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Idaho Law Against Recording Abuses On Factory Farms Ruled Unconstitutional

onproton writes: An Idaho law that made it illegal to record and document animal abuse or dangerous hygienic practices in agricultural facilities, often referred to as an 'ag-gag' law, was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge on Monday. The judge concluded that the law restricted constitutionally protected free speech, and contradicted "long-established defamation and whistleblowing statutes by punishing employees for publishing true and accurate recordings on matters of public concern." Idaho is just one of several states to pass this type of law, which allow food production facilities to censor some unfavorable forms of speech at their convenience. Under the Idaho statute, an employee that witnessed and recorded an incident, even if it depicted true and life-threatening health or safety violations, could be faced with a year in jail and fines of up to "twice the economic loss the owner suffers." In his ruling (PDF), the judge stated that this was "precisely the type of speech the First Amendment was designed to protect." This decision has raised questions about the constitutionality of these types of laws in other states as well, and it's likely that there will be more legal battles ahead.

363 comments

  1. Re:Good news, and all... by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nerds like me eat food too, and I think it is important that abuse of animals is not kept secret. The ag industry should either fix their problems, or be subjected to more regulation and oversight.

    --
    A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
  2. Wow! by MagickalMyst · · Score: 1

    A judge that rules in favor of righteousness. Impressive!

    --
    Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
    1. Re:Wow! by hucker75 · · Score: 1

      For animal abuse, I agree. But not for the health and safety bullshit.

  3. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think the 1st amendment applies to US nerds as well.

  4. Stuff that matters by sjbe · · Score: 1

    but how is this news for nerds?

    It's "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". You've got a low enough user ID you should know that. This falls under the stuff that matters though I'm pretty sure nerds care about free speech too. Plus more than a few of us actually care about animal abuse.

    1. Re:Stuff that matters by Nutria · · Score: 1

      This falls under the stuff that matters

      That's such a broad enough charter as to make any sort of nerd filter meaningless.

      though I'm pretty sure nerds care about free speech too.

      Then every free speech case in the country is going to be posted on /.?

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:Stuff that matters by sjbe · · Score: 1

      That's such a broad enough charter as to make any sort of nerd filter meaningless.

      There have always been stories on slashdot for stuff that doesn't involve science and microchips. You should know that by now. Very little of the Snowden stuff really is about technology. It's about government overreach, free speech, violation of constitutional rights, etc. The fact that it happened on a computer is almost incidental.

      Then every free speech case in the country is going to be posted on /.?

      Have you seen every free speech case posted on slashdot? Seriously, let it go my friend. It's an important topic worthy of discussion. If no one cares then it will get ignored.

  5. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People are afforded (allegedly) some level of privacy. Livestock, not so much.

  6. How did this even get passed in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let me guess, legislative capture?

  7. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or the industry should be completely abolished. There's no reason to breed and kill them. Just eat beans and whole grains for protein and iron.

  8. Re:Cool by TheReaperD · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except, it doesn't apply. This case is about videos that are shown to be about factual events that are displayed in a truthful format that are both covered under the 1st amendment and would likely also be protected under whistleblower laws. The "abortion tissue" videos aren't covered under either. The 1st amendment does not protect you in cases of libel, slander or creating a public danger and whistleblower laws do not cover non-employees in most cases. The supposed Planned Parenthood videos were blocked by a court of law as they were found to be, at best, a carefully edited mischaracterization of a meeting where what was likely a completely legal conversation was warped into an apparent conversation about an illegal act or, at worst, a complete fabrication created by paid actors to switfboat Planned Parenthood during an election year. Either apparent version of events would put the video clearly in the category of libel and therefore, not protected speech by law. Though we do not know all the facts in the case yet, the judge found enough evidence that the video was libelous to put an injunction against further release until it can be investigated fully.

    --
    "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  9. Re:Good news, and all... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but how is this news for nerds?

    It involves technology & free speech. How isn't it news for nerds?

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  10. Re:Cool by jabuzz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is different. If and it is a big IF you had the consent of the woman undergoing the procedure then it would probably be O.K. to make and distribute the video of the abortion.

    In the absence of such consent it is highly unlikely to be permissible to invade the privacy of the woman. In addition there are issues around patient confidentiality for medical procedures. There is also a lack of a public interest waver around an abortion because it has no impact on you personally and is not in contravention of any laws.

  11. How?! by maugle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How were these clearly bogus laws voted in, in the first place? It seems pretty obvious that documenting health/safety violations would be protected from legal retaliation, much like how truth is an absolute defense against libel charges. Otherwise, there's no point to even having health or safety codes, if corporations can just say "yeah yeah, we're up to code, but no peeking!"

    1. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, what a waste of time and money first getting this law passed and then to strike it down.

      There ought to be a penalty for a legislature that passes a law that is later struck down. That would put an end this kind of bullshit waste.

    2. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There ought to be a penalty for passing laws to begin with.

      If they had to think twice about doing such things, maybe they wouldn't waste resources passing "feel good", politically-motivated, or lobbyist-paid laws.

      In fact, just to make sure the lobbyists don't outbid the penalties, we should make the penalty be non-monetary. Say, chop off a digit for each law passed.

    3. Re:How?! by Yunzil · · Score: 1

      How were these clearly bogus laws voted in, in the first place?

      The clue is in the first word of the headline.

    4. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No need for a penalty per se, but a simple weighting of legislator's votes. Make their vote equivalent to one minus the percentage of bills they voted for that were later overturned in a court of law.

    5. Re:How?! by swb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My guess is that the argument went something like this:

      The public doesn't understand livestock farming beyond what is shown in Little Golden Books read to preschoolers, ie farmer Brown with a handful of free-range, pet-like animals who can recite their ABCs. Animal rights activists will use carefully edited imagery showing normal agricultural practices structured in a way that will shock the public and cause harm to farmers generally and possibly individual farmers specifically.

      I think there's no question the law is bad and seems designed to shield the worst big-ag factory farming practices. But it probably got buy-in from farmers, people who have been on working farms and likely even hunters because they have some understanding of the difference between livestock raised and killed for food and pets.

      There's probably also a general animosity in a rural state to the entire line of reasoning promoted by PETA and other similar groups who are seen as promoting radical ideas.

      I can't defend the law, but I can sort of understand the mindset that went into it. Animal rights groups kind of do to animal agriculture what the anti-abortion people recently did to Planned Parenthood -- carefully edited videos designed to show their opponent in the worst possible light to people who have no idea what normal day-to-day activity is in a place they don't have any experience with.

      I'd wager a side of free-range, organic beef that if Planned Parenthood could get a law passed against hidden camera exposes in their clinics they would do it because they know that their opponents aren't using such footage to provide a balanced, fair and informative documentary, they're doing it to create shocking propaganda to promote their political position.

    6. Re:How?! by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let penalize the voters for electing corrupt legislators... I mean, if we want to take it to its logical limit. But we have to admit, the voters are responsible, especially when these people are reelected.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    7. Re:How?! by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

      Planned Parenthood could get a law passed against hidden camera exposes in their clinics

      they already have laws like this for patient confidentiality

      maybe you'd like to broadcast a video of your prostate exam

    8. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The public didn't actually vote for these laws themselves; it was voted in by a bunch of representatives who were bribed by agriculture corporations. They'll get reelected because the people voting don't care much about free speech and can't let the even WORSE Other Guy win.

      TL;DR: first-past-the-post representative democracy, that's why.

    9. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      maybe you'd like to broadcast a video of your prostate exam

      Didn't you see it? It was up for a while at goatse.cx

    10. Re:How?! by omibus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Idahoan here, and I have friends in the legislature, and I know the guy whose operation was filmed. In this case, no bribes were given because they weren't needed. Most of the legislators in this state are in ag themselves, they were scared shitless that environmental vigilantes would come after them next. All in all, this is an example of "knee-jerk legislation" -- the "we have to do something!" mentality, which is how you get bad laws.

      --
      Bad User. No biscuit!
    11. Re:How?! by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

      Let me first be clear that I absolutely agree such laws are terrible and should be struck down. However...

      How were these clearly bogus laws voted in, in the first place? It seems pretty obvious that documenting health/safety violations would be protected from legal retaliation, much like how truth is an absolute defense against libel charges.

      You actually answered your own question at the end there, because what you said is NOT strictly the case. Contrary to popular belief, truth is NOT always an absolute defense against libel charges. The legal standard is generally actual malice, which means that the standard includes "reckless disregard" of whether something is true or false, not just actual truth or falsehood.

      What this also means is that in some states it is possible to sue people for publishing claims that may be misleading (though technically true) or which bring undue attention that invades someone's privacy without cause. Basically, telling the "truth" without appropriate context in a public forum can be misleading and, under some circumstances, can be considered libel, defamation, or a related actionable tort.

      Just as a simple example -- if I published a front-page newspaper headline which said, "Happy Apple Farms Sells Fruit which Contains POISON!" and then wrote an in-depth article about the horrifying fact that Happy Apple Farms sells food products with cyanide... well, that might be considered defamation if I left out the fact that, well, all apples contain similar small amounts of cyanide, and it isn't considered harmful at that scale. I unfairly singled out a company with misleading (though technically true) information, which would actually apply to all similar products and businesses.

      I'm sure this is part of the justification behind these laws. I don't agree with that justification in this case, but the fact is that factory farms do nasty things which would look horrifying to many members of the public, even when they are "up to code." Some of this is because factory farms are horrible monstrosities, but some of it is also because most members of the public are so divorced from butchering and meat preparation these days that they find standard butchering practices difficult to watch.

      Again, I do NOT think this justifies such laws. But the idea that standard business practices taken out of context might offend public sensibilities is very real in this case.

      (Personally, I think that's up for the public to decide: and if we collectively view videos of these things and demand the farms to shut down -- or provide a bucolic vision of green pastures for every happy cow -- that's our choice to make.)

    12. Re:How?! by houghi · · Score: 1

      Money.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    13. Re:How?! by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Let penalize the voters for electing corrupt legislators... I mean, if we want to take it to its logical limit. But we have to admit, the voters are responsible, especially when these people are reelected.

      Don't you need to have a competency hearing before you assign guilt?

      If they can't even grasp that when power is given to a group of men, corruption is *always* the result, then how can they be said to be competent voters?

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    14. Re:How?! by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Don't you need to have a competency hearing before you assign guilt?

      Only if I am interested in why a crime was committed. And I really can't call it a 'crime' per se. It really is just people acting naturally. They taste raw meat, and there's no going back to Kibbles 'n Bits. Anyway, the whole idea of majority rule is much closer to the brick wall than it appears.

      My favorite Churchill quote is, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter"

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    15. Re:How?! by sjames · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure they did not vote for any candidates that stated up front that they would, if elected, waste scads of money passing unconstitutional laws for their buddies and benefactors. They may even have been stuck with the choice of which corrupt politician they would elect.

      Meanwhile they have already been penalized by having their tax dollars flushed while useful programs go underfunded.

    16. Re:How?! by swb · · Score: 1

      The issue isn't patient privacy -- even people opposed to abortion would find filming a private medical procedure offensive and would reject such tactics.

      The idea behind so many of these "exposes" is to create shock agitprop that convinces neutrals and other fence-sitters that what's being exposed is horrible, etc.

    17. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for the heads-up. In the future I'll change my wording to "representatives whose incentives are in line with those of the agriculture corporations" to encompass both bribes offered and investments kept because of political influence. I was mistaken to assume these representatives were passively waiting for financial opportunity to come to them.

    18. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jail the author.

    19. Re:How?! by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Logic is not independent of emotion. Some people with damaged amygdalas can reason but can't weight any fact as more important than another.

      Dale Carnegie taught that if you had a relationship with people, you would be better at reasoning in ways that benefited them and they would also reason in your favor.

      Given the same facts, we still weight the importance of those facts from unimportant to highly important. It's possible that the legislators were corrupt and passed laws they knew to be unconstitutional and more likely that they had desire to pass the laws so they weighted the likelihood the laws were unconstitutional as low.

      However, as a Twain said, it's hard to reason with someone when their salary is on the line. Major farming states means lots of farmers means votes, power, and future donations flow from pleasing farmers. The legislators are unduly influenced by these facts and make obviously unwise, dumb, unconstitutional decisions.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    20. Re:How?! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Animal rights activists will use carefully edited imagery showing normal agricultural practices structured in a way that will shock the public and cause harm to farmers generally and possibly individual farmers specifically.

      Presumably the farmers can then present their own case (which can even be as simple as "you do want steak, do you?"; or, perhaps, "you do want steak that doesn't cost $50, do you?"). If the public is still too shocked, enough so to boycott the manufacturers and/or push their representative to enact the appropriate animal protection laws, well, it's too bad for the farmers, but it's democracy working as it should.

    21. Re:How?! by dywolf · · Score: 1

      hold up. you gotta walk that statement back a bit.
      sure, the average person isn't familiar with what happens.
      but that doesn't excuse unethical or abusive (even psychopathic as some of the videos have shown) practices.

      things like using a forklift to shove a sick downed cow into the chute is not "normal", and the processing of such animals is illegal for a reason. as is feeding dead piglets to their mother, beating them sledgehammers to make them move faster, or confining them to gestation crates for the entirety of their life in which they cannot move. or packing chickens in such close spaces that they cannibalize each other, or chopping/burning off their beaks so they don't.
      (a woefully inadequate and incomplete list)

      there is a vast difference between what is normal or ethical, and the abuses that have been recorded.

      and while I love meat and bacon and don't plan to give it up, just because such animals are destined for the plate doesn't mean they can or should be subjected to such abuses.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    22. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      maybe you'd like to broadcast a video of your prostate exam

      ... congratulations on demonstrating the GP's main point about why such laws get passed.

      Engage in a civil discussion on a controversial topic, addressing the points laid out by the other side in a thoughtful and constructive manner?

      Nah, let's focus in on a minor, tangential part of the discussion and turn it into a personal attack!

    23. Re:How?! by swb · · Score: 1

      Like I said, I'm not trying to *justify* the law, just *explain* the likely rhetoric and mindset that went into getting it passed.

      I think any kind of prior restraint or punishment for speech is a terrible idea. I think factory farming is pretty gross, too.

      But I also want meat to be affordable, so I'm kind of inclined to believe that some kind of scaling up of livestock production has to happen. I don't know that free-range, natural grass, etc is practical at scale. I kind of think it might be (sort of) if we had more urban, extreme-local type agriculture. Space limitations may inhibit free range grazing and require more use of feed, but it doesn't have to be done factory style and it would probably result in better, fresher meat.

    24. Re:How?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it is illegal for a farmer to sell and butcher cattle. FDA regulations. Of course this was done because "farmers cannot provide the proper environment to process the meat". I remember as a child going to a farm with my father and another man to buy a steer in late October.. They went together to purchase a side of beef. I watched the farmer and my dad kill and butcher the steer. I had to help my cut up and package the beef to prepare it to be frozen. I was not idle during that process because I was fetching this or that. My first introduction as to the reality of where that roast on the table came from. As far as I know there have been no known incidents of sick or infectious cattle sold and slaughtered this way. Another way of putting it E-coli, botulism, listeria or other food distributed illnesses never was an issue with this method I would trust a Amish farmer, Swift Packing not so much. Farmers do not own slaughter houses. Those are owned by.your trust worthy big name brand distributors. sarcasm

    25. Re:How?! by lightbounce · · Score: 1

      Otherwise, there's no point to even having health or safety codes, if corporations can just say "yeah yeah, we're up to code, but no peeking!"

      Actually, livestock operations are subject to random inspections by government inspectors at the federal, state, and county levels.

      Livestock operations can still legally prevent trespassers from entering their property. Of course employees have access to the property, but their employers can prevent them from carrying any recording devices. In practice if an employee does manage to take pictures and sneak them out, there's nothing the livestock operation can do to stop it. It does appear that some people have become employed at livestock operations with the sole purpose of documenting bad practices, so they don't care if they lose their job.

  12. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It isn't. It's just more of the Bolshevik bullshit that 'Climatedot' is trying to brainwash us with every day...

  13. and just in time by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    because I really need to tell people that these Monsanto Triffids(tm) are really getting out of hand!

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  14. Re:Feel free to record this haiku by vivaoporto · · Score: 1
    Actually you missed a great opportunity to combine the two troll lines du jour and still be on topic:

    This haiku can't be censored now according to Idaho laws

    There is a faggot
    Cows say moo. MOOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOO! Cow MOOOOOOO!
    In a cow's anus.

  15. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believe HIPAA would apply some rights for privacy for the patient in those cases... Since they are human and governed by different laws than livestock (property).

    Though of the patient and doctor agree to have it filmed and re-broadcast then I guess it'd probably be ok, but that's probably ok under existing laws... So this ruling really has no impact on your desire to change the topic.

  16. Good! by crmarvin42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a member of the animal agriculture community for over 15 years, I've never understood the point of these laws. They are essentially an admission that there is a problem, and that we'd rather try to gag our opponents than address it.

    I spend a lot of time on /. and other forums defending animal agriculture because, while I would be the first to admit we can do better, I think we do a much better job caring for our animals than most people believe. Animal rights groups do not concern themselves over much with things like facts, accuracy, or fair descriptions of why we do things the way that we do, but that does not mean that we should try to silence them. Instead we should be engaging with those willing to dig a little deeper than a 30sec sound byte, or a 5 paragraph news article by a writer with no direct connection to agriculture. We should explain, WHY we believe that gestation stalls are better than group housing for stalls, WHY castration of males is better for the animals and the humans who work with them, HOW we've developed programs like PQA Plus, TQA Plus, etc. These questions and misconceptions won't go away on their own, and gag laws do nothing to help our case.

    --
    Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    1. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      gag our opponents

      So you do understand the point of these laws.

    2. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We should explain, WHY

      Okay, you piqued my interest. Is there a short thing (maybe a short text article I can skim in 2 minutes) with a quick explanation of all this stuff you mentioned? I'm casually curious to learn a bit more, but don't want to sink a bunch of time for "real research."

    3. Re:Good! by phorm · · Score: 5, Funny

      "WHY castration of males is better for the animals and the humans who work with them"

      Damn... I didn't realize work in that industry was so hard. You guys have my sympathy.

    4. Re: Good! by crmarvin42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gestation stalls can be beneficial because sows are large (300-600 lb), and can be quite violent when hungry, which is most of the time, but more so right after weaning off the piglets. It is not uncommon in group housed situations for them to injure each other badly enough to require medical interventions and very occasionally euthanasia. Also, these fights occurs most right after breeding, and the stress can lead to reduced viability of the delicate embryos. Fewer piglets per litter is both an indicator of reduced welfare AND a sign of reduced economic potential. The best is a hybrid situation where sows are kept in gestation stalls for a few weeks after weaning to ensure a calm dry off period, and a good start for the embryos, and then moving them into group housing. Castration of boars, cuts down on off flavor (called boat taint), reduces aggression toward each other and their handlers (worker safety matter too), unexpected pregnancies at the slaughter house when males and females are housed together (very common), and rape. Yes, boats when housed together will rape each other. More recently a company has developed a non-surgical way to castrate pigs later in the growth phase (beneficial because boars are more feed efficient than barrows), but it is dangerous to male employees (the shot works on human males as well), and the industry doesn't yet know how consumers will perceive the technology called improvest. These management decisions are not made lightly, and usually are made to optimize several different, and occasionally conflicting objectives.

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    5. Re: Good! by crmarvin42 · · Score: 1

      Ha! Poor word choice on my part. We castrate the male livestock, not the male animal handlers. Although there was a sow barn attendant who was standing too close to the front of a farrowing crate while changing a light bulb (or something like that) who was bit in the testicals by a sow. Said they could hear his scream clear on the other side of the barn, over all the sows in the gestation wing. Funniest damn story I was ever told about working with sows. He's fine now (he claims).

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    6. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You, of course, start with the assumption that PETA is an honest organization, and would never pull an editing stunt like that pulled against Planned Parenthood. Give me 30 minutes of anyone working, and I can crucify them on the news.

    7. Re:Good! by bidule · · Score: 1

      I think it comes down to this: don't anthropomorphize animals, they don't like it.

      I saw a video of a trainer "harassing" a horse. Once he was done, the horse had found its place and its purpose. What looked like bullying was in fact healing.

      --
      ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
    8. Re:Good! by idontgno · · Score: 1

      It's a problem not restricted to animal husbandry.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    9. Re:Good! by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Amongst us humans pragmatism is seen as a virtue, so I can feel your pain.

      I just posted this somewhere else, and I figure it sounded so nice I'd post it twice:

      Be very grateful we are the dominant species on this planet.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    10. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Crucify" may be too strong a word. Then again, "working" may be too strong a word for "browsing Slashdot all day".

    11. Re: Good! by sysrammer · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Yes, boats when housed together will rape each other"

      So that's how we get dinghies.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    12. Re: Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have the impression that farmers simply cut the entire scrotum and testicles right off male animals with no anaesthetic whatsoever which is inhumane. If it wouldn't be done to a human it should not be done to an animal. Am I correct, or do farmers make castration painless?

    13. Re: Good! by phorm · · Score: 1

      An associate of mine who lived/worked on a smaller farm said they essentially have a device which snaps a small elastic band over the scrotum, causing the blood flow to be cut off and for them to wither away.

    14. Re: Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's important to keep the pigs happy, because BACON!

    15. Re:Good! by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      What do you consider anthropomorphizing? I don't sit animals down at the table and serve them a glass of wine.
      You think it's anthropomorphizing to recognize that they don't like it when you kick them?

    16. Re: Good! by Beezlebub33 · · Score: 1

      You should see the video by Mike Rowe, where he discusses when he was castrating animals (goats? I forget). https://www.ted.com/talks/mike... No, not painless, but not like you would think either. And the 'painless' technique recommended by people who didn't do it for a living was much worse.

      --
      The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
    17. Re: Good! by bmo · · Score: 1

      >rubber band

      See Beelzebub's post below yours.

      This is exactly the kind of thing the OP was talking about.

      --
      BMO

    18. Re:Good! by TarPitt · · Score: 1

      "WHY castration of males is better for the animals and the humans who work with them"

      I always wondered why cowboys sing soprano

      --
      If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
    19. Re: Good! by crmarvin42 · · Score: 1

      Damn Autocorrect. I guess most people ARE more likely to mean Boat than Boar, but it still make me look like an idiot when I don't catch it.

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    20. Re: Good! by crmarvin42 · · Score: 1

      Depends on the farm. Some production contracts require some sort of analgesic be used, but I'd guess that most piglets are castrated without anything.

      Now, that said they don't cut off the scrotum (at least for pigs). Pigs scrotums are tight up against their rump.They slice open the scrotum, squeeze out the testicles and then cut the vas deferens. The scrotum will close up on its own after a couple of days.

      For ungulates like sheep, goats, and cattle I know they cut the scrotum as well, but that's because their scrotums hang down like humans. They can also use a tool called an imasculator, which is essentially a pair of hot sheers that cut and cauterize at the same time.

      At this point I normally remind everyone that most circumcisions are done sans anesthetic, and the majority of Americans see no problem with this. Piglets are usually a couple of days old at castration, so it's an apt comparison.

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    21. Re:Good! by crmarvin42 · · Score: 1

      They certainly don't like it, but it would be anthropomorphizing to assume that kicking them bothers them as much as it would bother you. I know it sounds callous, but large livestock are less concerned with physical pain than we are. There are lots of behavioral studies that show they place different priorities on different stimuli like pain, fear, hunger, etc. than people do.

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    22. Re:Good! by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      Oh really? You've listed pretty much each of the most primal emotions out there, other than lust. I expect that these basic emotions occupy the minds of most large animals to a higher degree than us, since they aren't as concerned with such things as philosophy and art.

    23. Re: Good! by crmarvin42 · · Score: 1

      I was talking about their relative ranks, not trying to imply that they didn't have them. Animal perceive pain, but it's power as a motivator is not as strong. Hunger for hogs on the other hand is a much stronger motivator than for humans. Cattle are incredibly curious, they've been known to lick the grease off of a crank shaft just to feel the sensation, but sheep flee from novelty. Each animal perceives the world differently, and places different emphasis on different stimuli. The relative importance of each differ

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    24. Re: Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reminds me of watching a vet cut the tails off of puppies. They basically have scissors and just cut off the tail. They apply some powder to the sub to help stop the bleeding, but the puppies scream and yelp and the cry for a long time after. It's literally like cutting your finger off with no aesthetic. Extremely inhumane even though it is done when the puppies are only a day or two old.

      What goes on in factory farms is the primary reason I went vegetarian almost six years ago. I don't want the farmers to have one cent of my money.

    25. Re: Good! by crmarvin42 · · Score: 1

      As I said, there are farms that do use anesthetic. Usually based on the animal welfare section of their production contract. I'm sure with a little research you can find out which brands require this sort of thing, if you are interested. Of course 6 years a vegetarian is quite a time, so you probably are not interested.

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    26. Re:Good! by phorm · · Score: 1

      I doubt it's castration, but have you seen how tight cowboy jeans are?

  17. Free Speech > Profit by danaris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just goes to show that as much as big companies and wealthy individuals would like to change that—and have been trying very hard over the past few decades to do so—profit is still not, in fact, more important than free speech. Or the Constitution, or people's lives.

    Let's just hope we do see more cases like this. Laws like that are a terrible perversion of the American legislative system.

    Dan Aris

    --
    Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
  18. Jeeze! I would hope so by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    The people who passed those laws should be locked up for civil rights violations. Why in the world are we letting big business write our laws? What is the point of voting if this is the way things are always going to work?

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Welcome to corporatacracy. Your government, owned by big business.

    2. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by tomhath · · Score: 0

      Our government was designed with "checks and balances" built into the system. This is a perfect example of the system working as it should.

    3. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      That I have already accepted. My question, albeit rhetorical actually, is why do we take it this direction? The problem is when you're outnumbered, there are no checks against voter antipathy.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    4. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seatbelts work best when not used.

      You want to have the "checks and balances" in place, but when you need to rely on them consistently there will be cases when they fail.

    5. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by TheReaperD · · Score: 1

      Sadly, the "Citizens United" case is a perfect example of our system not working as it should.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    6. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      That's bullshit. The guy that takes the money is the bum to vote out. I don't care who offers it to him. If he takes the money, he's the problem. We are looking at this totally backwards. Citizens United went the proper direction.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    7. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be new here (here being in this country).

    8. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Citizens United ruling held that money is speech.
      If money is speech, then bribery cannot be illegal. If offering the money is 'speaking', so accepting money is 'listening', and it cannot rationally be held to be illegal to *listen* to your constituents' speech.

    9. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our government was designed with "checks and balances" built into the system. This is a perfect example of the system working as it should.

      If "checks and balances" actually worked, the laws wouldn't have been passed in the first place. See also: Texas laws against speaking out against cattle ranchers. These industry-specific protectionist laws should never get beyond first reading.

    10. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by tomhath · · Score: 1

      why do we take it this direction?

      Self defense.

      There's a fine line between free speech and harassment. PETA and groups like them are known for secretly making videos, heavily editing them, and distributing them as fact. There was a case here in PA a couple of years ago on a chicken farm - the owner wasn't able to keep up with the maintenance and cleaning of the facility, so he hired a man to help. Instead of helping clean it up, the man secretly videoed the conditions and used the recordings to try and put the farmer out of business. How would you react to that kind of activity if it was used against you?

      Farmers and biologists also face criminal acts carried out to destroy their livelihood.

    11. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      I'll accept that. Then I shall watch the choices he makes and how they relate to the money he took. Either way, don't blame the one offering, just call him a corrupt snake in the grass. You don't have to vote for his puppet. And yes, the listener is responsible for his actions, not the speaker. The taker is of the money is responsible. The voter is responsible for the politician he reelects. It is the voter that is under the influence of the campaign money. They are starstruck by bling and comforting lies. That is not the money's fault. Always look at the desire, not the object.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    12. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      What can I say? The owner overextended himself and created a bad situation. I do not sympathize. I can only be grateful that we are the dominant species at the moment.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    13. Re:Jeeze! I would hope so by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

      the owner wasn't able to keep up with the maintenance and cleaning of the facility, so he hired a man to help.

      "hiring someone to help" doesn't relieve you of your responsibilities

  19. Re:Good news, and all... by tomhath · · Score: 1

    It isn't; slashdot has become a general news aggregator featuring anything that might generate page clicks.

    The "News for Nerds" tagline is a relic from the days when slashdot was relevant.

  20. Re:Good news, and all... by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

    Yes there is they are tasty and I am an omnivore they are food.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
  21. Re:Cool by GrumpySteen · · Score: 1

    Please point us to the law that was passed to make recording conversations with abortion providers illegal and then we can discuss whether that law is constitutional or not.

    A judge's decision is not a law and can be appealed, so that's an entirely different conversation.

  22. Re:Good news, and all... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your rights online.

    Many of us give a damn when governments pass terrible laws which don't pass Constitutional muster, because increasingly governments don't care if the laws they pass are actually legal. They just feel they can pass any old law and that should stand.

    Feel free to exclude YRO from your preferences, or stick to reading the video games section.

    The rest of us care if our governments act like fascists who think they can pass any law they want to.

    This is stuff which matters.

    They didn't outlaw the animal cruelty, they outlawed telling people about it.

    You should always care when a government passes a law which arbitrarily places limits on free speech. Or the next thing you know they'll make it illegal to criticize idiot governments who pass laws which place arbitrary limits on free speech.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  23. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I assume they're talking about the videos where Planned parenthood execs talk about selling fetal organs. That is no different than the so-called atrocities on factory farms. If not, then privacy issues probably apply.

  24. consequences of one's actions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shouldn't there be a point when elected officials who consistently show behavior that attempts to circumvent our protected freedoms would be held criminally liable?

    1. Re:consequences of one's actions? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      No, really it would be good enough to not reelect them. Otherwise, we need to lock the voters up for electing them in the first place.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  25. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why not let people see them and decide?

    how about we make secret videos of your personal activities, show them to the world and let other people decide whether they are appropriate or not, without asking you.

  26. Re:Cool by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2, Informative

    You haven't been watching the news the past week, have you?

    This is about an anti group filming Planned Parenthood execs discussing what sounds like selling baby parts, and, at best is exceptionally crude behavior in discussing crushing apart bodies to get at certain parts, like an auto junk yard worker.

    A court has upheld stopping the video release because they signed an NDA as part of being undercover.

    It's been suggested if this was someone filming a Koch brother feeding money to a Republican candidate, no court in California would hold up the NDA over the vital interests of the people to know.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  27. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I was just about to comment with the same kind of thing. The edited videos came out along with the unedited videos.

    Some have argued that the taped discussions that were conducted in California were done in a public setting (restaurant) and there isn't an expectation for privacy in those cases. There is case law that both agrees and disagrees with this.

    It has also been said that the judge is pretty political. Judge William H. Orrick III is an Obama appointee and a major bundler and donor for Obama’s presidential campaign. Orrick raised at least $200,000 to the president’s campaign. Additionally, the judge donated $30,800 to committees supporting Obama.

  28. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Please point us to the law that was passed to make recording conversations with abortion providers illegal and then we can discuss whether that law is constitutional or not.

    A judge's decision is not a law and can be appealed, so that's an entirely different conversation.

    recording audio without the permission of all parties is illegal in many places

  29. Re:Cool by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You mean donating. They weren't selling and never have sold fetal tissue. FYI the videos broke several California state laws and amount to harassment.

  30. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Some have argued that the taped discussions that were conducted in California were done in a public setting (restaurant) and there isn't an expectation for privacy in those cases.

    California is a "two-party consent" state for recording audio, all parties involved must be aware of the recording in order for it to be legal.

  31. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    > Aside from the fact that it's funded by taxpayers.

    No it isn't. Taxpayer funding for abortions has been disallowed for 20 years.

  32. Re:Cool by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    They weren't conducting interviews, they were posing as a research company, who was looking for fetal tissue for research. The actors misrepresented themselves.

  33. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's been suggested if this was someone filming a Koch brother feeding money to a Republican candidate, no court in California would hold up the NDA over the vital interests of the people to know.

    Conservative conspiracy theories are a far cry from case law. There is nothing other than delusional paranoia to suggest that a court in California would nullify existing contract law in the interests of people's right to know. And even if such a theoretical court were to do exactly that, there is a perfectly reasonable argument that buying politicians involves more public interest than discussions about what happens to aborted fetuses.

  34. Re:Cool by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    Bzzzt, go look at the front page of CNN, thanks for playing.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  35. Re:Cool by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    Right...except where the broke California law. The anti-choice group did not identify themselves as such but rather posed as "researchers" looking for fetal tissue. Pull the other one Potsy.

  36. Re:Good news, and all... by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Yes there is they are tasty and I am an omnivore they are food.

    "Enjoy human rinds, muncha buncha cruncha human"

  37. Re:Cool by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    The one where the people pretend to be researcher working for a research company. You know where the lie about who they are.

  38. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What does "unedited" mean? Does it mean that those videos include all of the conversations and communications leading up to the current discussion? An unedited video that was started and stopped in such a way that relevant context is omitted IS an edited video.

    And, no, we do not handle libel and slander in the United States by airing the accusations and letting the public decide. If you don't like it, change the law or move somewhere else.

  39. Re:Good news, and all... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

    Still need cheese for the macaroni and cheese.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  40. Re:Cool by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They didn't film people having sex, they filmed people abusing animals and creating unhealthy environments in which to be growing food for human consumption.

    Arguably there is a much more clearly defined public interest as opposed to if you like to wear your wife's underwear as part of your thing in your "personal activities".

    This is about blocking employees from filming stuff which happens in their place of work ... it's not so much about "personal activities" as it is about suppressing constitutionally protected speech.

    The judge concluded that the law restricted constitutionally protected free speech, and contradicted "long-established defamation and whistleblowing statutes by punishing employees for publishing true and accurate recordings on matters of public concern."

    This is not the same as someone releasing your damned sex tape.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  41. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is news and for nerds because when similar situations have happened in the IT field the laws have not been deemed unconstitutional.
    Say that you work for the government and the government does something that is clearly illegal/unconstitutional, then you will typically not be in the same situation, except that the judge will not conclude that you have the right to free speech.

    For an example, look at the Snowden case.

  42. Re:Cool by evilRhino · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is also a lack of a public interest waver around an abortion because it has no impact on you personally and is not in contravention of any laws.

    Aside from the fact that it's funded by taxpayers.

    Planned Parenthood is barred from using taxpayer money to pay for abortions. All federal money that goes to Planned Parenthood is spent on women's health, such as STD screenings, or checkups.

  43. Re:Cool by TheReaperD · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hmm... supposedly unedited portions of a highly politically motivated video. You can see why we would consider them suspect. Even unedited, carefully selected sections of video, taken out of context, can convey a very different message than one in context. Now, if there were to release the unedited copy of the entire video than you statement of allow the public to decide might be valid, though the video itself would still remain illegal.

    --
    "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  44. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    They didn't film people having sex, they filmed people abusing animals

    why don't you bother to read what I was responding to

  45. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "not in contravention of any laws"

    Really? How about "you shall not murder?"

  46. Re:Cool by TheReaperD · · Score: 1

    Wow, I'm tired...

    Hmm... supposedly unedited portions of a highly politically motivated video. You can see why we would consider them suspect. Even unedited, carefully selected sections of video, taken out of context, can convey a very different message than one in context. Now, if they were to release the unedited copy of the entire video than your statement of allow the public to decide might be valid, though the video itself would still remain illegal.

    --
    "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  47. I feel like I'm in a bad Max Headroom episode by FreeUser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I woke up today to hear on the news how Germany has effectively outlawed Keynesian economics in those countries that were suckered into the Euro currency union (the Right in the UK were absolutely right to avoid joining the monetary union. It's a shame they get so much else wrong).

    On the elevator I saw a news blurb on how Hedge funds are demanding that Puerto Rico close their schools to pay back debts (rather than take a haircut on their risky investments that earned them well over market interest rates for years. Hint: you get that interest rate because your return is risky, not guaranteed).

    And of course there's the endless snowden leaks that make Security Systems look benign, and the ridiculously skewed anti-abortion propaganda that may bring down one of the most important institutions for women's health, and so on and so on.

    It really does feel like the world of Channel 23, and wondering how soon they will ban the off switch (rhetorical shots across the bow are already being made, with talk of ad blockers "violating copyright". How soon until turning off your TV is the same?)

    Finally, after years of giving corporations and the rich unfettered leeway to buy elections, exploit the poor and middle class (and now, more and more, the upper-middle class), we get a judicial ruling in favor of people over corporations. Of course, our downward death spiral will no doubt resume shortly, but in the meantime it is a breath of fresh air to see sanity in our courts for once.

    --
    The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
    1. Re:I feel like I'm in a bad Max Headroom episode by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I woke up today to hear on the news how Germany has effectively outlawed Keynesian economics in those countries that were suckered into the Euro currency union (the Right in the UK were absolutely right to avoid joining the monetary union. It's a shame they get so much else wrong).

      Hey dumfuck! They don't practice Keynesian economics because they don't build surpluses (or pay down debt) in the good years. They just spend more all the time whenever possible (obviously, as a generality).

      TANSTAAFL, Keynesian or otherwise. Remember, Keynesian is about modulating the rate of spending. High-low smoothing. That is the theory. In practice, theory is rarely used. The abuses where nations can't pay back their debts, the problems were not caused by Keynesian economics. And I HATE JMK and his followers! I just can't dump this problem on him.

  48. Re:Cool by fche · · Score: 1

    So should we expect & applaud a constitutional challenge to the "two-party consent" laws on the apprx.-same basis as done for the Idaho videos?

  49. Re: Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Really? How about "you shall not murder?"

    Okay, I'll bite. What does "murder" mean? Is it "murder" when I cut my toenails? Is it "murder" when a woman refuses sex? Is it "murder" when a condom is used? Is it "murder" when a fertilized egg fails to attach to the uterine wall? Is it "murder" when a raped woman terminates her pregancy? Is it "murder" when a badly mutated fetus is terminated?

    Is it "murder" when young children are denied food and shelter and education, they have no opportunity for the fine trappings of your privileged life, and they end up dead at 14 or 16 at the hands of the police?

  50. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Prove it. I don't see how you possibly can.

    Unless Planned Parenthood maintains two entirely separate set of books, I don't see how there's any way that you can say that taxpayer money doesn't go to fund abortions when it goes into Planned Parenthood. It all goes to one entity and then they spend money. Which means any funds that go to Planned Parenthood fund abortion, period. I don't care what else they do, they murder children and then sell the parts for profit. You can't possibly expect anyone with a heart to get past that.

    Although your name is "evilRhino" so I suppose someone with "evil" in their name would defend such a vile organization.

  51. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The majority of the Old Testament's Ten Commandments are not "law" in the USA. The Supreme Court ruled along time ago that abortions are legal. So is disobeying your father, committing adultery, putting up false idols, using the Lord's name in vain, etc, etc.

  52. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which means any funds that go to Planned Parenthood fund abortion, period.

    ??? So when I go to the grocery store and buy some canned beans, I am really funding abortions because they also have a drugstore ???

  53. Rationale behind the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GOP politicians felt that publicizing personal behavior they may have engaged in with farm animals with the consent of all parties involved, was nobody's business but their own.

  54. Re:Cool by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. - Thomas Jefferson

    What, like war? Or tax cuts for the rich? Or the right to say god hates fags via charitable status and donations? Or the enforcement of copyright laws bought and paid for by industry? How about treaties which are also for the benefit of corporations instead of taxpayers?

    Or is it only the stuff you object to you think is tyrannical you wish would stop?

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  55. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    So should we expect & applaud a constitutional challenge to the "two-party consent" laws on the apprx.-same basis as done for the Idaho videos?

    you can get back to us when you find animals that are capable of giving consent

  56. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The issues with the Planned Parenthood videos are their surreptitious nature, recording somebody under false pretenses and then editing the content to advance anarrative.

    This would be distinct from an employee recording actual events.

  57. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You what?

    You've already HAD two sets of faked edited footage pretending that Planned Parenthood was selling dead babies, so that the religious crusade of the idiot xtian fundies could continue.

    Now you want to see what? The unedited version so you can see what REALLY happened?

    Or are you wanting to see some other shit to make women feel ashamed for having authority over their own bodies?

    Or was your post completely without any point at all?

  58. Re:Cool by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

    why don't you bother to read what I was responding to

    Probably because I got down-modded below their threshold. But I'll respond to your reply. The videos were made of a business meeting at a public place. There is no expectation of privacy. Asking me how I feel about having my private activities videotaped does nothing to counter that argument.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  59. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 2

    The videos were made of a business meeting at a public place. There is no expectation of privacy.

    You are wrong, in California the permission of all parties is required before recording audio. There is no exception for being in a public place.

  60. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    They have a set of accounting that PROVES (and the IRS and NIH BOTH agree that this is proven) that they don't use government money for abortions.

    Your shitheaded insistence that "they get some money, and they mix it all up, so the actual dollar from the tax office can't be proven NOT to have been spent" is ridiculous: NO MONEY CHANGED HANDS. Only the balance.

    Your scared hypthesis hasn't been the case for well over 100 years.

  61. Re:Cool by fche · · Score: 1

    The analogy would be consent of the property owner.

  62. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If the drug store sells abortion-causing medications, then yes. If you support businesses that perform abortions, you support abortions. This isn't complicated.

    You tell him fellow AC! So I take it you support Communism (just like the rest of us), seeing as you're using a computer to post this. That computer most likely contains parts made and/or assembled in China, you know.

    When you support Chinese made products, you're supporting their communist regime (which may include abortions btw)

  63. Re:Cool by gstoddart · · Score: 1

    "how about we make secret videos of your personal activities"

    why don't you bother to read what I was responding to

    What you were responding to was irrelevant when you made the spurious claim about your "personal activities". Because they're not legally the same thing.

    These were videos filmed by employees and disclosed in the public interest, not "personal activities", and not covered under the same legal protections.

    This is about the legally protected rights of employees to document true things and disclose them if they are in the public interest.

    There is no "personal activities" here. There is no equating this with personal activities. This is commercial activities in the public interest.

    Your belief this is a "personal activity" is wrong. Which means your claim of this being about your personal activity is irrelevant to the facts of this.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  64. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's the woman's human. She can murder it if she wants to.

  65. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What about it? This isn't murder any more than having some antibiotics is the mass murder of a million bacteria.

  66. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    sure, but animals don't speak and thus they are not communicating anything

  67. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm still trying to move but it hasn't been easy. Fuck the USA.

  68. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unless the property owner is the sole worker, then it isn't the PROPERTY OWNER, but the BUSINESS which is the "other party". And since it has no more humanity in it (and less, indeed) than a cow, it too doesn't get the same rights as the human owner.

    Moreover, since the business is regulated and even created by the actions of the state, their right to privacy is limited because we need to know what our government is aiding and abetting even by proxy.

    Moreover, there's no statute that insists that you can't expose a crime for reasons of privacy violation.

    NOTE: the PP videos were NOT exposing a crime of PP, but of the criminal organisation that took them.

  69. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    so when you post comments on stories that mention abortion, you are supporting abortions, because you stimulate the posting of pro-abortion comments by others

  70. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    And the animal rights activists posed as employees to get their video. Uncovering illegal/unethical behavior should be encouraged.

  71. The fact by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that such a law even came to be in the first place, clearly tells what a complete shit-hole of rampant injustice and capitalism the U.S has become. Well, enjoy your tortured, hormone- and antibiotic-laced meat dinner.

  72. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    OK, I'll bite back.

    It's murder when a living human is torn apart for body parts. The rest of your diatribe is irrelevant.

  73. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, they weren't haggling for a better price. They were saying what you'd have to pay for whatever quality or urgency of tissue you wanted.

    Your post is trying to insinuate that they were haggling for a price of the tissue, but no, it's the transport.

    It truly was a donation, and a flat rate would NOT offset their costs because the costs depend on what they're sending, to whom.

    Just like postal service costs differently depending on whether it's first or second class, recorded, registered or not, and the size and weight of the parcel.

    So, no. Your pseudo conspiracy proof is only proof you're talking bollocks.

  74. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1, Informative

    Money is fungible.
    Why doesn't Planned Parenthood get broken up into two separate organizations: 1) a woman's clinic and 2) an abortion center? The woman's clinic can receive federal money and because the new abortion clinic organization is totally separate (with different leadership), then they don't need to receive a dime from the taxpayer.

    Answer me this. If Planned parenthood is much more than abortion and gets most of its revenue from other places other than abortion, then why did several Planned Parenthood clinics close when Texas' new stricter abortion laws took into effect? Couldn't those closed Planned Parenthood clinics just stop providing abortion but continue to be open and provide women health services like cancer screening?

  75. Re:Cool by OhPlz · · Score: 1

    Sounds like the folks that recorded the videos are the conservative version of Edward Snowden.

    How does it feel to be on the other side?

  76. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    The issues with the Planned Parenthood videos are their surreptitious nature, recording somebody under false pretenses and then editing the content to advance anarrative.

    This would be distinct from an employee recording actual events.

    You do know that the "edited" nature of the videos is to just make it newsworthy. The FULL unedited videos have all been posted and are available for you to watch and see that the CONTENT of what was said is indeed accurately represented in the shortened edited versions of what was publicly released to news organizations.

    As I've heard absolutely ZERO people saying that the full length video says something totally different who has provided specific examples of how the original was edited to advance a specific narrative, I'm going to dismiss this "They are heavily edited" as an excuse. No they are not, the full hours long videos say EXACTLY the same thing as the news reel clips do.

    I encourage you to have a look at the full videos and let me know how the clips really misrepresent what was actually said.... Bet you won't, and if you do, bet you won't find any of what folks who support PP claim is there...

  77. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am quite positive abortion does not fall under agriculture.

  78. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    And the animal rights activists posed as employees to get their video. Uncovering illegal/unethical behavior should be encouraged.

    they didn't "pose" as employees, they were employees.

  79. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    And fetuses/babies can't speak either. That is who the people fighting this fighting are trying to defend. Just like the animal activists defend animals who are defenseless, so too the pro-life people are doing for the babies.

    If you destroy an endangered eagle egg, you are fined and risk imprisonment. Why not have the same protections for human fertilized egg? Because the eagle is endangered and humans aren't? Well that's just a sick outlook to life. Shouldn't all lives matter?

  80. Re: Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 2

    It's murder when a living human is torn apart for body parts. The rest of your diatribe is irrelevant.

    Tell us more about these "living humans", they must have birth certificates, right?

  81. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    They were animal activists who got employed for the sole purpose to make these videos.

  82. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    for the sole purpose to make these videos.

    Are you saying they didn't bother to pick up their paychecks?

  83. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    And fetuses/babies can't speak either. That is who the people fighting this fighting are trying to defend. J

    guess what, the mother speaks for her unborn children.

  84. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Couldn't those closed Planned Parenthood clinics just stop providing abortion but continue to be open and provide women health services like cancer screening?

    WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM with business providing services that are COMPLETELY LEGAL?

  85. Re:Cool by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Clearly you are a moron with no experience with medical procedures, insurance, or medical billing.

    You can't blow your nose in a medical facility without spending $30 - $100.

    Either that or you're just s shameless partisan who doesn't actually care about facts and won't let them get in the way of a good crusade.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  86. Re: Cool by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Informative

    > As I've heard absolutely ZERO people saying that the full length video says something totally different who has provided specific examples

    Like I said. You're a partisan that won't let facts get in the way of your crusade.

    FactCheck.org has a nice article on this where they reference a number of legitimate same collection companies and researchers.

    The unedited remarks include phrases like "breaking even" and "not impacting care of patients".

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  87. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So it's wrong to speak out about something one may feel is immoral even if it is COMPLETELY LEGAL?

  88. Re: Cool by jedidiah · · Score: 1

    Even if they were you would still need to establish legal language just like you would for the real law.

    IOW, abortion is not legally murder. This is just something that a small religious fringe conflates together. Furthermore, that religious fringe didn't even hold such a belief until the Regan era.

    Before that time, Catholics were pretty much alone in defining abortion as murder.

    The 10 commandments aren't enough. You need the Talmud to go along with it. It's very much like the US Code in that respect.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  89. The rest of the story ... by TwoEyedJack · · Score: 2

    At least one member of a group called Mercy for Animals got a job at the Bettencourt dairy. They filmed for several weeks with hidden cameras and didn't find any abuse, which is what you would expect. Happy cows are productive cows, and productive cows are profitable. Anyone who has spent any time on a dairy farm knows this. So the undercover coached the workers to abuse the cattle without the owners knowing. This was a setup from the beginning to the end. The owners of the dairy were as upset by the video as anyone.

    1. Re:The rest of the story ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No doubt there are some instances of abuse, but most of these "animal rights" groups do of course overstate, mislead or in some cases outright invent cases to try to push their agenda. I got a special laugh over that chicken processing plant video a few years back with all of the "outrage" of DECAPITATED chicken bodies (IE pretty much dead) being thrown onto a conveyor belt being labeled "abuse". I'm pretty sure the chicken ceased to care much once its BODY HAD BEEN REMOVED.

    2. Re:The rest of the story ... by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

      > No doubt there are some instances of abuse

      I think a lot more than "some instances"

      It is very difficult to catch these guys in the act. The existence of these laws demonstrate the lengths these factory farmers will go to cover up the truth.

      I doubt it is easy to take out a camera and record the abuse. The undercover people, who take the video, have to have their names legally changed, all the time.

      You can be sure that way less than 1% of the abuse is ever recorded.

      Watch the HBO documentary "Death on a Factory Farm"

    3. Re:The rest of the story ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the undercover coached the workers to abuse the cattle without the owners knowing.

      How do you "coach" someone to abuse animals?

      If I worked on a farm and one of my coworkers suggested abusing some animals for fun, I'd make sure he was fired damn quick.

    4. Re:The rest of the story ... by Jumunquo · · Score: 1

      Are you taking about this?:
      http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

      Is that what the workers are claiming now that they've been charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty? Is that the best excuse they could have come up with for abusing animals? Remember, the owners haven't been charged with anything - after this incident, they fired those workers, installed security cameras, and hired an additional supervisor. The video did exactly what it was suppose to do - fixing the problem and putting in those additional controls. This would not have happened w/o the video.

      Now, Mercy for Animals wants to put them out of business, but you know what? Bettencourt's customers seem content with the actions taken and are not doing anything. This is the true lesson of free speech - people will make doomsday predictions about what will happen if you let people say whatever they want, but in reality, people make their own decisions based on the facts presented. What is truly dangerous is information control to deny us the facts to make good decisions and right wrongs.

    5. Re:The rest of the story ... by TwoEyedJack · · Score: 1

      So I actually live in Idaho and have a close personal relationship with several people in the legislature who are also farmers and ranchers. I haven't read the NY daily news article because the odds of them getting it right are vanishingly small. There was no systematic abuse of dairy cattle before, and there is none now. The cameras were installed to protect the farmers by detecting animal rights wackos staging incidents of animal cruelty. The video is retained at the farm, not streamed to Mercy for Animals. The only real change is that many dairy operators are now requiring new employees to sign non-disclosure agreements.

  90. Re:Free Speech Profit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't fool yourself, there are plenty of people from all walks of life who'd like to infringe on the civil rights of others. It's just the wealthy and powerful who have the resources to actually do it. Don't think for a second that just because your neighbor is out there openly against something that is upheld by the constitution that they're in favor of it.
     
    But kneejerks like yourself are looking to point blame as part of a bigger agenda. In the end I wouldn't be at all surprised if you wouldn't be willing to also infringe on the rights of others based on this shallowly hidden agenda.

  91. Re:Cool by tehcyder · · Score: 1

    Unless Planned Parenthood maintains two entirely separate set of books

    If they're forced by your ridiculous US Christian Funaementalist laws to separate abortion-related work from the rest, then obviously they will have to have two sets of auditable books. It's hardly difficult nowadays, you can even do the accounting on computers, you know.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  92. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No, they weren't haggling. The video is doctored.

    Clearly you don't want to see anything other than what you already assert MUST be there. Even when it's clearly not.

  93. Re:Cool by jedidiah · · Score: 0

    ...and that's ultimately the way it needs to stay.

    The gestation of a fetus is a non-delegable act that can easily be fucked up. It requires considerable commitment. It requires far more commitment than random busybodies are willing to offer.

    Pragmatically, it can only be up to the mother and at that point we should all be willing to assist her in ensuring success.

    If anything, the religious fringe wants to do nothing but punish the offending mother and child in a blatantly un-Christ-like fashion.

    If he were here, he would slap the whole lot of you for gross callous disregard of the children you would force into the world.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  94. Re: Cool by hawkinspeter · · Score: 2

    Nope, it's only murder if it's unlawful. As abortions are generally allowed by law, it cannot be murder.

    I'd probably also dispute the "living" bit as that would imply independent life and abortions are not generally performed when the baby/foetus is breathing unassisted.

    Also, "torn apart"? Where the hell do you live that allows medical procedures like that?

    --
    You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
  95. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    She then laughed and stated that she wanted them to buy her a Lamborghini.

  96. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It gives us an excuse to argue about Snowden some more, and whether or not he deserves similar protection, since he distributed true knowledge that was clearly a matter of public concern.

  97. Re: Cool by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Babies are born. In that respect, they are covered by the 14th Amendment.

    Fetuses are not babies and never have been. Even born babies haven't always had completely human status. In many societies they aren't even named until it's shown that they will survive.

    If anything, newborns are little more than external fetuses that are highly dependent and terribly fragile. They're nothing like any of their counterparts in the rest of the animal kingdom.

    If it can't survive without the mothership then how can you really call it a separate legal entity?

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  98. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    ah! You got me there!!!

  99. Re: Cool by jedidiah · · Score: 0

    I am sure ANY business is capable of keeping funds separate.

    This is just basic accounting.

    You sound like trailer trash that has never been responsible for anything, not even a decent family budget.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  100. Re:Cool by hawkinspeter · · Score: 1

    Does that apply to sporting events as well? It must make televising them a lot more difficult.

    --
    You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
  101. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Sounds like the folks that recorded the videos are the conservative version of Edward Snowden.

    How does it feel to be on the other side?

    In our latest controversy, hair salons are now under attack because they are disposing of human remains in the dumpster.

  102. Re:Cool by jedidiah · · Score: 0

    Don't be a moron. The "completely legal" medical services probably refer to pap smears, condoms, and pre-natal vitamins.

    Planned Parenthood does a lot more than abortions.

    This is a little fact that gets glossed over by the extremist crusaders trying to suppress their political rivals by any means necessary.

    It's much like burning down all the Targets because they sell birth control pills.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  103. Re:Cool by xombo · · Score: 2

    Comparing the filming of private activities of a person to that of a recipient of public funds, or an organization responsible for public health, is extremely disingenuous.

  104. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    don't give me any credit, you put your own foot in your own mouth

  105. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Does that apply to sporting events as well? It must make televising them a lot more difficult.

    read the back of your fucking ticket

  106. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    You're conflating the issue. The issue is that Planned Parenthood is haggling and selling baby parts, which is illegal, The issue is Planned Parenthood is modifying the abortion procedure to get better specimens, which is also illegal.

    If you want to talk about the debate about abortion in general, then if one believes that these "unborn children" are alive, then the mother has no right to kill it just as a mother has no right to kill a born child who is a few weeks old. But that is not the debate we are having here. We are debating about an organization that is possibly performing illegal activity. We are not talking about closing Planned Parenthood, but simply defunding it using taxpayer money. This is not a debate about overturning Roe v. Wade and making abortion illegal.

  107. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So just what species do you think the fetus is, exactly, if not human? If you say it's part of the mother, why does it have a distinct genetic code?

    If you say that it's a part of the mother, why does it become able to live independently, unlike my tonail?

  108. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fran DOESN'T think it's OK to kill babies. They are not babies, though.

  109. Re:Cool by evendiagram · · Score: 2

    To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    So when do those War on Terror tax refunds start rolling in?

  110. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Comparing the filming of private activities of a person to that of a recipient of public funds,

    if you are itemizing deductions on your tax return, then you are a recipient of public funds

    if you buy subsidized dairy products in the grocery store, you are the recipient of public funds

    every citizen is a recipient of public funds

  111. Re:Good news, and all... by jedidiah · · Score: 1

    I'm not a cow and neither are you.

    It's still easier for me to eat meat or cheese than any plant product. That's not even getting into people that might not even be able to eat one particular thing or another.

    Full throttle omnivorism is the only sensible approach.

    Anything else and you are likely to miss something or fail to "complement" something properly.

    I'm not a dirt poor 3rd world person. I don't have to punish myself and pretend I wasn't born in the 1st world.

    Besides, my own dietary requirements right now likely could not be sustained without animal products. Although I am certainly a corner case.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  112. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 3, Informative

    Last week, Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey became the latest in what’s sure to be a long list of state attorneys general to conclude the same thing. Specifically, Healy concluded,

            “Over the past week, my office has conducted a thorough review and found that Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts’ health care centers are fully compliant with state and federal laws regarding the disposition of fetal tissue. Although donation of fetal tissue is permissible under state and federal law, PPLM does not have a tissue donation program. There is no evidence that PPLM is involved in any way in the buying or selling of tissue. As such, our review is complete.”

    Sure, Massachusetts is a leftward-leaning state, but Indiana is very much not. Back on July 16, Gov. Mike Pence, R-Ind., launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood following the release of what was obviously a doctored and misleading video. The probe focused on facilities in Indianapolis, Bloomington and Merrillville, and this past week the Indiana Department of Health reported it was “unable to find any non-compliance with state regulations. Therefore, no deficiencies were cited.”

  113. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Further reading: http://popehat.com/2015/07/30/l-a-court-prohibits-center-for-medical-progress-from-publishing-some-undercover-materials-about-abortion/

  114. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's murder when you take an action that ends up taking the life of someone who would otherwise be alive.

    The question here is, when does a human life begin, because after that point doing something that stops life is murder.

    So pick your position on the question and don't fool around with the all the rest of the rhetoric here. After life begins, Abortion is murder.

    IMHO, life begins at conception. Feel free to draw your line where you want, but be prepared to defend that position. A human develops fairly rapidly, with identifiable human form and a heart beat in the first trimester, so keep that in mind when you pick your "life begins" point..

  115. Re: Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    They're nothing like any of their counterparts in the rest of the animal kingdom.

    people who failed basic high school biology think that their opinions on these matters are relevant

  116. Re:Cool by hawkinspeter · · Score: 1

    I'm in the UK and don't have a ticket. What does it say?

    Prick.

    --
    You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
  117. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    p.s. I was being sarcastic if you couldn't tell. Sorry. I should have used the sarc mark. (/s)

  118. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wrong. It's a free speech issue, and Your Rights Online exists for a reason: nerds care a lot about free speech.

    Also, the fact that you're still posting on Slashdot shows that you still believe it to be relevant, which in turn shows your latter comment to be toothless and disingenuous.

  119. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If that is so, then most humans have died before they were more than a handful of cells.

    Yup, every missed period and many other foetuses that didn't last long enough to disrupt the menstrual cycle was a dead human by your metric.

    If there IS a god, theyre the biggest child murderer of all time, even ignoring all the death described in the bible.

    So, when this "human" is four cells, lets see how well it survives outside the mother? What? It doesn't? Then how does it live? Parasitising from the mother.

    Well, then, it's alive like a tapeworm is alive. And removing parasites isn't murder.

    Of course, a more sane point is "When the foetus would survive outside the mother". Which is currently six or so months after conception.

    Your point won't work because the vast majority of "killed babies" is the natural act of the mother's immune system working as designed against a foreign body.

  120. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 0

    Moral outrage over pricing! Even when it's not your money! Even when it's not taxpayer money! Oh my goodness, how shocking! This is the downfall of our civilization! Oh my goodness!

  121. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    That's fine. What these videos show is that there needs to be an investigation. Perhaps some wrongdoing has happened. Perhaps not. But an investigation is warranted.

    Allow law enforcement to conduct undercover surveillance (within the boundaries of the law) . Based on the videos, it seems like PP is selling/haggling baby parts. It seems like they are changing how they perform procedure to get better specimens, which also illegal. And in some cases, the fetus MAY have been born and the abortion still took place despite the fetus being out of the womb even though that is illegal and they are required to perform life saving procedures.

    Again all of this is alleged, but based on the videos a more thorough investigations are needed.

    But in the meantime, people are advocating defunding PP with taxpayer money and reroute that money to other women's clinics that do not perform abortions.

  122. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    then you're not going to the game and it doesn't apply to you

  123. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, we should also teach all of the birds, bears, large cats, mongooses and other animals that eat other living things our enlightened ways, BY FORCE.

    Its a matter of biology, our bodies like many other animals crave meat. Attempting to suppress that will end about as well as prohibition. No doubt most of us should eat less of it, myself included. But until we can produce a viable replacement (same cost, texture, taste, nutritional) a vast majority of the population will continue to eat it.

  124. Re:Cool by tlambert · · Score: 3, Informative

    Answer me this. If Planned parenthood is much more than abortion and gets most of its revenue from other places other than abortion, then why did several Planned Parenthood clinics close when Texas' new stricter abortion laws took into effect? Couldn't those closed Planned Parenthood clinics just stop providing abortion but continue to be open and provide women health services like cancer screening?

    Probably for two reasons:

    (1) The bombings

    (2) A strong ethical and moral stance that services which are constitutionally legal, such as those involved in not forcing a woman to be an incubator for a rapists spawn, are not severable from other legally allowed medical services

    I could guess at other reasons as well.

  125. Re:Good news, and all... by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    It's still easier for me to eat meat or cheese than any plant product..

    Besides, my own dietary requirements right now likely could not be sustained without animal products. Although I am certainly a corner case.

    Planned Parenthood should be donating to you, I think it would be a good match.

  126. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My issue is that if they are indeed donating the tissue and only getting paid for their costs, then they should not be haggling over the price

    I don't see anything wrong with haggling in a donation. A donation isn't defined by a lack of haggling, but not being a contract with consideration.

    By consideration, I mean both parties offering something of value for exchange, with each regarded as being sufficient for the other.

    If you're paying me for a pen, you could sue me if I take the money but not don't provide a pen, or I can sue you for taking a pen without giving me money.

    Donations need not consideration. You could give me something that's worth well beyond what I'm giving you... if I give you anything at all. You can't sue me for not giving you anything in return for your donation.

    But just because I don't have to doesn't mean I can't. Charities do things in return for their donors all the time, and there's certainly room to haggle what gets done.

  127. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It is tax payer money. Money is fungible. If PP got split into two organizations that no longer have anything to do with one another (1) a women's health clinic and 2) an abortion clinic), then we wouldn't be having this debate.

    PP doesn't want to do that. That's fine. Why not give the taxpayer money to another women's health organization that doesn't perform abortions?

    If this is truly about women's health, then that should be okay. It wouldn't matter if the taxpayers were funding PP or a different women's health clinic if you are proposing that money is not fungible.

    But you know money is fungible and you do want the taxpayers to pay for abortions.

  128. Re: Cool by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

    This would be distinct from an employee recording actual events.

    What, you can't "record actual events" in such a way as to distort "actual events" beyond all recognition?

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  129. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For sarcasm to work, the statement has to be untrue in a literal sense. Yours wasn't.

  130. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    1) what bombings? I could not find any info about recent bombings in Texas that were the cause of Planned Parenthood clinics for closing. Why would anyone bomb a clinic if they closed because of the stricter Texas law?

    2) Your 2nd answer doesn't answer my question. Why did the clinics close if they could not conduct abortions anymore due to the stricter Texas law? Why couldn't they still stay open to provide the necessary women health services?

    I think you are conflating issues. That's fine. Why don't you try again. Seriously, I am curious why Planned Parenthood clinics couldn't still stay open to provide the necessary women health services despite not being able to perform any abortions due to the stricter Texas law?

    Please answer me that question.

  131. Re:Cool by tlambert · · Score: 4, Funny

    The gestation of a fetus is a non-delegable act [...]

    And this is ultimately the issue. Which is why we need to rapidly advance medical technology, to the point where the men on the religious right who want to "save" the fetus can do so, by carrying it to term themselves.

  132. Re:Good news, and all... by jfengel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You might find that you're more of a cow than you think. Or rather, if you were to see some of the videos, you might find that your empathy towards them is closer to human and further from "other" than you might expect.

    That doesn't mean you have to stop being an omnivore. Meat and animal products are good food. But you can demand that the animals you consume be treated humanely, while they live and as they die. You do indeed live in the first world, which means you have enough money to pay them to use processes that take at least some care for the animals, rather than treating them as inanimate objects that can't feel pain.

    It's very unfortunate that the loudest advocates for the rights of animals make fools of themselves in the process. They're fools, and you're right to ignore them. But that doesn't mean that there aren't real abuses going on in factory farming, and you're in a position to demand that they stop the abuses. Pretending they don't exist is just as foolish. And you can tell yourself that these are purely inanimate objects whose pain doesn't matter to you, but I suspect you'd feel otherwise if you went and looked.

    (Or maybe not. There are people who don't. But people who don't empathize with animal suffering often don't empathize with human suffering, either, and that's widely considered a moral failing. Which means I wouldn't be able to convince you of that, either. But for anybody reading this, I think it's worth considering the notion that they should look at the videos and see if they would rather have it be different.)

  133. Re:Good news, and all... by Raisey-raison · · Score: 1

    IMHO this impacts digital recording of people. Imagine someone is arrested and while that happens if the police decide to beat the the arrestee up. Or imagine if they commit another crime like stealing their stuff, or planting evidence, or admitting that they are going to lie to a judge to secure a conviction. This happened recently and the arrestee was prosecuted for illegally recording someone without their permission. Well how are you going to get permission from the police while they secretly beat you up in a can or a police station?

    We need to have a broad exception for recording without permission when either a law is being broken, a government official is engaging in corruption, a law enforcement officer or judge is abusing their authority or activity that undermines the justice system, a government agent is engaging in extra judicial activity such as 'rendition', when a private company is violating its employees rights, or when a person needs to collect information to protect themselves against someone trying to defraud them.

    I also think that this story reflects the fact that a significant minority of people out there get way more outraged by cruelty to animals that cruelty to humans. I find this attitude quite sickening.

  134. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And hospitals are being lambasted for transferring whole human organs cross country, and being reimbursed for storage and transportation costs.

  135. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's not human any more than a dump I took this morning is human, despite a plethora of human cells in it. It is a foetus. Not a human. Not a human, a foetus.

    A cooked pork chop has a distinct genetic code, so quite what you think you'll learn with that question is anyone's guess.

    If you say it isn't part of the mother, then why does it die when removed from the mother? It isn't able to live independently. It' a foetus.

  136. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Although I am certainly a corner case."

    Was that supposed to be a Coroner's case, or coronary case?

    I am truly curious what dietary requirements you have that "likely could not be sustained without animal products." I can't think of one, though I am sure it would have made a good episode of "House."

  137. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Things like quantity, and speed of delivery directly effect the costs to procure, store, and transport said samples. The process is *exactly* the same as when an adult decides to donate any other tissue grown in their own body, even post-mortem donations by organ donors get the transportation, storage, and recovery costs reimbursed. There is *literally* no legal, or moral difference between the two scenarios, except in the minds of people who think women should have less bodily autonomy than a corpse.

  138. Re: Cool by alcmena · · Score: 1

    I'd prefer a war on drugs refund. Way more was spent there.

  139. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would you argue for not administering CPR because the body could not survive without external assistance? Or do you believe there is a magical threshold that a person crosses, after which it is acceptable to give them external assistance?

  140. Re:Cool by OhPlz · · Score: 1

    Only a truly depraved individual would attempt to equate the two.

  141. Re:Cool by smooth+wombat · · Score: 1

    Using your logic this is the same reason we shouldn't be giving to Israel. They can CLAIM the money isn't being used to throw Palestinians off their land or build more illegal settlements on Palestinian land, but, as you said, money is fungible.

    Since they can use the U.S. taxpayer money given to them for other projects this frees up money for Israel to use in other ways.

    But you know money is fungible and you do not want the taxpayers to pay for apartheid policies.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  142. Re:Good news, and all... by houghi · · Score: 1

    Aas a meat lover, I HATE when animals are abused. It spoils the meat. I would LOVE that they masasage each animal so the quality of the meat becomes better in taste and texture.
    Unfortunately we, as a whole, vote with our wallets and cheaper meat is what we want, so cheaper meat is what is provided.

    Oversight costs money. Fixing it costs money. Those are things we are apparently not willing to pay for.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  143. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's probably murder if we kill for convenience at 5 months when under other circumstances at the same age we'd try to "Save the premie baby".
    (the medical institution has saved babies from 21 weeks last i checked.)

    Instead of "pull out the intact thorax" to get at the precious livers.
    That is a huge difference. The kind that disturbs people.
    Pulling a 15" baby halfway out of the birth canal and then severing its spine seems pretty different than when it's a bundle of 12 cells.

    If someone murders a pregnant mother they can get two counts of murder, but if i abort a baby at 24 weeks it's going to be a fine?
    What if someone stabbed a 21 week premie in an incubator? do they get charged for murder? you bet your ass.
    how about if the hospital part out its liver afterward? no biggie right? it was dead anyway.

    What is different about these babies that grants them humanhood or not?

    We need to redraw the lines as now it's only predicated on arbitrary markers that have strange overlap.

  144. A legal argument could easily be made here. by tlambert · · Score: 1

    for the sole purpose to make these videos.

    Are you saying they didn't bother to pick up their paychecks?

    A legal argument could easily be made here.

    Specifically, they accepted the position of employment under false pretenses, and are minimally guilty of larceny, as a result of felonious breach of trust and/or embezzlement. In addition, it could be argued that they engaged in theft of services (if there were any training involved for the job), and in Illinois, at least, would get them one to ten years in prison, per count.

    In addition, there's the possibility that civil liability would attach, in the form of restitution and damages. This would arise both as a result of the damages to the businesses reputation, loss of income, but also loss of services during the time that the employee was defrauding the business when the business had an expectation that their investment in the employee would be of long term benefit. This would accrue based on the business losing the services of the employee(s) they would have hired in place of the fraudsters, had they known they were misrepresenting themselves.

    Note that in many states, it would also be possible to pursue conspiracy charges, in the absence of a specific whistleblowing statute (or press indemnification statute -- the U.S. has neither, generally, as the Whistleblower Protection Act only applies to Federal Employees), particularly if there was an employment NDA involved (upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Snepp v. United States).

    In other words, if they *did* pick up their paychecks, they are in a substantially worse position than had it merely been Criminal Trespass. I personally find this outcome particularly amusing.

    1. Re:A legal argument could easily be made here. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Accepting an offer of employment under false pretenses would mean that the employee was untruthful in the job applications or interview, such as claiming more education or experience than the employee actually has. 'Fraud" doesn't mean "has ulterior motives".

      Providing training is generally considered to benefit the business, and there's nothing legally preventing an employee from deciding he or she doesn't want the job after training. The employer may expect whatever, but in most states in the US employment is at-will, and that works both ways. If the employer doesn't think the applicant will stick around, the employer is free not to offer a job (with some exceptions that don't apply here).

      How many factory farms make workers sign NDAs? That would be a legitimate legal issue.

      Note: IANAL. If the legality of these things is of interest to you, consult a real lawyer who knows the law in your jurisdiction. In the US, you can probably schedule a short inexpensive consultation through your local bar association.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  145. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you even read the context of this post chain?

    Original "Couldn't those closed Planned Parenthood clinics just stop providing abortion but continue to be open and provide women health services like cancer screening?"
    Response "WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM with business providing services that are COMPLETELY LEGAL?"

    There is no context in which the response above to the original statement is referring to the non-abortion related parts of Planned Parenthood...

  146. Re:Cool by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

    You misspelled hype thesis.

  147. How you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this is how. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

  148. Re:Good news, and all... by togofspookware · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I also think that this story reflects the fact that a significant minority of people out there get way more outraged by cruelty to animals that cruelty to humans. I find this attitude quite sickening.

    In our world, cruelty to animals is applied on a scale that completely dwarfs cruelty to people. So even if you think the suffering of a cow or pig matters 1/10th the suffering of a person, the total amount of suffering among farm animals is still daunting and horrible.

    That said, cruelty to anyone is bad and it's reasonable to be upset about any and all of it. I hate the way farm animals are treated, and I also hate it when police harass/abuse/execute innocent people. I won't fault anyone for focusing their outrage a different way than I do.

    --
    Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
  149. Re:Good news, and all... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    It's still easier for me to eat meat or cheese than any plant product.

    Well, the eating might be easier, but if you stick to nothing but animal products, the digesting and the process that happens after digesting gets an awful lot harder.

    Besides, my own dietary requirements right now likely could not be sustained without animal products.

    That sounds awfully unusual. Must be some obscure medical condition. I hope your insurance covers it properly.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  150. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    You have no argument from me about giving Israel or any foreign country our money.

  151. Re:Cool by bev_tech_rob · · Score: 1

    Must be nice living in your black and white world. Now run upstairs from your basement for supper. I think Mommy is calling you.... sheesh...

    --
    You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
  152. Re:Cool by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

    Wow. What kind of fucked up bible are you reading that makes you think that Jesus would support abortion?

    --
    See that "Preview" button?
  153. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    It is tax payer money. Money is fungible.

    why aren't you lobbying for grocery stores to divest themselves of their drug stores that sell deadly drugs that kill unborn babies?

    why aren't you lobbying to keep taxi companies from profiting by driving women to planned parenthood?

    why are you not lobbying to boycott the construction companies that built planned parenthood facilities?

  154. The law was not bogus. by tlambert · · Score: 1

    How were these clearly bogus laws voted in, in the first place?

    The law was not bogus, and the decision is unlikely to be upheld on appeal.

    There is a substantial difference between someone breaking and entering your property and filming, vs. committing fraud by accepting employment, and potential other crimes in the process, when compared to a legally designated government inspector from the Department of Health or Department of Agriculture.

    These were not long time employees suddenly incensed by recent activity, and they were not long time employees who suddenly got the anti-factory-farm religion because they happened to start dating a vegetarian.

    The laws happened because there is an ongoing problem of these activists illegally entering the property -- technically breaking and entering, criminal trespass, and a large set of other chargeable crimes, and the police were getting sick and tired of responding to those acts, so they strengthened the penalties. When it became to costly, in terms of risk vs. reward to use those tactics any more, then the activists resorted to fraud. The specific law which was declared unconstitutional in Idaho was enact to strengthen the penalties against this fraud. In other words, it's an escalation of tactics.

    This judges decision will likely be thrown out on appeal on the basis of contravening the "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" theory of limitations on first amendment rights, since what they were filming on the farm generally has no bearing on actual food safety, according to the Ag. Inspectors, and was intended to be alarmist and result in a negative backlash, rather than an increase in food safety. These people are in fact anti-meat activists.

    Like the "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" theory, you are in fact free to say what you want; however, what you say may also have social, civil, or even criminal consequences which you don't like and don't want. But that's what happens to people who acto out sociopathic tendencies for what they see as justifiable ends: ostracism, lawsuits, or (ultimately) criminal charges.

    1. Re:The law was not bogus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      committing fraud by accepting employment

      TIL employers are trying to get around unemployment rate increases by having workers arrested rather than laid off.

  155. Re:Cool by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 1

    Except, it doesn't apply. This case is about videos that are shown to be about factual events that are displayed in a truthful format that are both covered under the 1st amendment and would likely also be protected under whistleblower laws. The "abortion tissue" videos aren't covered under either.

    I absolutely agree with you that the abortion videos are being released in a highly edited and misleading way, and I don't disagree with the temporary restraining order.

    However, your ideology is also blinding you to parallels here. These state laws were not passed out of fear of some nice documentary crew coming onto a farm and making a pleasant and balanced video presentation of what goes on.

    They were passed because of previous incidents where people from PETA and similar organizations have done EXACTLY what these anti-abortion folks have done, i.e., they have lied or pretended to be someone they weren't to gain access, then taken videos, and then edited them to make the most of the "gory bits," regardless of whether those particular video segments were illegal or standard business practice or whatever. PETA and similar groups are not interested in "factual events that are displayed in a truthful format" -- they have an agenda to shut down any farm that kills animals, and they'll happily spin things to do it.

    And I'm sure those misleading videos which take things out of context were the primary concern of those who passed these laws, just as you are currently concerned about abortion provider statements and images taken out of context.

    The problem with the laws about the farms, of course, is that they are a complete overreach and deserve to be overturned. But your idea that there isn't a parallel motivation for abortion providers and farm owners to protect their businesses from unfairly edited videos is just failing to look at the bigger picture here.

  156. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Money being fungible does NOT mean it's taxpayer money.

    Never has, never will.

    And since childbirth and carrying the child to term is a risk to the life and health of the mother, abortion is definitely a women's health issue.

  157. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Given economic scarcity is a real thing, and time is likewise limited, directly attacking the core the problem makes the most sense. You can disagree all you like; it won't stop others from persisting in their objectives.

  158. Re:Cool by chihowa · · Score: 2

    You're absolutely correct... and so is he (on the Jefferson quote, not at all on his anti-abortion hysteria).

    It's not necessary for everybody to stand up for, or even agree on, every righteous cause. As long as each cause has its proponents, progress can be made. Advocating for one thing passionately is more likely to bring about change than diluting your effort over multiple issues that you are less passionate about.

    I think his position is stupid and uninformed, but it's not hypocritical of him to push one cause at the exclusion of all other causes. Plus, he never even mentioned those other topics, so you're just using senseless party-based tribalism to assign him characteristics that he may not have. Lazy, man. Lazy.

    --
    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  159. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you say it isn't part of the mother, then why does it die when removed from the mother? It isn't able to live independently. It' a foetus.

    Many abortions occur after the age of the earliest surviving premature birth, will you concede that those are murders or at least potential murders?

    This suggests strongly that it is not any intrinsic property of the unborn that identify them as fully human, but instead the current ability of available technology to sustain them without their mother.

    As I believe that some day the minimum required role for the mother will be egg donation, I will go ahead and start using the definition I expect to be in use at that time early, so as to avoid needing to re-define when a fetus becomes human every year or two. I believe that will be at the point of genetic distinction, aka fertilization of the ovum.

    Much like the 3/5 compromise in it's day, the law currently supports your view of 'less than human.' The biological facts are not on your side, and eventually the emotional flames that you fan will die out and these facts will be recognized.

  160. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    It's not illogical to think that money you give an organization will benefit the activity that the same organization performs.

    Your argument is not logical for a multitude of reasons.
    1) No tax payer money is being given to grocery stores, taxi companies, construction companies.
    2) these companies are separate organizations to Planned Parenthood.

    I don't understand the argument why not to split PP into 2 separate entities: 1) a women's health clinic and an abortion clinic. If that were to happen, then the Women's health clinic could still refer women to the abortion clinics. But because the health clinic would be separate from the abortion clinic part of PP, the taxpayer money that is given to the women's health clinic wouldn't DIRECTLY benefit the abortion clinic.

    Just split PP and this debate would be over. No one is saying in this current debate that the abortion clinics should close or that Roe v Wade should be repealed. Just stop funding organizations that conduct abortions. If you split PP then this debate is over.

     

  161. Re:Cool by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Who could ever equate the legal disposal of human remains with the legal disposal of human remains?

  162. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Given economic scarcity is a real thing, and time is likewise limited, directly attacking the core the problem makes the most sense.

    Sure, let's attack the core of the problem: religious radicalism trying to use state power to force their morals on everyone else.

    It's a difficult issue to be sure, as religious freedom is a something guaranteed in the Constitution. What ideas do you have to reach out to them? People have tried reason and logic for many years, but that hasn't worked, as the religious aren't exactly reasonable or logical people, believing in space zombies, virgin births, and would not.

  163. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Some of Texas' new stricter abortion laws were impossible for a clinic to implement. Like admitting privileges in a local hospital. Like hospital wide hallways meaning they would have to have a totally new location or completely renovate their existing facilities.

    These laws were written to force these closures. Funding had nothing whatsoever to do with the closings.

    You can bet that abortions will still happen, likely for less money, certainly harming women.

  164. Re:Cool by koreanbabykilla · · Score: 1

    Just out of curiosity, why do you care *at all* what they do with the dead baby parts? They are dead. They don't care. I don't see why you do.

  165. Re:Cool by Beezlebub33 · · Score: 1

    Complete lack of opposition to slavery, not a mention of rape in the New Testament. It appears that Jesus was all for a male-dominated, slave-keeping (probably including female slaves for sex) society. So, nothing to indicate that he would oppose it. He might think that it was up to the father / slave ower rather than the women though.

    More importantly though, I think that the parent was referring to the lack of support for education, equal opportunity, health care, and other things for children that the parent thought Jesus would have been likely to support. And it seems to me that the people that most oppose abortion also are the ones that prevent those things for children.

    (Plus, he seemed to like hookers, and we all know how they love to have abortions).

    --
    The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
  166. They brought it on themselves by sjbe · · Score: 1

    I spend a lot of time on /. and other forums defending animal agriculture because, while I would be the first to admit we can do better, I think we do a much better job caring for our animals than most people believe.

    You are right that a lot of people have a poor to non-existent idea of what good animal husbandry involves. But agribusiness has kind of brought the problem on themselves by turning a blind eye to some of the more egregious practices in the industry. The basic problem is that ag corporations are not financially incentivized to be humane to the animals. The bottom line rules all and if push comes to shove, humane treatment of animals too often gets sacrificed needlessly. I'm not even talking about the folks who simply have no sense of compassion with regard to livestock though there are too many of those out there. The problem is really that there clearly hasn't been sufficient effort put into making industrial scale farming also humane farming.

    Animal rights groups do not concern themselves over much with things like facts, accuracy, or fair descriptions of why we do things the way that we do, but that does not mean that we should try to silence them.

    You claim that agribusinesses aren't being treated fairly (sometimes true) but you are painting with the same broad brush. Most animal advocacy groups are not a bunch of lunatics like PETA just like not every farmer is doing horrid things to their livestock. And just because things in agriculture are done a certain way doesn't automatically make them ethical or humane or smart. I've got enough of a background in agriculture to understand a lot of the practices rather well but I also simply think a fair number of them are rather stupid and even counterproductive. And it's not hard to find evidence to back me up on that.

    You are quite right that there are VERY good reasons for many of the practices in agriculture. Safety not the least among them. But there also are a lot of practices that are obsolete, unnecessary or needlessly harsh or dangerous or even counterproductive. (like overuse of antibiotics) The goal should be to get everyone to the very best practices with the latest and most humane techniques and that is most assuredly NOT being done.

    I'm under no illusions where my food comes from but the moment they engage in and/or cover up inhumane treatment of animals my sympathy for those engaged in such practices goes away. Folks who pass laws clearly designed to protect unethical conduct should be treated just like we treat any other criminals who abuse animals because that is what they are trying to protect. They are circling the wagons without even giving a moment's reflection on whether what is going on is justified or right. They really only have themselves to blame.

    1. Re:They brought it on themselves by crmarvin42 · · Score: 1

      The basic problem is that ag corporations are not financially incentivized to be humane to the animals

      Just about any introductory class on animal husbandry will explain why this is not true. Animals that are abused (from their perspective, not our anthropomorphized perspective) increase the production of all sorts of stress hormones. These hormones cause animals to grow more slowly, get sick more often, produce less milk/wool/etc., delay rebreeding, and all sorts of other negative outcomes that are counter to what the farmer wants from an economic perspective. I won't pretend we maximize animal happiness, but we do try to minimize stress.

      The problem is really that there clearly hasn't been sufficient effort put into making industrial scale farming also humane farming.

      This may have been true in the past, but that is rapidly changing. Purdue University, where I got my graduate degrees, has a VERY strong animal behavior and welfare group focusing on commercial livestock. Many of the students who's programs overlapped with mine are working in industry on welfare programs designed to keep these very concerns top of mind. Won't say they always get their way, but a buddy of mine was just offer a huge salary to leave academia and design a layer welfare program for a large egg producer. He was told he'd pretty much get cart blanche to design and implement the program. He turned it down for family reasons, but I get the impression the job is his whenever he wants it. That is huge considering that Temple Grandin came to speak at Purdue while I was there, and she stood up and called the egg producers out on their unwillingness to even consider that their might be a better way. That was less than 10 years ago.

      You claim that agribusinesses aren't being treated fairly (sometimes true) but you are painting with the same broad brush.

      I don't believe that I am. I've found that there are a lot of animal WELFARE groups that are reasonable and earnest in their efforts, but there is a distinct difference between the animal welfare movement and the animal rights movement. The former is concerned with good stewardship, but practical enough to know that people will always want to eat meat. I consider myself a welfare advocate, and I have on several occasions objected when I've witnessed mishandling of animals. However, animal rights advocates seem to be far more concerned with their objective of complete elimination of animal use by humans to be bothered about being practical, honest, or fair. To be sure there are many who self identify as animal rights supporters who don't share that view, but in my experience that has been because they were unaware that there was another option. or that the two terms have different meanings.

      You are right though, we have brought a large part of this down on ourselves by failing to engage with society as a whole.

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    2. Re:They brought it on themselves by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      Just want to say that discussions like this are why I still come here. Thanks for the great posts.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    3. Re:They brought it on themselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sounds kinda like the claim that "slaves weren't abused, because the owner had reason not to" malarkey.

      the corporation is money incentivized, and anything that improves that is "good" from their POV.

    4. Re:They brought it on themselves by crmarvin42 · · Score: 1

      Very different. For one thing there is a lot of research being done by people who are far more concerned with the welfare of the animals than they economics for the humans. These people are driving the animal welfare research agenda. People like Joseph Garner or Temple Grandin. Temple is world famous for her work on improving welfare in cattle slaughter plants. I met Joe back when he was a professor at Purdue. He has spent a lot of time working through the moral implications of various management techniques, cage size, environmental temperatures (performance ideal vs animal preferences), etc. His whole group at purdue were some of the most compassionate researchers I've ever known with regards to their research animals.

      Your jaded view is just not consistent with the actual work being done by actual people I know in the field, or the actual changes I've witnessed in the last 15 years. I won't argue that we didn't need a kick in the ass, but there is a point where we should start to get credit for the progress we've made and the things we were already doing right, and I think that time has already come.

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
  167. You believe it's okay to cover up animal torture? by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    These factory farms are not going to stop torturing animals unless they are forced to do so.

    If you cannot record what actually happens, then how would anybody know?

  168. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm also in the UK and we look at the fuss over abortion in the US as bizarre.

  169. Please prove videos were edited by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    I think this is one of the videos in question:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN_YcWOuVqk

    Tell me how they were actually being nice to the cows, but the video makes it look like animal torture?

    Also, are there not experts who can tell if a video is edited?

  170. Re:Cool by koreanbabykilla · · Score: 1

    https://www.google.com/search?...

    Here ya go champ!

    TICKET DISCLAIMER

    THIS TICKET IS A REVOCABLE LICENSE/USER ACCEPTS RISK OF INJURY

    By use of this ticket, the ticket purchaser/holder ("Holder") agrees that: (a) he or she shall not transmit or aid in transmitting any information about the game to which it grants admission, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the game (collectively "Game Information"); and the Allstate Sugar Bowl and each of its respective agents, shall have the unrestricted right and license to use his or her image, likeness, name, voice, comments or other proprietary or public rights and that of any minor accompanying ticket holder in any broadcast, telecast or photograph and/or video and/or audio sound recording taken in connection with the game or other transmission or reproduction in whole or in part of the game, for all purposes, without compensation.

    The holder voluntarily assumes all risks incident to the event, including the risk of lost, stolen or damaged property or personal injury. The Allstate Sugar Bowl may revoke this license and eject or refuse entry to the holder for violation of venue rules, illegal activity, misconduct or failure to comply with any and all security measures. Gym bags, backpacks, oversized packages, cans, bottles, weapons, missiles, fireworks, contraband, video cameras, cameras with a detachable zoom lens, recording devices, laser pointers, artificial noisemakers and containers of any kind are prohibited on Superdome property.

    The holder voluntarily assumes all risk associated with the purchase of this ticket from anyone other than the Allstate Sugar Bowl or its designated agents. This ticket may not be used for advertising, promotion (including contests or sweepstakes), or other trade or commercial purposes without the express written consent of the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

    NO REFUNDS, NO EXCHANGES, NO RE-ADMISSION. EVENT, DATE & TIME SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

  171. Re:Cool by cbhacking · · Score: 1

    The fact that you had to ask twice means you either already know the answer or you're an idiot, and the fact that you used "I'm in the UK" as an excuse while posting on an online forum doesn't help your case on the latter either (or have all your search engines stopped working?).

    Short version, though: all professional sporting events in the US have, for many years, had a blanket ban on spectators recording (or at least distributing recordings of) the event, and tickets for in-person spectators include a requirement of consent to be recorded and televised. Not that you "agree" to anything in the usual sense, but it's printed there on the ticket.

    Almost nobody reads the small print, of course, but it's also not usually a problem. For one thing, the cameras can't generally pick up conversations between spectators. As for recording in general, I'd hope you understand the fact that walking into a place with a ton of TV cameras running is a bad idea if you don't want to be recorded...

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  172. Re: Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Half a billion Indians say you're wrong.

  173. Thank God by JimSadler · · Score: 2

    Whistle blowers deserve every advantage in making things public. There is no sane reason to protect any business from wrong doing. The very people that pretend to be patriots and church goers are the very ones wanting to suppress free speech and hide wrong doing. It is disgusting that a state could ever pass such un American laws.

    1. Re:Thank God by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The videos are trying to make farming look bad, and turn opinion against them.
      It isn't exposing criminal activity.

    2. Re:Thank God by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Clearly you aren't familiar with the law.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  174. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uhm, as soon as conception happened, the baby was born successfully?????? REALLY???????

    First, all of those abortions older than that were BEFORE that very very early born baby.
    Second, that very very early born baby was the absolute tail end of the survivability, a hundred times as many have died at an age equal to that. Hundreds more were older.
    Third, that baby will likely die young and cost the taxpayer a HUGE cost to try to keep alive and increase the chance of it surviving to adulthood.
    Fourth, 20 weeks still die, so aren't viable organisms any more than someone kept alive solely on life support and in a coma is alive.
    Fifth, once the child IS born, you suddenly don't give a shit about them. Why is that?
    Sixth, your "argument" fails on each of these points, yet you didn't feel the need to acknowledge them, despite knowing them already. Why is that?

  175. Re:Cool by cbhacking · · Score: 1

    Uterine replicators (artificial wombs) would probably be a more practical solution. Men aren't any more physiologically equipped than an old "iron lung" when it comes to carrying an embryo or fetus, but we can make changes to machinery much more easily than we can change human bodies (and with far fewer ethical considerations). We don't have the technology to do this yet - we can keep premature infants alive from earlier than used to be possible, but that's it - but some people are working on it. It would probably have a very dramatic effect on society, comparable to or possibly surpassing the pill and other cheap, safe contraceptives for women. There's some good science fiction that touches on the topic, actually.

    It would be *tempting* to make men who are trying to run women's sex lives carry their pregnancies instead, but sometimes facetious suggestions get in the way of things that might actually work.

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  176. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "No Gestation without Representation!"
    It's in the Constitution, people!

  177. Way to defend animal torture. by walterbyrd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > There is a substantial difference between someone breaking and entering your property and filming, vs. committing fraud by accepting employment, and potential other crimes in the process, when compared to a legally designated government inspector from the Department of Health or Department of Agriculture.

    Because 1) government is corrupt. In Idaho, the gov are a bunch ag people themselves. 2) when the government is watching, you know they are watching you, and you modify your behavior. What matters is what happens when the government is not watching.

    > These were not long time employees suddenly incensed by recent activity, and they were not long time employees who suddenly got the anti-factory-farm religion because they happened to start dating a vegetarian.

    1) So what? 2) Of course the long-time employees would be okay with it, otherwise they would not be long time employees. The torturers were stung by an undercover whistle blower, what is wrong with that?

    > The laws happened because there is an ongoing problem of these activists illegally entering the property -- technically breaking and entering, criminal trespass, and a large set of other chargeable crimes, and the police were getting sick and tired of responding to those acts, so they strengthened the penalties. When it became to costly, in terms of risk vs. reward to use those tactics any more, then the activists resorted to fraud. The specific law which was declared unconstitutional in Idaho was enact to strengthen the penalties against this fraud. In other words, it's an escalation of tactics.

    "Resorted to fraud" - just listen to you. These concerned individuals wanted to document what actually happens. How else can you do it? How else do you stop the torture?

    > This judges decision will likely be thrown out on appeal on the basis of contravening the "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" theory of limitations on first amendment rights, since what they were filming on the farm generally has no bearing on actual food safety, according to the Ag. Inspectors, and was intended to be alarmist and result in a negative backlash, rather than an increase in food safety. These people are in fact anti-meat activists.

    It is not about food safety, so much, as cruelty to animals. And these factory farmers are horrifically cruel to animals.

    > Like the "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" theory, you are in fact free to say what you want; however, what you say may also have social, civil, or even criminal consequences which you don't like and don't want. But that's what happens to people who acto out sociopathic tendencies for what they see as justifiable ends: ostracism, lawsuits, or (ultimately) criminal charges.

    How else do you stop these animal torturers?

    BTW: it's okay to "shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" if the theater is on fire.

    1. Re:Way to defend animal torture. by tlambert · · Score: 1

      Because 1) government is corrupt. In Idaho, the gov are a bunch ag people themselves.

      [...]

      "Resorted to fraud" - just listen to you. These concerned individuals wanted to document what actually happens. How else can you do it? How else do you stop the torture?

      The absolutely easiest and most correct, and most obvious, way to do it would be for you to become part of the regulatory infrastructure.

      The non-corrupt part.

      And then you hold them accountable, if, in fact, the factory farms are engaged in any illegal behaviour.

    2. Re:Way to defend animal torture. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) government is corrupt. In Idaho, the gov are a bunch ag people themselves

      Remember, kids. Having a job means you are "corrupt"

      This message brought to you by the ReElect Obama Campaign

    3. Re:Way to defend animal torture. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How else do you stop these animal torturers?

      So you're saying the ends justifies the means? Their goals are pure so their actions can be dirty?

      it's okay to "shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" if the theater is on fire.

      Yes, but you're generally not allowed to punch other theater goers in the face in order to get to a better location from which to shout it.

  178. Re: Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, won't someone think of the farmers.

  179. Amazingly, Nawth Ca'lina Governor Got It Right! by Toad-san · · Score: 1

    One of the few damned things he's done that I agree with. The big turkey, chicken and hog factory owners in this state were HUGELY supporting making whistleblowing illegal, after numerous embarrassing incidents involving health and animal cruelty issues in their plants and farms.

    http://www.foodsafetynews.com/...

  180. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's not illogical to think that money you give an organization will benefit the activity that the same organization performs.

    But it is illogical to think that just because you THINK something can happen, then it is happening.

    I don't understand the argument why not to split PP into 2 separate entities

    I don't understand why you think the burden is on others to prove their innocence to you. If you suspect foul play, it's your responsibility to prove their guilt.

    If that were to happen, then the Women's health clinic could still refer women to the abortion clinics. ...the taxpayer money that is given to the women's health clinicwouldn't DIRECTLY benefit the abortion clinic.

    So? Then people would complain that you don't want your tax money to be used to refer people to abortion clinics, that they don't want their money to even INDIRECTLY benefit the abortion clinic.

    The goal of anti-abortion people isn't the same your claimed issue over tax dollars. Their goal is to end abortion. They won't stop until there is no practical way to have abortions.

    Just split PP and this debate would be over.

    No it won't. Again, the goal of anti-abortion is to effectively eliminate the option. They're not going to just stop at feeling good that their taxes aren't going towards it.

  181. Mod parent up. by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    Excellent post.

    How could anybody defend animal torture?

  182. Re:Cool by cbhacking · · Score: 1

    I can't tell if you are honestly completely blind to everything about what Snowden released, or are just a troll, but either way your post is nothing but high-quality idiocy (whether from ignorance or malice).

    Snowden released whole documents, not edits of conversations. Snowden had direct evidence, not "creatively" interpreted conversations. Snowden's whistleblowing concerned actual things that had happened and were continuing to happen, not things that might happen. Snowden informed us of events occurring that have direct impact on living people, not stuff that concerns dead tissue.

    If you still think there's meaningful similarity in light of those facts, either your political tribalism has overridden your critical thinking, or you aren't actually thinking at all.

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  183. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's also the issue that Israel is a puppet state of the us. You shouldn't be giving them arms either - Israel has the second most powerful military force outside of the US.

  184. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you do, you should replace your camera or other recording equipment.

    True story, a police department did have to do that when it was discovered their recording system was flawed.

  185. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It means that if taxpayer money funds one part of an organisation (women's health), because money is interchangeable, it can slide across to the other part and fund that part (abortions.)

  186. Re:Cool by bkr1_2k · · Score: 1

    And the overhead cost of managing both of these split entities would therefore rise, reducing the overall care they can give in either area. Any way you slice it, you're taking away money from women's health.

    The argument to split Planned Parenthood into separate entities simply doesn't make any financial (or medical) sense. All it does is drive the overall cost of the healthcare up and, in the end, cost taxpayers more money.

    --
    "Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
  187. Re:Cool by dywolf · · Score: 1

    the key difference being the that the PP videos are hoaxes perpetrated on the ignorant.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  188. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    So you admit (indirectly) that money is indeed fungible. If we give money to the women's health care portion of PP, then the abortion clinic indirectly gets benefit.

    OK. So give the money to organizations that have never dealt with abortions. Problem solved. PP is not closed but doesn't get taxpayer money while different women's health services are provided taxpayer money thus not increasing the cost of women's healthcare.

    If this were to happen, then the debate would end.

  189. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You do know that the "edited" nature of the videos is to just make it newsworthy.

    No, I don't know that, and I would say that the edited nature is to advance a narrative, which is what I already said. This doesn't make it newsworthy, but rather the opposite effect, namely it stops being news and starts being rhetoric and demagoguery.

    The FULL unedited videos have all been posted and are available for you to watch and see that the CONTENT of what was said is indeed accurately represented in the shortened edited versions of what was publicly released to news organizations.

    No, I don't agree, neither did Factcheck as already mentioned. As did Media Matters, Slate, and others.

    As I've heard absolutely ZERO people saying that the full length video says something totally different who has provided specific examples of how the original was edited to advance a specific narrative, I'm going to dismiss this "They are heavily edited" as an excuse.

    As apparently you've not visited FactCheck, Media Matters, Slate, or any others, or you would have in fact, heard these specific examples, I'm going to dismiss your defense of the edits as an excuse. They are edited, and the actual truth is a long way from what people like you want to say.

    I encourage you to have a look at the full videos and let me know how the clips really misrepresent what was actually said.... Bet you won't, and if you do, bet you won't find any of what folks who support PP claim is there...

    I encourage you to have a look at the full criticisms and let us know how badly the clips really misrepresent what was actually said. But I suspect you won't, and you do, I suspect you won't any of what folks who oppose PP claim is in the videos, or is done by Planned Parenthood. I see no reason to pretend it's a bet, you aren't offering anything, so why use the claim of gambling anyway?

    But heck, we're still living in a world where Jon Kyl lied on the floor of the Senate, then had his lie stricken from the record. You don't care about the truth, you don't care that the ethics of tissue donation already are discussed, you just care that it makes a good soundbite and gets media attention.

  190. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can pay for abortions, or you can pay to raise the resulting unwanted children. Make up your mind. Oh, wait, we've already seen that you refuse to pay for the children. So, abortions it is.

  191. Re:Cool by OhPlz · · Score: 2

    You can drop the name calling, it doesn't add anything.

    This is all about the release of information against the interests of a controversial organization. That's what Snowden did. That's what these groups are doing. Yes, it's a different organization. Whether you feel the releases were edited or not, we have no way of knowing if what Snowden released was doctored either.

    What you callously refer to as dead tissue is nothing of the sort. You might be fine with categorizing it that way, but that does not reflect the views of a significant portion of the population. If you refuse to accept that there's a different point of view, you're going to have a hard time understanding the resistance.

    Honestly though, if you do view this as having no direct impact on living people, why the secrecy?

  192. Re:Cool by OhPlz · · Score: 1

    I stand by my original statement.

  193. Re:Cool by dywolf · · Score: 2

    several things:

    -it's the patient who is making the donation, not PP.
    -nearly every medical facility that deals with maternity facilitates such donations, not just PP
    -fetal tissue is instrumental in a lot of medical research, particularly treatments for diseases and conditions affecting babies and children
    -also for vaccine development, including several we currently take for granted and receive just as a matter of course
    -it was particularly useful in the development of the polio vaccine, which alone amounts to 550k lives saved per year
    -also for research into Parkinson's
    -it's been used this way since the 1930s
    -the Republicans used to support it
    -fetal stem cells are vital for stem cell research, as embryonic stem cells have a tendency to turn cancerous, a tendency not found in fetal stem cells

    the knee jerk push for a blanket ban is simply a visceral reaction based on ignorance. no more.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  194. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Israel is a sovereign nation.

    You are (paranoid and) insane.

  195. Re:Cool by dywolf · · Score: 1

    pure ignorance.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  196. Re: Cool by Phantom+of+the+Opera · · Score: 1

    I take it you don't know the difference between a baby and a blastula.
    Imma call you 'Count Blastula'.

  197. Re:Cool by BitterOak · · Score: 1

    Your post is trying to insinuate that they were haggling for a price of the tissue, but no, it's the transport.

    That's like the old CD and record clubs that sold albums at ridiculously low prices (a few dollars for CDs that would cost $15 or more in stores) but then they'd charge absolutely ridiculous "shipping and handling" fees that would bring prices much closer to retail. The shipping and handling would be many times what it would cost by first class postage, the bulk of it being (presumably) "handling" fees, i.e. their profit. It's the same thing here. They call it "transportation fees", but it's really just so they can sell it without selling it. Who haggles over shipping costs? That's set by UPS.

    --
    If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
  198. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You do know that the word fetus basically means baby, right?

    And if dependency reduces someone to non-human status, we can kill 95% of the democrat party, right?

  199. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Answer me this. If Planned parenthood is much more than abortion and gets most of its revenue from other places other than abortion, then why did several Planned Parenthood clinics close when Texas' new stricter abortion laws took into effect? Couldn't those closed Planned Parenthood clinics just stop providing abortion but continue to be open and provide women health services like cancer screening?

    Well, if you read a bit, maybe not all of those clinics did completely shut down immediately:

    http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/01/abortion-clinics-start-closing-across-texas/

    "Even though Planned Parenthood is no longer able to provide abortions at the four locations, their doors will remain open and they will continue to provide birth control, cancer screenings and other preventive care. "

    More recently though, it seems Texas cut them off entirely, so blame the state itself:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/15/texas-planned-parenthood-_n_5823298.html

    Thus the same organization decided to form again under a new name, and it does now get the funding that the state of Texas provided.

    Though if Jeb Bush has his way, maybe they're spending too much, he doesn't know, but it SURE seems like a lot.

    Or you could be Bobby Jindal, the Planned Parenthood clinics in Louisiana don't even perform abortion services, but he'll cut them off just in case.

  200. Courts are video experts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's funny and scary to see liberal prog types bend over backwards to defend their butt buddy Planned Parenthood. I guess it's libelous to film some moron running their mouth.

  201. Re:Cool by zaft · · Score: 2

    If abortions are such a small part of what PP does then why did those clinics close? Couldn't they just not do abortions ("such a small part") and keep doing the other stuff?

  202. Bogus by golodh · · Score: 1
    The issue you purport to be concerned about, namely "breaking and entering", carries its own penalties. If police are "getting sick and tired" of prosecuting people for that, perhaps they ought to look around for alternative employment.

    Even if that were your concern, you would be willing to accept blanket exceptions to this law for employees and for anyone who obtained their information without breaking and entering (including undercover journalism). Something the supporters of this law obviously weren't.

    Your further appeal to the "shouting 'Fire'" limitation on free speech to get the verdict repealed appeal indicates that you won't accept such exceptions either.

    The so-called "fraud" you go on about is a standard journalistic practice to obtain evidence on scandals and wrongdoing that would otherwise remain undetected (or at the very least unreported) because of non-cooperation, threats, abuse of power, or plain criminal behaviour on part of powerful individuals or firms.

    For better or worse, this sort of thing (up to and including criminal behaviour) is absolutely ingrained in US history and culture. And so it its antidote, "free speech". Free speech isn't about being "nice" or "lovable" or "fuddy duddy". It can be (and indeed often is) a means of fighting a conflict.

    I can only conclude that you really want to see free speech, the very essence of our culture, curtailed when it threatens to inconvenience commercial interests. You want to see the conflict "resolved" by ensuring the basic facts it's about remain outside the public view. You're not he first and you certainly won't be the last.

    As I see it, this is where you cross the line between "being concerned" and "bluntly trying to suppress speech you don't like".

    1. Re:Bogus by tlambert · · Score: 1

      The issue you purport to be concerned about, namely "breaking and entering", carries its own penalties. If police are "getting sick and tired" of prosecuting people for that, perhaps they ought to look around for alternative employment.

      But that's not what they did: they increased the penalties to the point that such breaking and entering and criminal trespass was more costly to the activist than engaging in fraud would be. The fraud was an escalation tactic on the part of the activists.

      The counter-escalation to this fraud was to enact the laws that the judge has claimed are unconstitutional, but which probably aren't, so that the costs to the activists for engaging in the behaviour would result in penalties equivalent to the breaking and entering and criminal trespass.

      If the activists actually cared, they would not be trying to take illegal shortcuts.

      They would join the Department of Agriculture and the Departments of Health as spot inspectors.

      Yeah, this would require that they become educated in animal husbandry, which they also oppose; but if the farms were acting illegally, it's a lot easier to work from within the system, with legally obtained government credentials, than it is to continue to break the laws, and hope an activist judge will "help you out" when you get in trouble, and then hope their ruling sticks on appeal.

    2. Re:Bogus by golodh · · Score: 1
      Increasing penalties for breaking and entering for a specific case, beyond what's reasonable for the majority of cases, (in my view) already twists the law beyond its legitimate purpose and is something one could legitimately call an escalation.

      If activists (let alone undercover journalists) subsequently take advantage of being hired to take pictures inside farms, to avoid the (upped) charges on breaking and entering, that may be undesirable from the point of the farmers concerned but I think that curtailing free speech for that is a bridge too far. And that's what this law does.

      Free speech is far more important than protecting the whatever commercial interest farmers have in avoiding negative PR (if such interests are at stake at all).

      If farmers object to information on how they treat their livestock getting to the public (for fear of being considered abusive) they can either change the way they operate or be more cautious in hiring people.

      Using your line of reasoning anyone who conducts undercover journalism (and potentially anyone who publishes any kind of information that makes a company looks bad but uses information on which that company might conceivably claim copyright or of which that company claims is not used for its intended purpose) would be left open to a charge (in my opinion a contrived one) of "fraud".

      I think that on reflection you will agree that's too steep a price to pay. There are far too many ongoing corporate abuses for us to compromise the one effective antidote against it, namely adverse publicity based on free speech, simply because some people don't like this particular use of free speech.

  203. Re: Cool by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

    Didn't we fight a big war in the 1860s to end the ownership of humans by other humans?

    --
    See that "Preview" button?
  204. Re: Cool by DarkTempes · · Score: 1

    Not that I'm advocating killing babies (for the same reason that I wouldn't advocate killings dogs) but even a living, breathing baby isn't a "person" by any objective measurement.

    An adult dog, on average, has more intelligence and personality than a one year old human baby -- let alone a newborn. And that's plainly obvious to anyone who has been around babies. So, if we apply that morality/logic equally then killing a dog, or an ape, or a dolphin should be considered murder.
    The only difference is that a human baby has the potential to be more than said dogs, apes, and dolphins.
    But if loss of potential is the moral issue then all sorts of choices, even in ignorance, would effectively be murder before conception actually begins!

    As an aside, I personally think it's wrong to bring intelligent life into the world at all. My reason for that opinion is that being a conscious, thinking creature can be a pretty heavy burden for some people and we can't exactly ask our kids ahead of time if they want to exist or not.
    And most countries in the world don't allow for comfortable, legal avenues for people to choose if they want to live either, so it's not like our kids can kindly opt-out.

    Procreation in general seems arrogant to me. People talk about scientists playing god but they seem to have no issue with doing it themselves...
    But if I were going to procreate then I would do the best that I could. It would be planned. Money would be saved ahead of time. Parenting classes would be taken.
    And if I were unsure then I would abort at the earliest possible point in the process. Abortion is not perfect but the world isn't.

    What someone does with the tissue afterwards is completely irrelevant. The moral trap there would be people getting pregnant specifically to have abortions and "donate" tissue but, see, that can be wrong without even considering the morality of abortion itself.
    Thus the issue is the same as selling human organs -- which is obviously wrong as patients shouldn't be allowed to damage themselves for profit.

  205. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you suggesting that humans didn't exist as a species until they invented tax documents... ahem... birth certificates?

    Talk about the chicken and the egg! I wonder which came first!

  206. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Incidentally murder is quite well definable apart from the law. In the absence of law, the avenger of blood may appear.

  207. Meanwhile, recording the police in public areas... by r_jensen11 · · Score: 1

    ...remains illegal throughout many parts of the country.

  208. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like the folks that recorded the videos are the conservative version of Edward Snowden.

    Except that Edward Snowden didn't edit the information for propaganda. He gave the entirety of all the data he collected to The Guardian.

    You seem to have used "conservative" as both adjective and synonym for "lying by omission". That doesn't seem fair to other conservatives.

  209. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They didn't film people having sex, they filmed people abusing animals

    Actually, when the big story came out that involved the hidden camera footage that this law was a response to, one of the specific examples of animal abuse that had been observed was a guy sexually abusing a cow. So it's entirely possible that they filmed a person having sex.

  210. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The argument being made is that the video not only violated the state's privacy laws but also the NDA that was signed by the person doing the recording. The recording was not only made without all party's to the conversation knowledge; It was made after agreeing that nothing being discussed could be disclosed.

  211. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really? How about "you shall not murder?"

    I find it interesting that many of the people, who are so passionate about protecting a clump of cells fertilized less than 20 weeks prior, are the very same people who argue against funding WIC and SNAP, want to defund prenatal health care for poor pregnant women, support the death penalty, want unfettered access to firearms despite the continuing occurrence of mass shootings, and blame the unarmed victim for being killed by a police officer.

    They value a potential human more than an actual human.

  212. Re:Cool by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    I saw something on TV a while back, a lab had to have duplicates of everything - not just the actual scientific instruments but toilets, drinks machines etc. - for staff doing stem cell research because they weren't allowed to spend government funds on it.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  213. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1) No tax payer money is being given to grocery stores, taxi companies, construction companies.

    This is wrong, both in the specific, and in the "fungible" argument you're making, as lots more tax payer money is given to farmers, automakers, and construction suppliers.

    2) these companies are separate organizations to Planned Parenthood.

    People are capable of opposing other entities for other reasons that are valid to them as yours are for Planned Parenthood, and demonstrating the consequences of your assertions is the purpose.

    Just split PP and this debate would be over. No one is saying in this current debate that the abortion clinics should close or that Roe v Wade should be repealed. Just stop funding organizations that conduct abortions. If you split PP then this debate is over.

    You are, of course, wrong. There are plenty of people who blindly want to stop funding all women's health organizations, who do want to close ALL abortion clinics (TRAP laws exist for a reason), and who think Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and all laws allowing abortion should bed repealed.

    Sorry, but your solution won't help with those true believers.

    So why pretend it has any legitimacy?

  214. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then why don't you consider the entire, multi-hour, unedited videos that were also posted online at the same time?

    The entire "It was edited!" claim is false - the people really did say what was claimed, in the context that was claimed.

  215. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even after birth, babies can't survive without external care for many years - are you claiming they aren't human?
    Or do you want to talk about survival rates for premature births - which break 50% in the US at somewhere around 24 weeks?

    By the way, there have been people convicted of murder for killing the fetus of a pregnant women - are you saying that those laws are wrong?

  216. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, sure, arbitrarily separate two sets of legal services that are an integral part of reproductive health care, while at the same time allowing extremists who refuse to abide by a Supreme Court decision to attack a newly-separate smaller and less resourceful organization. Right.

  217. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm prescribed misoprostol. I purchased it from a drug store. In your view, am I supporting a business that supports abortions? A simple yes or no will suffice.

  218. Re: Cool by bigpat · · Score: 1

    Because I am not a monster.

  219. Re: Cool by losfromla · · Score: 1

    Are you claiming that you passed basic high school biology? Did they compare newly born humans to other mammals in that class? I was mostly asleep so I am curious.

    --
    Only I can judge you.
  220. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We hear you like your meat alright... you like 8 inches of it shoved up your ass by some junkie you just got a fix for... filthy dirty bird faggot.

  221. Re:Good news, and all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, you like your cornhole massaged by your boyfriends tongue before you get fucked in the ass. What a dirty whore of a faggot you are.

  222. Re:Cool by Falconhell · · Score: 1

    Wow, are you Americans still in the19th century? A non issue, pushed by religious people trying to have their morals enforced. How very ISIS of you.

  223. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You do know that PP doesn't use taxpayer money for abortions, right? The conservatives managed to push a bill through congress to prohibit that years ago now. In my opinion, this is wrong because abortions can be medically necessary, but whatever. Your side won. Congratulations. Please accept your misogynist trophy and stop hurting any more women than you already have.

  224. Re:Cool by tlambert · · Score: 3, Informative

    1) what bombings?

    http://prochoice.org/wp-conten...

    I could not find any info about recent bombings in Texas that were the cause of Planned Parenthood clinics for closing. Why would anyone bomb a clinic if they closed because of the stricter Texas law?

    Because the U.S. Supreme court blocked enforcement of the admitting privileges provisions of HB 2 on 29 Jun 2015, in a 5-4 vote, reversing the appeals court ruling, at least temporarily. Your inability to do research is is not an indicator of you being right.

    2) Your 2nd answer doesn't answer my question. Why did the clinics close if they could not conduct abortions anymore due to the stricter Texas law?

    Actually, it was the revocation of both the clinic licenses and the doctors licenses that resulted in the man (but not all) the clinics closure. Others were due to the bomb threats in the statistics noted above (the law passed in 2013).

    The loss of the licenses was engineered by anti-choice advocates opposed to abotion, and was managed as an intimidation and threat campaign, and as a letter writing campaign to hospital boards in various areas.

    This was done by tracking doctors and patients license plate numbers. Due to this pattern of intimidation, even the clinics that were able to maintain services found that they had no customers, and that women were traveling out of state to Kansas, Oklahoma, and sometimes as far as Missouri for medical treatment.

    Except of course, poor women who could not afford the travel expenses. Mostly, they just had to stay pregnant, and have babies they couldn't afford to raise, with no recourse, and somewhat extensive medical expenses, which are normally associated with having babies.

    Why couldn't they still stay open to provide the necessary women health services?

    Because they lost their licenses to operate, and it's illegal to practice medicine without a license... even in Texas.

  225. Re:You believe it's okay to cover up animal tortur by tlambert · · Score: 1

    These factory farms are not going to stop torturing animals unless they are forced to do so.

    If you cannot record what actually happens, then how would anybody know?

    You would trust that your Department of Agriculture, and you local Health Department, are doing their jobs, and if they are doing their jobs, then the treatment of the animals is no worse than the fact that people intend to eat them at some point.

  226. Re:Cool by Jaxim · · Score: 1

    No, We just haven't lost our moral compasses like you heathens. Plus, I'm not even religious. I'm agnostic border line atheist. However, I do know what's right and wrong. Some things are gray and murky, but Planned Parenthood has clearly crossed the line. Majority of Americans believe that late term abortion should be illegal, but yet our political leaders don;'t have the courage to stand up for what's most people feel is way over the line. This may be the turning point.

  227. Re:Cool by kqs · · Score: 1

    It's been suggested if this was someone filming a Koch brother feeding money to a Republican candidate,

    I can put a dog biscuit on my dog's nose and he'll sit absolutely still until I say "okay" when he'll snap his head back and eat the biscuit.

    I really want to see Scott Walker kneeling with a million-dollar check on his nose. Roll over, boy! Now pander. Good boy!

  228. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Wow. What kind of fucked up bible are you reading that makes you think that Jesus would support abortion?

    This fucked up bible

  229. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you would rather see those organs just thrown away then?

  230. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many abortions occur after the age of the earliest surviving premature birth, will you concede that those are murders or at least potential murders?

    Actually, very few abortions come after 20 weeks(the earliest surviving pre-term birth would be in that range, and even then it is INCREDIBLY rare, less than 5% chance of survival and always with dire consequences) , and the exceptional cases where it is does, it is almost always due to some cause that will prevent successful development.

    Sorry, but you are misinformed.

    This suggests strongly that it is not any intrinsic property of the unborn that identify them as fully human, but instead the current ability of available technology to sustain them without their mother.

    The day you can provide artificial gestation technology or otherwise arrange a surrogacy with the same effective conditions as an abortion, is the day this will be a reasonable argument. That day is not today.

    As I believe that some day the minimum required role for the mother will be egg donation

    That is already in effect (egg donation is available, as is womb surrogacy), though it is not the minimum when it comes to genetic involvement the minimum is in fact, being willing to be listed as the mother as a matter of law.

    I will go ahead and start using the definition I expect to be in use at that time early, so as to avoid needing to re-define when a fetus becomes human every year or two. I believe that will be at the point of genetic distinction, aka fertilization of the ovum.

    You probably don't want to have to deal with snowflake babies then.

    Much like the 3/5 compromise in it's day, the law currently supports your view of 'less than human.'

    Not at all like the 3/5 Compromise, which was not a matter of less than human, that didn't come up in the Constitution.

    The biological facts are not on your side, and eventually the emotional flames that you fan will die out and these facts will be recognized.

    Actually, the biological facts are that miscarriages do happen, you're just hoping for a technical solution to another reality. This, however, will not change biology in any way.

  231. Idaho Govt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > In Idaho, the gov are a bunch ag people themselves.

    I would hope so. If the major industry in the state is Agricultural, And the government is supposed to represent the people, hopefully a large part of the elected officials have that background.

    Would you think it more appropriate that the government in Idaho be made up purely of Lawyers, Bankers, Auto people and Actors?

  232. Re: Cool by Frankzy · · Score: 1

    So why should we not use dead baby/foetus body parts for research then?

  233. Re:You believe it's okay to cover up animal tortur by dywolf · · Score: 1

    yes lets just ignore the shortage of inspectors.
    or did you think that each plant has an inspector on site at all times? (they don't)

    or that they are primarily concerned with food safety, not animal abuse.
    they may report it if they see it, but theres also the fact that they usually know the inspector is coming.

    The FDA readily admits that it only inspects about 1% of the food imported into the country, and only about a quarter of all domestic plants.
    The USDA, who inspects meat, is stretched so thin that they regularly miss required inspections at plants. Roughly 15% of all inspector positions nationwide are vacant, and unlikely to be filled due to budget cuts. and inspectors are expected to inspect 6-8 plants a day, with a typical inspection taking about 2 hours (which is very short).

    They are overworked, underpaid, and understaffed.
    And most plants know when they're coming.

    Which is how you get things like last years massive recall of nearly 2 million pounds of ground beef from just 1 plant, that had probably been sending out bad meat for over a year.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  234. Re:Cool by Orgasmatron · · Score: 0

    Just in case this was a serious question, I'll answer it.

    Generally, the sale of body parts is prohibited to reduce the incentive to create more of them. It is pretty much the same logic that bans child pornography, without exceptions.

    Most of the people commenting on the internet are either strongly opposed to abortion, or are strongly in favor and are somewhat unlikely to shift from that position. These videos are shifting just about everyone else to the right, which is why there is an all-out assault on the videos. Switch to -1 and see which opinions are being suppressed here, and which are being promoted. Turn on the TV news and see the talking heads claim that multi-hour videos with no cuts have been edited or faked.

    A lot of people that nominally support abortion and nominally support using the corpses for research still find it ghastly that doctors are crushing the heads of tiny humans specifically to harvest human organs. It appears that a lot of the support in the middle was predicated on sterile, humane abortions being the norm. But the truth is leaking out now, and the nation has to decide if we really want "In Moloch We Trust" on our coins.

    P.S. Virtually all abortion advocates in certain age ranges used to call Vietnam vets "baby killers". The internet is busy digging up as much of that old footage as can be found, as we speak.

    --
    See that "Preview" button?
  235. Re: Cool by bigpat · · Score: 0

    So why should we not use dead baby/foetus body parts for research then?

    Because killing babies, even or especially unborn babies is evil and anything that encourages or rewards people for killing babies is fruit of that ethically poisoned vine.

    Being pro-choice doesn't mean you should look away from the evil of a mother killing her unborn child. Or the evil of a society which encourages mothers to kill their unborn children even if it is in order to help others. That is a perverse society with incentives to create unwanted pregnancies and prey upon the women who do. Instead we should all be focused and have the shared goal of reducing unwanted pregnancies. That is the right path to be on for our society.

    To ignore that the benefits of this "research" are more likely bestowed on the rich and wealthy while the women pressured into these choices are often poor is malicious ignorance. Turning poor women into spare parts factories for the rich isn't pro choice... it is a dead end.

    As a society we concluded that a person had a right to privacy in their own body and that because of that right to privacy they must even be allowed to choose to end an unwanted pregnancy. That is as far as we should go, otherwise all our rights are meaningless in a society where life itself is merely a commodity.

    Abortion is a legal choice, but the fact that we as a society are forcing women into a position where they feel they need to make that choice needs to be stopped. And creating an industry around abortion that benefits financially from that choice undermines that.

    For all the good that might come of research on aborted body parts, find another way or accept that there must be ethical limits to what we do to survive.

  236. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oddly enough ... I... jack...it... to... shooting ... fucking politicians

    These are your words, right? You said them in a public place (Slashdot) all on August 6th, 2015. Enjoy your tenure in federal prison if they don't execute you for conspiracy to assassinate politicians.

  237. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tell us more about these "living humans", they must have birth certificates, right?

    So what you're saying is that it's not murder if I never see a birth certificate?

    Liberals are so fucking delusional.

    >What's the difference between killing a baby and getting a cut?
    >What's the difference between killing a baby and curing cancer?
    >What's the difference between killing a baby and amputating a leg?
    All things I've heard in the last 2 days from liberal shitbags like you that have forsaken your own humanity for what? Abortion has claimed more human lives in the last 3 years than all of World War 2. You are WORSE than the slavers of the 1700's that councelled with one-another that "we can enslave brown people, because they're not true humans like you and me!" because you have selectively burned out your own conscience, with full knowledge, while claiming that you are so much better and less barbaric. The genocides of the past pale in comparison to what you advocate in modern times.

    Fuck your hiding behind semantics and rationalization. Those are human lives. Does a person cease to be a person because they are on life support or because they will die without life-giving donation? Fuck you. Fuck your hypocrisy. Fuck your dehumanization.

  238. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd probably also dispute the "living" bit as that would imply independent life and abortions are not generally performed when the baby/foetus is breathing unassisted

    You really have lost all of your humanity, haven't you? You just plucked it out because it disagreed with your politics. Just said "Fuck it. These things are sub-humans, so they don't deserve the rights that I, as a grown white man, deserve, and here is why"

  239. Re: Cool by hawkinspeter · · Score: 1

    To be honest, I wish people spent more time worrying about the children that have already been born rather than arguing about what woman should or should not be allowed to do.

    There's plenty of starving, poor children throughout the world and the U.S. is obsessed with arguing the pros and cons about abortion. If it's not your body, then PUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH SHUT!

    --
    You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
  240. Re:Cool by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 1

    If men could get pregnant, abortion would be an internationally recognized human right.

  241. Re:Cool by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    In general, abortions before "quickening" would not have been considered significant. As it happens, most abortions in the US are performed before "quickening", meaning that Jesus almost certainly would have no problem with them.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  242. Re:Cool by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    I suspect that fetal tissue requires more care than tossing it in a box, taping it up, and letting UPS pick it up whenever convenient.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  243. Re:Cool by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    There's plenty of possibilities. They may be willing to donate the tissue for less than their actual costs, but don't want to lose too much money over it. They may not know what the exact cost will be.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  244. Free Speech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I find it strange and unusual that the law was struck down based upon "Free Speech" provisions. The term Free Speech in America seems to go far beyond the usual understanding elsewhere in the world.

    To me, these laws ought to be suspect from an animal cruelty, animal husbandry, and livestock management perspective.

    On the other hand I can imagine a livestock operator not wanting to be under continual scrutiny, even in principle. Just about any business owner would feel entitled to set rules about where cameras could be used, how often, and so on. Those concerns typically relate more to the monitoring of people more than animals, but still.

    How you keep a lid on animal abuse in a farm setting is unclear to me. Is there any existing inspection regime? Is the inspection system sound, regular, and professional?

  245. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My issue is the double standard that the legal system places on Fetuses. On one side abortion is legal since they are not yet a legal entity. On the other side killing a fetus is considered Fetal Homicide in 38 states:
    http://www.ncsl.org/research/h...

    Legally I think it should be one way or the other...

    The double legal standard just clouds the issue even further...

  246. Re: Cool by baristabrian · · Score: 1

    Sounds to me like what we have here is a failure to communicate: Anti-abortion and anti-farm animal cruelty fanatics should have the same degree of scorn, sarcasm and indignance heaped upon them, then. Both groups are "religious" in their sanctimonious zeal. Both seek to impose *their* opinions about what *they* think is "moral." Fuck both groups. Kill babies. Torture farm animals. Fuck you all, then: hypocrites and immoral apologists, or hypocrites and hypersensitive SJW's. Just saying. Debate semantics and "context" and definition of "haggling" all you want to. Good luck with that. Must suck to be you---all of you.

    --
    -- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
  247. Re: Cool by baristabrian · · Score: 1

    And "citizens" must have papers, right? Oh wait, never mind.

    --
    -- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
  248. Re: Cool by Frankzy · · Score: 1

    Wait how does society pressure women into abortions? Granted i live in Sweden where abortions have been legal since the 30's and we've been at the cutting edge of research on embryonic matter since the 70's so things might be a little better over here. Being pro choice means that you recognise that terminating a potential human is something that ideally should never happen, but quite often it is the lesser of evils, eg a drug addicted couple.. How is women incentivesed into abortions? Do they get payed to do it? Also how can you claim that things like the aforementioned polio vaccine or parkinson treatment only benefit the rich? The only way the rich can get a superior medical treatment is by travelling out of the country where some medical practice is performed that may not have been approved yet in our hospitals, if someone who earns 1000£ per month had parkinsons for an example they'd get the exact same stemcell derived treatment as Bill Gates would receive..

  249. Re: Cool by bigpat · · Score: 1

    Society pressures women in a variety of ways into abortions. Economic deprivation such that if a woman chose to have a child being in a poor economic situation she would be viewed as having made a bad choice and their children less chance of success. While welfare in many places would provide some bare minimum necessities in some states this is also socially looked down upon. Being considered "too young" is also something that is of great pressure on young people these days. And it seems the larger societal motivation is primarily commercially predatory in nature, because young people with children have less disposable income which can be tapped. Young people are fuel for the economy.

    And then most disturbing of all we have a concerted effort by the abortion industry to turn every negative of abortion into a positive. Kill your unborn child snuffing out a lifetime of potential.... No worries you can donate their organs and feel better about it. You are a hero and that baby of yours, you know the one with all those partially developed organs... was never really alive.

    In the US we have a tiered health care system where lower income people will often only be able to afford high deductible insurance plans that are unaffordable to actually use. Made slightly better these days because if you find out you are sick you can now upgrade into a better plan with lower deductibles next calendar year... but again the point is that even with Obamacare the rich and upper middle class are getting far better and far quicker medical care.

    I think these videos and the apparent lack of ethical oversight in this practice of harvesting baby organs raises many important questions about what the "costs" are being reimbursed and how the incentives are victimizing women. At $30 to $100 per "specimen", with evidence that doctors are changing abortion procedures to obtain better quality specimens to increase their value, it is a completely fair question to take a look at who is getting money and what perverse effects money is having on the practice and incentivization of abortions.

    Is the organ harvesting lowering the cost of abortions? Are women being told that the procedures are going to be less comfortable because the doctors are trying to obtain better specimens to get higher prices? The statements by the Planned Parenthood employee raise very very disturbing questions that raise ethical issues even beyond the ethics of abortion itself. Are abortion providers delaying appointments for abortions to give the fetus more time to develop their organs and provide better specimens?

    I don't disagree that we often have to choose between the lesser of evils. That is part of being human. But many people seem to have forgotten that abortion is evil and are going to great lengths to say it isn't. I think even if you think the practice should continue and it is a lesser evil, then you shouldn't bury your head to the apparent ethical conflicts at every level of this.

  250. Re: Cool by baristabrian · · Score: 1

    Corporations are persons. Unborn babies are ... uh, cash cows?

    --
    -- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
  251. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd rather see the practice of "donating" dead baby parts completely banned than argue about whether $100 dollars for a dead baby's liver is just reimbursement for the cost and whether the "research" being performed is worthy.

    That's funny. Because I'd rather see the practice of complete strangers feeling like they have the right to poke their noses into my medical decisions because their invisible sky daddy told them to come to an end.

    Being pro choice doesn't mean I am going to look the other way.

    No, but it does generally involve the notion that people should be minding their own fucking business.

  252. Re: Cool by slashdotwannabe · · Score: 1

    Tell me that PP keeps separate books and organizations...

    How about if I tell you that it's none of your fucking business how they keep their books? Where the fuck do you get off?

    How about if I tell you that abortion services amount to less than two percent of their business, so how much benefit do you think they could possibly derive? Wait. You don't think. You emote.

    --
    This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
  253. Re:Cool by slashdotwannabe · · Score: 1

    Answer me this. If Planned parenthood is much more than abortion and gets most of its revenue from other places other than abortion, then why did several Planned Parenthood clinics close when Texas' new stricter abortion laws took into effect?

    Not that you give a fuck about facts or that you would allow facts to change your already-made-up-mind (else you would've taken the 30 seconds to Google the question and answer it), or that how a private organization conducts it's business is any of your business but...

    The clinics didn't close because of the abortion restrictions. The clinics closed because the state cut 30 million of family planning funding from the budget.

    --
    This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
  254. Re:Cool by slashdotwannabe · · Score: 1

    So it's wrong to speak out about something one may feel is immoral even if it is COMPLETELY LEGAL?

    Because your FEELS don't amount to shit when it comes to MY RIGHTS! How fucking hard is it for you fundies to understand that?

    --
    This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
  255. Re:Cool by slashdotwannabe · · Score: 1

    Seriously, I am curious why Planned Parenthood clinics couldn't still stay open to provide the necessary women health services despite not being able to perform any abortions due to the stricter Texas law?

    Because Texas slashed their family planning budget by two-thirds.

    It is YOU that is conflating two unrelated issues to try to advance your ideology.

    --
    This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
  256. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This issue has been investigated many times. This one video doesn't seem to be sufficient to waste taxpayer money funding additional investigations.

  257. Re:Cool by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    And, from the "activists" I've known, they'd have welcomed criminal charges. They'd turn it into a media campaign. They want awareness of The Truth.

    The anti-abortion group comitted fraud to get to the meeting, and in the meeting, and don't want The Truth, but they want propaganda.

    There's a difference.

  258. Re:Cool by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    Snowden released 3rd party materials that are true, and unbiased. This stunt was scripted propaganda released by someone who was involved in the making of it and deliberately created it themselves. That's not an independent 3rd party release, but a 1st party propaganda piece.

    Are you really so personally invested in hate of groups you don't like that you can't see any difference?

  259. Re:Cool by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    That you appeal to emotion because the facts are against you?