Joshua Feuerstein Tries and Fails to Rationalize His Video Calling for Attacks on Planned Parenthood

The other day, I posted a video clip in which Christian evangelist
Joshua Feuerstein told his followers to go after doctors who provide abortion services.

This wasn’t metaphorical, either. He said very clearly in the clip: “I say, tonight, we punish Planned Parenthood. I think it’s time that abortion doctors should have to run and hide and be afraid for their life.”

A few things about that video:

First, good luck finding it online since copies of it are being taken down left and right. The original Vimeo page on which the video first appeared is no longer working and several mirrors on YouTube are being taken down, too.

Second, as I pointed out, it’s a clip from a slightly longer video he posted online at the end of July. That video was actually about Cecil the Lion (who, you might recall, was hunted down and killed by an American dentist with cash to throw around).

Feuerstein told his followers yesterday that the clip that’s circulating is actually “a highly edited video, totally taken out of context.” The actual context, he says, is that the man who killed Cecil feared for his life because people were threatening him. Feuerstein “simply pointed out the irony… that abortion doctors, such as those at Planned Parenthood, they don’t go to work in fear for their life, and yet they’re killing little human beings.”

(Actually, plenty of doctors who provide abortion services fear for their lives, but they still courageously help women who need it because they believe it’s the right thing to do.)

But getting back to the point of all this, is Feuerstein telling the truth? Did his original video only mention Planned Parenthood in some ironic, tangential way?

All we have to do is watch the original.

Just one problem with that. Feuerstein deleted his original post yesterday.

That’s mighty convenient, isn’t it?

Don’t worry, though. Many people know exactly how Feuerstein operates. They predicted he’d pull something like this, and they made sure to download the original.

So I present to you the original video (with transcript). Let’s see if it lets Feuerstein off the hook for his violent rhetoric.

So let me get this right. Tonight, America is crying about an old lion named Cecil that was killed by some dipwad who cut his head off and left his body there. But check this out.

Planned Parenthood has hunted down millions and millions of little innocent babies, stuck a knife into the uterus, cut them, pulled them out, crushed their skull with forceps, ripped their body apart, sold their tissue, and threw them bleeding into a trash bin.

You guys are crying about a lion, but what about the babies? You know what I call that? I call that being a hypocrite.

I say, tonight, we punish Planned Parenthood. I think it’s time that abortion doctors should have to run and hide and be afraid for their life.

Instead of some hunter.

Both are wrong. But one is a lion. The other are humans. Stand up for humans.

You can see for yourself that the context doesn’t make things any better.

That shorter clip merely removed the parts about Cecil; it didn’t twist his words in any way. Feuerstein was still calling for his followers to go after abortion doctors, making them run for their lives out of fear of physical harm.

No wonder he deleted the original video. It confirmed what we already suspected.

That’s how despicable a person he is: He’s so pro-life that he’ll tell his fellow Christians to attack abortion providers. Then, after someone does just that, he’s trying to delete the evidence in hopes that no one will pin anything back to him.

That’s not how the Internet works.

But what else did you expect from someone who still struggles to get the orientation of his video camera right?