Bizarrely tying Planned Parenthood to Cecil the lion

I respect the beliefs of ardent anti-abortion activists, and I appreciate their passion. But trying to compare levels of public outrage over the death of Cecil the lion with our reaction to the secret video tapes of Planned Parenthood executives is ludicrous.

It's silly.

And, these days, it's completely expected.

Certainly from politicians like presidential wannabe Marco Rubio, who tweeted, "Look at all this outrage over a dead lion, but where is all the outrage over the planned parenthood dead babies."

Or this from radio host Rush Limbaugh, who posted on his website, "How in the world can you get teary-eyed and misty-eyed and sad over Cecil and, at the same time, participate in burying what's happening at Planned Parenthood?"

First, no one is "burying" what's happening at Planned Parenthood.

The secretly recorded tapes of executives speaking in crass terms about fetal tissue and so on are all over the news. All over the Internet. All over, period.

Meantime, a Minnesota dentist named Walter J. Palmer spent over $50,000 to kill a lion with a bow and arrow. The lion happened to be an animal called Cecil, a major tourist attraction in the country of Zimbabwe. He had a distinctive black mane.

News coverage of the killing generated considerable ire among people, and for good reason. This is an animal population that has shrunk dangerously low over the last century. And this was killing for killing's sake. For fun.

Does big game hunting like that have anything to do with Planned Parenthood?

No.

The controversy with Planned Parenthood is over the organization's participation in distributing fetal tissue.

This practice isn't new. And Planned Parenthood isn't the only provider. Fetal tissue has been used for research, particularly vaccine development, since the 1930s. The government set up rules that say abortion providers can't accept payment for fetal material, other than reimbursement for costs of shipping, etc. There are accusations that Planned Parenthood broke those rules, which the organization denies.

And what of the practice itself?

Look at it this way, Cecil the murdered lion and Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, have nothing in common.

The polio vaccine, on the other hand, was based on scientific advances using fetal tissue. So, too were vaccines for chicken pox, rubella and more.

Millions of lives have been saved by these breakthroughs. And much more life-saving research is in the works involving maladies that range from Alzheimer's to cancer to Parkinson's disease. (Although advances in stem cell development may someday render fetal tissue research obsolete.)

So, to review:

Can a person be outraged by the killing of Cecil the lion and still support Planned Parenthood?

Yes.

Can a person be outraged by the killing of Cecil and not support Planned Parenthood?

Yes.

Can a person be outraged by both?

Yes.

By neither?

Yes.

Do politicians like Marco Rubio, talk show hosts like Limbaugh or newspaper writers like E.J. Montini get to pick the subjects that cause you to feel outrage and then dictate the level of your outrage?

No. (Although, frankly, I'm outraged by that notion.)