Thursday, just a day after Ben Carson stepped up his attacks against Planned Parenthood on a Fox News interview with Neil Cavuto, the retired neurosurgeon defended his own past research using fetal tissue from aborted fetuses. Carson denied any contradiction between his crusade against Planned Parenthood, and his own use of fetal tissue, insisting that:
To not use the tissue that is in a tissue bank, regardless of where it comes from, would be foolish. Why would anybody not do that?
Carson spun his research as necessary, and tried to dismiss any comparisons with the Planned Parenthood controversy by implying that the organization was trafficking baby parts, an allegation that is unfounded. Carson argued that his research was:
…a very different thing from killing babies, manipulating them, taking their tissue, selling them.
To try to equate those things is absolutely ridiculous.
While Carson is correct to argue that his research was necessary, his defense of using tissue from aborted fetuses is likely to be unconvincing to dogmatic anti-abortion activists who make up a large percentage of Carson’s Christian Conservative base. Anti-abortion activists aren’t generally known for their appreciation of the nuances surrounding medically valuable research, when there is a fetus involved.
Fetal tissue research has been used for developing treatments for HIV, blindness and a number of diseases. It has also helped develop a vaccine against Ebola which is currently being used to fight that deadly virus.
Rather than continuing to defend his own use of fetal tissue while condemning Planned Parenthood, Carson should just “man up” and admit that fetal tissue serves a valuable medical research function. By trying to have it both ways on the issue, Carson exposes himself to being labeled a hypocrite, and the charge is not without merit.
Carson has stepped up his war of words against Planned Parenthood, by spreading some of the most discredited conspiracy theories about the organization, including the myth that the organization has most of its clinics in black neighborhoods in order to control black people. Fewer than ten percent of U.S. abortion clinics are in majority African-American neighborhoods, but the false claim is often repeated by the intellectually dishonest anti-abortion movement.
Ben Carson needs to make a decision whether he wants to run a scientifically honest campaign that makes full use of his medical expertise as a neurosurgeon, or whether he wants to pander to the extremist anti-abortion wing of his party to round up votes from the ideological fringe. Unfortunately, it is all too obvious which of those paths Carson plans to take, and as such he should not be regarded as a serious candidate for president.
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