i don't have an issue with donating tissue for medical research, regardless of the cause of death. but, a profit motive worked into the process is absolutely a problem, regardless of the age of the person donating. a firm making a profit from people donating body parts from car crashes is not less of a problem. nor (i would argue) is a profit motive in health care, in general. now, this video is in the process of being publicly vetted, so we'll have to see what the outcome of that process is, but, if it turns out that the sale of body parts is an ongoing issue, i would argue that the solution is not to modify abortion laws, but to modify regulatory practices so that nobody is making money from the donation process. this may suggest a larger role for government and institutions like universities in stem cell research - which should not be allowed in the private sector for other reasons, as well. as a canadian, this strikes me as a problem that is unique to the american for-profit health system.

stated tersely, i wouldn't designate abortion as the problem, here (if there is a problem, here). i'd designate capitalism as the problem, here.

fwanksajerk7
+deathtokoalas Oh spare me. Without being able to make money somehow, planned parenthood would become a net drain and eventually shut down, dragging the tax paying supporters along with it. In america the 99% are already overburdened, you want them to pay even more? Just regulate it so that certain parts can only cost $X amount and nothing over.

deathtokoalas
+fwanksajerk in canada, abortion is viewed largely as a medical procedure. the vast majority are carried out in hospitals and funded by the public health care system. this is in fact the most efficient way to approach abortion. further, public polling in the united states has long upheld single payer as the preferred option.

if you're going to tax somebody, i'd rather tax the bank. but, it's not really the point. the point is more that market economies are inseparable from corruption. if you want an open health care economy, and most americans don't, but, in the abstract, if you do, then you need to make a choice:

1) you can regulate it to death, and then regulate the regulators. this is expensive, inefficient and often ineffective due to regulatory capture. further, it defeats the point. it's a no-win scenario. if you're going to regulate it to this extreme, you'd might as well nationalize it - it's far more efficient.

2) you have to accept that there is corruption in markets.

in the end, this doesn't really have a lot to do with planned parenthood. i'm staunchly pro-choice. but, i realize that for-profit institutions are inherently evil because they're driven by the motive to profit at the expense of everything else. i don't find the idea of a corrupt abortion corporation particularly surprising; it's just the corporation part that needs a reaction, not the abortion part.