Louisiana congressman duped by The Onion's Planned Parenthood satire

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

The Hill, a Washington, D.C., publication that covers Capitol Hill, reports that Louisiana Rep. John Fleming's office posted a story Friday from The Onion, a satirical publication, which reported Planned Parenthood opened an "abortionplex." The Onion's story, which was months old, had been re-posted on the paper's website after the controversy over the Susan G. Komen Foundation's funding of Planned Parenthood breast cancer screenings erupted last week.

More here.

In order to understand just how truly fucked up this is, you've got to read the Onion piece here. If you think it's funny, that's because it's supposed to be. It's comedy, satire, in particular. The dynamic of the piece is that it takes what are presumably pro-life views about the venerable women's health organization Planned Parenthood, and ramps them up into the stratosphere. That is, the Onion story isn't supposed to actually represent anybody's actual point of view at all. It presents a warped and fucked up pro-life view so as to criticize the actual pro-life point of view.

So, in order to understand the story as actual news, you have to already possess the warped and fucked up version of the pro-life point of view before reading it. That is, perhaps the Onion could have gone much, much further with its satire because it's looking like what I'm calling the "warped and fucked up" point of view may very well be some pro-lifers' point of view. And that's pretty frightening.

Atrios over at Eschaton says in regards to the Onion piece that for some pro-lifers "not only are abortions such an easy procedure that lazy sluts would prefer to go out and have them all the time rather than bothering with birth control, but that there's actually something fun and enjoyable about them." Maybe.

To be honest, the most rabid of pro-lifers are so weird and monomaniacal that I don't even pretend to understand them. I mean, I've talked with lots of anti-abortion people over the years and I fully understand their not entirely unreasonable position that abortion is tantamount to murder, but a few of them, and certainly leaders in the movement whose words I've heard on television or read on the internet, are bat-shit crazy, and I'm just not qualified enough in psychology to even begin to render a diagnosis as to what ails their fucked up minds. That is, if you think abortion is some kind of joyous occasion for the women who have them, and that's why we need to make the procedure illegal, there's something else going on besides taking a principled position on an important issue.

What's particularly disturbing is that Fleming is a Congressman, which means his opinions are far more important and influential than those of the rank-and-file crazies. The inmates really are running the asylum.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$