Richard M. Holbrook,

Weatherford

The underhanded taping of a meeting with a senior official of Planned Parenthood while claiming to be representatives of a company acquiring fetal tissue for research was abominable. Yet Allen has the audacity to use it to try to prove her argument.

— Bill Newsom, Edgecliff Village

Does the video not send a chill down your spine? How can that be washed over and minimized?

Please help stop this monstrous machine. Contact everyone from the president on down and demand that Planned Parenthood be stopped once and for all.

— Kathy O’Neil, Fort Worth

Where’s the outrage over the people who faked an interview and taped and edited it to suit their bias? I think they should be sued, at least.

Planned Parenthood is a safety net for women with any health issues. Abortion is rare. In unfair dealing with Planned Parenthood, healthcare for many women has been eliminated.

In our family, we donate the bodies of family members who have died to places that are learning and studying to become health professionals. I consider tissue and organs from any source that will no longer be used to be life-giving. I was glad to hear that such tissues from abortion would be used to enhance the lives of others.

Even fewer abortions would happen with good sex education in schools and better access to birth control.

— Judy Crow O’Donnell, Fort Worth

The allegation that Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true. Abortion is the failure of readily available birth control.

In my 70-plus years, I’ve known of 10 unwelcome pregnancies.

Four women aborted, finished college with professional careers, married and had a family. Six women had an unwelcome baby, all dropped out of school and were trapped in a “shotgun” marriage or lived in single-parent misery. Some became depressed, even suicidal. Grandparents rejected adoption.

Unwelcome parenthood is a recipe for disaster and misery. Planned Parenthood works to make every pregnancy welcome. Readily available birth control is the best answer to reduce abortions. No one likes abortion, but sometimes it is the best of bad options. Those who wish to eliminate the option are merchants of misery.

— Steve Hadley, Benbrook

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 5:47 PM with the headline "The debate about Planned Parenthood."