On CBS's Face the Nation this Sunday, host John Dickerson really, really wanted to get Hillary Clinton to express squeamishness about the deceptively edited videos being used to attack Planned Parenthood for legal fetal tissue donation practices. Clinton wasn't biting, though, responding to a question about whether she'd watched the videos by saying she'd seen excerpts, and:
... what I am troubled by are the misleading, inaccurate allegations about them that we heard from Republicans at their debate. This is really an attack on Planned Parenthood, which provides a lot of health services, from cancer screenings , to contraceptive services, to so many other of the needs women have.
And to shut down the government, which some Republicans are advocating, over funding for Planned Parenthood, which takes care of millions of women's health needs, is just the height of irresponsibility.
Dickerson wasn't about to let Clinton talk about policy when he wanted her to talk about the shock of seeing that there are some kind of gross aspects to tissue donation. (Question: When Bill Clinton had heart bypass surgery, did John Dickerson want to talk about how that is a hard thing to watch?) Clinton again declined to take the bait, pointing out that the videos were "misleadingly edited. They were intentionally taken out of context" and that:
... if we want to have a debate in this country about whether we should continue using -- or doing fetal research, then it's not only Planned Parenthood that should be involved in that debate. All of the experts, all of the scientists, all of the research institutions, everybody who is looking for cures to Parkinson's, for example, should be asked, should we continue this?
Dickerson did not engage on the Parkinson's question, shifting to a question about late-term abortion. Clinton:
I think that the kind of late-term abortions that take place are because of medical necessity. And, therefore, I would hate to see the government interfering with that decision. I think that, again, this gets back to whether you respect a woman's right to choose or not. And I think that is what this whole argument once again is about.
Exactly. But as this interview showed, there will always be people with a big media platform willing to jump on the arguments—however deceptive and dishonest—that a woman's right to choose should take the backseat, or be done away with entirely.